Aftermath of the 90 minute OTS class

Well Owning The Stage "the class" became a reality this past weekend in Columbus, Ohio.  Two groups of about 30 people attended the first-ever class, and handed in really flattering evaluation sheets afterwards.  Here were some of their comments:

"Just what I needed to take my chorus to the next level"
"I can't wait to use this with my quartet, to make our performances more engaging."
"Next year this should be expanded to a 3 or 4 hour class!"

I did get mixed reviews in the "handouts were used effectively" category, mostly because there were no

handouts.  Most of the people wrote "n/a" in that category, but a few gave low marks, and one person handed in a 4-out-of-5!  :)  I have no idea what that person was thinking.

Since the full class is a 12-hour affair and I was given only 75 minutes (!) I had to leave an awful lot of stuff out.  In fact I focused on only one thing, and that was the importance of a story as the central element of a great barbershop quartet performance.

What is a Great Performance?

We started by defining "Great Performance" as a class.  People volunteered their ideas about what made a performance great, and we discussed them.  For example people said: Standing ovation, well-thought-out, professional, emotionally touching, coherent, original, entertaining, etc.  Then we narrowed down the list by getting rid of anything that wasn't absolutely essential.  For example we decided that a great performance did not have to be original or unique.  Nor did it have to be flawless!  Then, lo and behold, we found that nearly all the essential elements could be developed more easily from the story!

What is a Story and why do I need one?

A story turns a sequence of notes and words into something human and real.  If you watch a flawless performance that still somehow leaves you flat, it was probably missing the story.

For a simple two to five minute song, in my model your story needs to include four things (which will be familiar to readers of this blog):

1. Who are you in the story?
2. Who are you talking to?
3. Why are you talking to them - what's your objective?
4. What changes?

If you know that much, you will find that even with no other planning, most of the details of your performance will sort themselves out.  Your dynamics plan, inflections, tone colors, word emphasis, expressive movement and so forth will "come naturally" just because you are a human and you know how to communicate in your real life.

Better yet, all your choices will be coherent - they will make sense together - because they all came from the same source.  No longer will you find yourself with movements that don't match the dynamic plan or inflections.

What happens without a story?

One thing we didn't quite have time for was a discussion about what performances look like when there is no story.  You can tell when a group is singing without a story, even if they are extremely proficient with their craft.  If you really pay attention you'll notice that their performance resembles a random sequence of unconnected inflections, dynamics and movements.  I especially love to watch for each person's "giveaway" movements that they repeat over and over when they have no other movement planned.  (Once you start noticing this, you'll have to be careful in a crowded theater, because you'll find yourself prone to snickering at awkward times.)

Another way to tell there's no story is that you are hearing a lot of musical clichees: performance elements that were copied from somewhere else, and thrown in because they seemed cool.  Like "pregnant pauses" - 99% of the time, the venerated "pregnant pause" seems totally out of place to me.

Later on I will write an article or two with practical ideas for generating and refining stories in your ensemble.  Until then, just start noticing when the stories don't seem to be there!

The next Owning The Stage class will be at the Harmony Homecoming festival in Halifax, NS.  The first 12-hour classes will be held at Harmony University in St. Joseph, Missouri.