Response to a letter about how to perform

Recently I was asked to comment on an email from a coach to a musical group, and add my two cents.  Here is part of the letter (with all the names omitted):

Last time we spoke, I was talking about deliberately using technical 'things' (colours, textures, volume, etc) to get an emotional response from the audience?  [other coach] said that [big name performer] talks about the same thing... and that's what she does, too.  And yet, they appear to the audience to be completely in the moment.  She says they are totally monitoring [technical things] throughout the performance!

Are they 'feeling' the emotion of the song and singing/performing with artistry...YES!!!  Are they thinking about technical things, self monitoring, monitoring the rest of the quartet...YES!!!

My understanding of an A level performance (performance being all three categories)  is this:

• Flawless individual/ensemble singing, using vocal 'techniques' and 'skills' to convey the artistry in the song and evoke emotion in the audience.  This takes constant self/ensemble listening/monitoring/adjusting!
• Consistent/genuine/appropriate presentation...totally believeable to the audience...evokes the desired emotional response from the audience...by simultaneously using vocal/visual/musical elements to take the listeners/watchers on a journey.
• Transforming the music on the page into a work of art...using the musical elements in the score to the very maximum effect.

When a singer (typically the lead but also the others) 'loses' themselves in the emotion of the song...the ensemble sound and performance always suffers.  The most firmly engrained habits are the ones that come out.  I always told my [trainees], "In the heat of the moment, you don't rise to the occasion, you sink to the most practiced level of your training".   This applies to any performance related activity.I don't know why the myth of having to be 'totally into the song otherwise it's technical' is so pervasive in barbershop...especially in our district.  Likewise, "your performance was too careful because you were thinking of the technical stuff"...nope...you weren't doing your job of performing WHILE ensuring that the tech stuff was good!  Even Jack Lyon talks about 'not buying your own bullshit', etc when you are performing.  If you are so focused on yourself, and your own emotions, it makes it really hard to present an ensemble performance... but it makes it extremely hard for the audience to connect with you.

Do you feel the emotions?  Sure, you can.  Communicate those emotions to the audience by deliberately choosing textures, colours, volumes, pronunciations, intensity of ring, and depth of resonance.  Support your singing message by deliberately choosing facial expressions, postures, gestures and movement.

I love this email, because it reminds me that the concepts of this blog are relevant to people that I'm not actually coaching!  I do have a few things to add, and I disagree with a few of the points above.  Here we go.

First of all, we agree about this idea of "work on technique and then let go."  Who ever said that would be a good plan? Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me. You have got to rehearse what you intend to perform. In fact, to put it the other way around, you will perform what you rehearsed so be sure it's what you want to put on stage!  If your rehearsals are purely technical, guess what you'll be getting when it's for real?  At best, a technical effort.

What should be going through your mind as you perform, the emotions or the technique? Really the question is the same one I have addressed here many times. Here's what you get when you make the various choices:

Worrying about the technique

Here's what will happen if you choose to monitor the technique.  You will look glazed over, as if in your private little world. How could it be otherwise?  Ever have a conversation with a person whose mind was elsewhere? Was it hard to tell? Did it make you feel respected?  It's kind of irrelevant that [big name performer] says he does it this way.  I've seen him perform - he isn't connecting most of the time.  On the numbers where he does succeed in connecting, I bet he's not in a technical head space.  If this is your plan, the best you can hope for is that nobody will notice.

Further, if there is any validity at all to the Inner Game concepts, and I think there is, monitoring the technique has a very good chance of screwing up the technique. Thinking about technique will rarely make it better. All that Paul Mayo exercises work specifically by preventing you from obsessing about the technique, because no matter how smart you think you are, you don't have the bandwidth or the conscious control to make it all work in real time. It's got to be solidly ingrained. And once it is ingrained there is no point in monitoring it.  So I disagree quite strongly with the whole paragraph above on "deliberately choosing textures, volumes" etc.  What volume means happy?  What hand position means angry?  It might be possible in theory to assemble a great performance from technical building blocks, but it's a bit like eating breakfast cereal with your spoon in your toes - probably possible, but why make it so hard??  We're all stuffed full of hard-wiring for expressing ourselves, so just trust yourself and do it.  You certainly can't do any better by trying to reinvent it.

Finally monitoring the technique will prevent you from reacting to the part of the music that the audience cares about, which is what they get out of it, which is all in the emotional level. And I hate to be an armchair psychoanalyst, but maybe that's the reason some people avoid the emotional aspect of the performance - they are not comfortable with it. The detachment is comforting.  I mean, maybe you could fool people into thinking you were "really in the moment" but wouldn't it be easier to just *be* in the moment?

Worrying about technical elements of the performance while performing is just a security blanket.  You're not really going to improve things - you're more likely to make them worse.  If you feel the need to worry, you're not sufficiently rehearsed.  It should be like driving your car, without having to think "OK, light pressure on the brake foot... good... OK flip up the turn signal... good... We're turning, we're turning... gosh I hope I don't understeer... going a little fast... uncomfortable... phew, made it!  Now let's straighten out..."

Learn to drive, dude!

Worrying about the emotions

Now, what if you monitor the emotions?  What result can you expect?  Well as Mamet says, you will spend the whole time worrying about whether you have produced the correct emotions! Further, you have no direct control over your emotions anyway. That is the nature of emotions - they happen in response to your environment.  For audience and performer alike, the emotions arise from the performance.  The performer doesn't have to feel them ahead of time to make it work, they just have to *perform*.

Also, it's not about you! Nobody in the audience cares what you are feeling. They care about what they feel. Nobody wants to watch you stand up there and feel this and feel that. Get a room.

Perform the thing and stop worrying

So what should be going through your mind?  The scene. The objective.  The truth and the passion.  Anything else is a distraction, and it's not helping.  Within that framework are a million creative decisions, but if you don't understand the basics of putting together a performance that will touch people deeper than their intellect, it hardly matters what you do.

Finally for a touch of realism, you will probably not be able to keep all distracting thoughts out of your head while performing.  If you've ever tried to meditate, you know how hard it is to empty the mind and keep thoughts from popping in unbidden.  In meditation, you learn to acknowledge the unwelcome thought and dismiss it without getting emotionally attached.  The same trick works in performance.  "Here comes that tough interval I always miss... oops, there I missed it again... ah, that was not part of the scene... no matter, back to the song now."  With time, this process will streamline too, so you're able to spend nearly all your time on communicating, and almost none on irrelevant thoughts.