Owning The Stage

Hi folks,

Clearly we're still working out the kinks in the notification system.  It was set to send everyone an email when a comment was posted on an article, which was NOT my plan!  Ritchie Lavene stepped on that land mine today.  Thanks, Ritchie, for being my #1 notification tester! ;)

So if you're wishing you received more or less in the way of notifications from Owning The Stage, you can now log in to your account and set your preferences.  You can get immediate emails, or you can get a daily or weekly digest - whatever you like!  Just click on "My Account" once you're logged in and go to town.

Got a great question from a performer a while back, and I'd like to share my reply with everyone.  If you have a question, I'll be happy to do the same for you!  Anyway here we go:

One of your posts suggest that people try NOT to give it that extra 10% on stage because you might make it worse. It you want to give 110% give it first in practice then duplicate that on stage; don't surprise the rest of the quartet with something they haven't heard before. We went on stage with that goal; to bring our best on stage, no more, no less. In spite of that the energy of performing did something positive. This is obviously one of those Zen issues with contradictory goals. There is clearly a right and a wrong way to use performance energy and tension. Used wrong it can lead to over singing or breaking the unity of the group. Used right it can be great, but what does that mean?

Hi everyone,

For the next while I'll be busy creating a 12-hour class out of the information from this blog, to teach at Harmony University.  Really excited about it!

The question is, what do you think are the most compelling and useful pieces?  Let me know!

Look for the corresponding forum topic.

Cheers,

Tom

Ran across a fascinating article about how young brains work that really sheds light on the ideal performance state of mind.  It's not every day I read an article that pulls together and explains so many of my pet topics, like being in the moment, creativity, and flow! 

Here's the first quote:

Have you ever wondered why some performances affect you and some don't? Personally can get choked up when I least expect it. For example certain female voices get me every time, for some reason that I can't explain - why this voice, and not others? Sometimes when I'm reading bedtime stories to my kids, something about the story will start to choke me up, but I won't be able to put my finger on it.

And that I think gives some insight into how people are wired up. Everything that comes in through our senses gets bounced against our memories, past experiences, attitudes and beliefs, and sometimes the combination gives us an emotional reaction that is surprising!

So if as a performer you are interested in giving people experiences like that, you might be wondering how you can head in that direction for as many audience members as possible.

Now some audience members are naturally more receptive than others. The least receptive ones are constantly "on guard" and evaluating what is happening with their analysis engines revved up. No wonder - I bet they trained up by watching ads on television, and constantly having to remember that the creator of the ad doesn't care about them personally, but simply wants their money! We live in a funny world that way.

So what can we do, to break through those cynical barriers?

That's where subtext comes in. The lyrics of a song might be written down in black and white for everyone to evaluate, but there are other channels open even in the most cynical observer, and some of those channels are wide open, impossible to guard. They are the channels furthest from the analysis fortress of the brain.

But to use those channels, we need to be in an emotional space ourselves! The kind of mental space we as performers can only achieve if we put ourselves into a vivid and compelling story of our own making, with layers of human understanding and creativity over and above the black and white notes and words on the page.

That is the secret weapon.

There's something odd about competitive art.  You don't see competitive watercolor painting or competitive clay scupture weekends (as far as I know!) but often you see competitive singing - there are lots of festivals where choirs, choruses and ensembles are judged, and a winner is chosen.

In barbershop, for example, one of the central activities is the contest.  Many quartets and choruses go to incredible lengths, expending a huge percentage of their time and energy to put two songs onto the contest stage several times a year.  The barbershop organization does its part by supplying judging category descriptions, highly trained and selected judges, medals, plaques and trophies for the winners, etc.  It's a lot of work!

I can understand how one might assign a score to a performance based on its technical elements.  A judge can estimate how often a group is in tune, or how well the arrangement follows the barbershop rules.  Sweet Adeline judges in the Showmanship category probably find it pretty easy to determine if everyone was wearing a matching outfit.  Judges can even take a blind stab at the level of artistry and impact in a performance, although I feel they're getting on thin ice with that kind of thing.

But what strikes me is that all the truly human aspects of a performance, the authentic, personal truths underneath the music that infuse it with meaning, are completely beyond judgment.  How can we say that one person's joy warrants an 80 where another person's joy is only a 65?  What's the best way to measure real anguish?  How can we assign a meaningful number to excitement, or pain, or love?  It just doesn't make any sense.  We can't.

So when groups refuse to play the technical game, strange and wonderful things happen.  Emotional things happen.  In circumstances like that, judges tend to forget themselves just like any other audience member - they get carried away, and only remember after the fact, when the applause has died down, that they were supposed to reduce the performance to a number between 1 and 100.

And that, i believe, should be the goal.  Put enough real life up on stage that everyong forgets to monitor the technique for a while.  It will do them good.

OK, after a late night coding session and too much coffee, the coach directory is now enabled for reviews.  So if you've had a coaching session recently with someone in the directory, you can go ahead and enter your thoughts!

We're rebuilding this directory "for real" now, and barring a natural disaster or other inconvenient Act of God, we will not lose any of this valuable coaching and review data again.  Apologies for not being able to bring over the existing coach records and reviews!

And now, on with performance-related articles.  Thanks everyone!

Tom