Bridging the Emotion-Technique Gap

Lots of groups that I coach struggle quite a bit with 'left brained' vs. 'right brained' focus in rehearsals. It's not uncommon to hear within a practice, 'we're going to work the left brain today and clean up that music!', or 'we're three weeks from the show/contest, let's go right brained from now until then'! I think that we tend to underestimate our own abilities to multitask, and also to *learn* and that this idea of working one side of the brain at a time is actually creating more of a problem than it is solving!

I liken this to an analogy of tying a shoe. If we think of a shoe as representative of the two sides of the brain, and each lace is working within that side of the shoe/brain, it's very easy to see how we can get into a bit of trouble. Let's say you lace up one side of that shoe perfectly, and are careful to get it nice and snug, while leaving the other lace lying on the floor until you finish that first one. Obviously you have to lace up the other one as well, as the shoe will not work without both sides tied - that much is clear. I think we all agree that musical mastery includes using both sides of the brain as well, so our analogy fits.

Now, back to our present picture - you have one lace neatly laced up, snugged and ready to tie to the other half (which is still laying on the floor, waiting to be laced). The first thing that happens is that to tie up the other lace, you actually have to undo pieces of that first side that you tied. You can't actually get your fingers in the holes well enough to tie it up, as the first lace is so 'completed' that it leaves no room for the other lace to 'get in there'. How similar to our singing! For lots of groups, they spend so much time on that one side of the shoe/brain (often technical/left brained), that by the time they have gotten the product 'ready' for some right brained work, they have either run out of time before the performance, find that it's too difficult to cram the emotions back into the song without compromising all the work they did on the left side, or in the case of a few groups who are committed to it, they go back and undo some of that left brained work in order to get that right brain laced up. Ouch! That's a lot of wasted time!

But wait! What about that structure in our brains called the Corpus Callosum? This awesome broad band of fibers, containing millions and millions of nerves rests between the two hemispheres in our brain and facilitates the communication between the hemispheres. As if to prove its own importance to us, studies have shown that the Corpus Callosum is significantly larger in musicians than in non-musicians! Hello! So, what can we learn from this?

Well, to start, how about we challenge that we have to work one side of the brain at a time? When I work with choruses these days, we specifically work on the development of this amazing structure. Specifically, I challenge them to work both the technical and emotive halves of the brain, all at the same time. Now, let me just say, I absolutely realize that this is difficult work at first. Much harder than the time-honored "pat your head and rub your tummy" exercise. But trust me, as you work this more and more, the integration becomes more complete, and you are able to perform this more and more easily. I have had great success in groups working both technique and emotion, and moving audiences significantly as a result. This is like tying both laces at the same time - right, left, right, left, etc, until you get to the top, and tie off the final product. By creating new neural pathways through the Corpus Callosum, we are able to access both the technical and creative aspects of our music all at once, and work both congruently.

But what about 'leaving it behind' when you go on stage? When a group is really prepared, the music supports the emotion. The work that you do on the technical (while working emotion!) actually becomes less and less present as you work a song. A lot of that work becomes 'muscle memory', requiring less attention from you as it becomes integrated with the emotional message of the song. I think that it is less of a conscious decision to 'go right brained' before a show, in a group that has really developed this dual-hemisphere connection. Sure, there is a choice in deciding not to self-judge, not to listen to the technical pros and cons of the music as it goes by when on stage, and to fully dive into the emotional message of the song (work that has hopefully been going on since the beginning anyway!). I also think there is a greater commitment when you go on stage to move yourself and move your audience at the same time, and that pushes out that last bit of technical as well. Because of this, I like to see groups in the last 3-6 weeks of rehearsal practice singing to the audience (imaginary or real), to prepare for a big event, and really commit to the 'moment', or in Eckart Tolle language 'live in the now'.

In my next post, I will discuss exactly how we develop the Corpus Callosum during rehearsal, and the overall process of breaking free of the technique (and focusing on the music instead). Stay tuned!