feedback

OK let's say you're a singer.  You have enough technique under your belt so that you can carry a tune, and you can hit all the necessary notes well.  You've got some material that is matched to your technical skill, neither so easy that you will be bored, nor so difficult that you will be anxious.  You've decided to perform for the benefit of the audience rather than ego gratification or to please your teacher, and with that goal in mind you have breathed some life into that material by creating a compelling story that connects it to real life and authentic emotion, and you have some idea of a plan that will convey your story.

Got all that?  It's not as difficult as it might seem.  Technique -> Material -> Story -> Plan.

The purpose of rehearsal is to take all that conceptual stuff and make it real.  You don't sing a song by writing down your plan - the song only exists when it is sung, and the first time you actually sing it, you can expect to learn all sorts of things about your plan that don't work, and maybe you'll want to revise elements of your story too!  Funny thing about reality - it's a lot easier to see than abstractions.  And when you can see it, you can decide whether it works or doesn't work.

The biggest sin of rehearsal is so obvious it's almost embarrassing to say it: you have to rehearse what you intend to perform!  Many groups get together and work exclusively on technique, perhaps because they view singing as a technical challenge.  That's a bit like viewing a book as a printing challenge - it's missing the point.  I mean it's true that if you don't get the words on the page, nobody can read them, but what people care about is exactly what the words say!  The meaning of the book is delivered *through* the printing, not *by* the printing.

So for many people, the biggest challenge is simply accepting their level of skill, whatever it happens to be.  There is no such thing as perfect, and striving for perfection beyond a certain point is all about you, and having fun trying to master the game of technique.  There's nothing wrong with doing that of course, but don't confuse it for a performance goal.  The audience cares about their experience of your performance, they do not care about your skills as long as they aren't getting in the way.  So if your skills are good enough to remove distractions for your audience, as far as performance is concerned any further work on skills is a waste of time.

In reality of course nearly every performer will need to work on skills.  But as long as you realize that the skills are only a carrier for what your audience cares about, you should have no trouble organizing your rehearsal accordingly!  Try splitting it 50/50 for a while - spend the first half of each rehearsal working on skills, and the second half working on higher level concepts.

For example, talk about the story of your piece until you are crystal clear about it.  Make sure every bar of your music has some meaning attached to it.  You'll have an easier time accessing that meaning if you have a rich set of images or movies that relate to the story, that you can run through in your head as you communicate your piece.

Once the story is clear, spend some time performing, and decide what needs to change about your plan.  What techniques could make the story more clear to the audience?

Get objective feedback - record yourself, audio and video, and then review the recording.  Does everything seem to work?

Rehearsal can be incredibly rewarding and enjoyable in itself if you do it right.  Try to turn each rehearsal into a "flow" experience by making sure that it has clear goals, instant feedback, and that you really concentrate your attention.  (If you can't tell from that last paragraph, I've just read "Flow" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.  There's a book review post on the way soon!)

It may be common sense stuff, but if you can make your rehearsals really effective, you'll have a big advantage over 90% of the other performers on the planet who commit this Deadly Sin routinely.  There's an awful lot of wheel-spinning going on out there!

Did you ever wonder what you really look like to other people?  How you really come across?  Have you ever had that irrational fear that you're really, really dumb and everyone else is just playing along to make you believe otherwise?  (Hmm... that was personal... maybe I should have kept that to myself...)

I am primarily a singer, and I remember the first time I heard my voice recorded.  I'm sure you'll recognize the five stages of grief:

1. Denial - "That can not be me!"  Then when you realize that nobody is playing a practical joke,
2. Anger - "Why didn't you tell me I sounded like that??"
3. Bargaining - OK to be honest I'm not sure about bargaining in this situation... some psychologist might step in and help me here... but then clearly to;
4. Depression - I suck.  If I really sound like that, I have no business being a singer.  Kill me now.  Then finally;
5. Acceptance - OK that's what I sound like.  What can I do about it?

Faced with the decision to improve my voice or give up singing forever, I got some vocal training.

Then I did the same thing all over again, repeatedly, with regard to my own stage performance.  I saw recorded videos of myself speaking to a large audience and nearly died of my own hand.  Well I do have extreme reactions sometimes...

Anyway it might be quite painful to go through these stages, but it's also very necessary if you plan to make progress.  You need to find out what *reality* is, because I guarantee that your assumptions are wrong.  Then once you've got a handle on how you sound and/or how you look, you can do something about it.  Grandpa Metzger used to say to me, "Tom, if you don't know where you are, you can't get where you want to go."  He said some crazy stuff, but that one works!

If you are ready to embark upon this horrible but fascinating journey, to the betterment of your own performance, here's how to do it.

1. Take a deep breath.  Cross yourself (if that's how you roll)
2. Set up the most realistic performance environment you can.  A real one would be the ultimate here, but you can do pretty well by setting up a "stage" and getting some high quality video or audio recording equipment, which these days does not break the bank.
3. Do your thing.  Do it all the way - just like you would in the real world.  Don't sabotage yourself just so you can say, "yeah that sucked, but I wasn't really trying."  Really get in and do it.
4. Take another deep breath (see #1)
5. Watch it.  Listen to it.
6. Commence with the stages of grief (see above)
7. Get some coaching!

In the first draft of this article, I completely forgot to say how it worked out for me.  I'm happy to report that I can now listen to myself and enjoy the sound, and I can watch myself perform on video and be happy with that as well.  I assume that it's partly that I've learned from all the feedback, and partly that I've just become used to all the things that surprised me at first.

Let us all know how it goes!