Using assessment, awareness, and inherent feedback to silence the judges

As a voice professor, W. Stephen Smith hopes every lesson he teaches brings himself one step closer to being obsolete. As he says, "My goal is to teach my students how to teach themselves and work myself out of a job." (as quoted in The Singer's Audition & Career Handbook by Claudia Friedlander, p.44)

Encouraging students to develop their own self-diagnostic skills is a big part of motor-learning theory. As singers' abilities increase and become more consistent, they are less reliant on instructions ("augmented feedback") from their teachers. Instead, they can first consult the internal sensory information they get when they sing ("inherent feedback"). In the Journal of Singing, U of U professor Lynn Maxfield describes the two primary types of inherent feedback: proprioceptive and exteroceptive.

"Proprioceptive feedback is that sensory information received from sources within the learner’s own body (primary sources being sensory receptors imbedded within the body tissues), while exteroceptive feedback refers to sensory information received from sources outside the body, the primary sources of which are vision and hearing."

Of course, as we discussed last semester, students can only benefit from their own inherent feedback if they are actually paying attention to what is happening while they are singing and not just switching into auto-pilot. 

Once singers do get that inherent feedback, the next thing to do is assess, which involves evaluating the quality of the singing. In The Inner Game of Music, authors Barry Green and W. Timothy Gallwey describe a similar process, encouraging musicians to use awareness. As they write, 

"Awareness shows us what feels and works best for us...it can even locate specific problem areas, discover solutions, increase our options, and facilitate instant changes. Not only can awareness help us through technical musical challenges of many kinds, it can also enhance our ability to be swept up in the music, to become one with it." (p.37-38). 

Therefore, honest assessment based on awareness and inherent feedback can both identify problems and reveal potential solutions. An obstacle may arise, however, if that assessment is tinged with judgment. 

In its official definition, there is nothing inherently negative about judgment. According to Oxford Languages, "to judge" is simply to "form an opinion or conclusion about." But, as all singers have likely experienced, there is a more sinister side to self-judgment. As described by author Eloise Ristad in A Soprano on Her Head, "We all have inner judges who yammer at the edge of our consciousness, often intimidating and immobilizing us." 

If we negatively or harshly judge our own singing, we move beyond mere assessment and may enter the realm of self-consciousness. Of course, being "conscious of self" is really what inherent feedback is all about, which is the heart of Green and Gallwey's idea of awareness. But a second definition of self-consciousness is to feel "uncomfortably nervous about or embarrassed by what other people think about you." The irony of this form of self-consciousness is that we're not really focused on "self" at all. Instead, we're focusing on what other people may (or may not) be thinking about us. This can take up a lot of head space and cause quite a distraction while we're singing. 

Luckily, Green and Gallwey offer a strategy: "By accepting distractions and then consciously choosing to focus our attention elsewhere, we can increase our awareness of the music—and lessen the amount of frustration we feel at the distractions." (p.38)

In the article on the stages of motor learning cited above, one indication that skills have moved into the third and final "automatic stage" is that the skill can be executed in different settings, in different situations, and even among distractions. And what could be more distracting than our own self-consciousness? To treat judgments and self-consciousness as distractions, however, may allow us to strategize around them. Once again, Green and Gallwey offer help: 

"...we need to leave our assumptions and ready-made judgments on one side and pay attention to what is actually going on. We can choose to put our attention where we want instead of leaving it on the distractions." (p.38)

In other words, giving more focus to inherent feedback and awareness may crowd out the distractions of "judges who yammer at the edge of our consciousness," thus allowing us to "enhance our ability to be swept up in the music, to become one with it." 

Despite the best efforts of teachers like W. Stephen Smith, we may always benefit from the augmented feedback that trusted teachers provide. But honing our awareness and trusting our own inherent feedback may help us build technique and silence the judges. 

Now go practice.