technique

Sometimes it can be difficult to decide what to work on next, to get the most bang for the buck.  When I'm working with performing groups they often ask me if it's too early to get into the "emotional stuff" with a new piece, if they haven't even quite got the notes and words nailed down.

My short answer would be "no", but I can imagine why they might think so!  First, when you're a hammer everything looks like a nail.  Lots of performers, especially musicians, are first and foremost great technicians.  They love to fine-tune their technical skills, above all else!  Just like a bowler who spends hour after hour down at the lanes, trying to bowl strikes.  It's very "flow" - clear rules, instant feedback.  It's fun!  But bowling isn't a performance art.  I mean, people may like to watch it, but it's a sport, not an art, and the spectators aren't having to suspend disbelief.  Their expectations are rather low, in terms of the emotional depth of the experience of watching a bowling tournament.  So treating stage performance like bowling isn't the best approach.

Also there's a prevailing attitude that the "fluffy stuff" is pointless until the technique is in place.  And to some extent that's true - if you don't know the notes, you're not going to make big gains by delving deeper into the character and the objective!

However, that's not the end of the story.

Firstly, the strategy of "finishing the technique" before getting into the emotional guts of the piece is fatally flawed because the technique can never be finished.  There is no perfect.  If you wait for perfection before moving on, you will never move on.

Secondly and maybe more importantly, having a clear concept of the piece at an emotional level gives you a framework to hang all that technique on.  If you ground your musical and performance choices in the human purpose of the piece, you might actually remember those dynamics!  I wouldn't take the artistic analysis to its conclusion right away, but if you can just figure out the basics (who are you, who else is there, what's the relationship, what are the changes), you will find all that technical work will be more exciting and more efficient too.

Finally, you get a whole lot of technique "for free" when you give yourself over to the human, emotional concepts that form the purpose of the piece.  A thousand little details fall into place without discussion, springing naturally and forcefully from the scene.  And just like the tennis player who finally just watches the ball instead of obsessing on the details of their swing, letting your "self 2" take over will let you get out of your own way, letting your best technician shine through for a change.

So it's never too early.

Recently I read a book entitled "The Listener's Guide to Great Instrumentalists" by David Hamilton, and found another perspective on performance that dovetails beautifully with what I believe, and adds a perspective unique to the performing musician.  Let me quote from the introduction.

A musical performer engages simultaneously in several activities.  Although, as with any such abstract schematization, the boundaries are not always clear-cut, we might distinguish three such activities: execution, interpretation, and projection.  The relate, respectively, to the instrument, the musical work, and the listener.  The performer must have sufficient command of the instrument to execute the music that has been written for it.  He must understand that piece he is playing, must have (at least instinctively, not necessarily in a verbally articulate form) a conception of its shape and its sense.  And finally, he must communicate that conception, and a sense of his own involvement in the whole process, to the audience.

I think that's a pretty good summary of what's involved in stage performance - essentially technique and virtuosity, understanding at the level of emotional meaning, and the ability to project that meaning (or in some cases that technique) to the audience.

My general belief is that performers should "swing for the fences" and communicate something important or at least enjoyable at an emotional level, but the book reminds me that this is not the only option.  It's quite reasonable for a performer to show off their virtuosity and be appreciated for that skill alone.  Not every mode of performance allows this kind of approach.  Nobody cares if they are watching a "great actor" - in fact that concept can only distract from the great acting that (we hope) is going on.  But in the musical realm, there are lots of people who would pay twenty bucks just to see someone who has an amazing command of an instrument.  Chiefly I'm speaking of people who also play that instrument.  :)  It's like being impressed with a guy who can bowl a 300 game - it may not touch you at an emotional level, but being impressed is still an experience that has value.

There is a name for a piece that is written to show off skills.  It's called an "étude" which translates to "study" in English.  Chopin produced many such pieces, each focusing on a particular piano skill, like the ability to play a lot of notes very quickly, or to play chords that are spread beyond the reach of a normal hand, or to play a different time signature with each hand.  That can be amazing to watch!  However I believe that for enduring listening pleasure, we gravitate towards works that have more depth.  I'm not a person with an encyclopedic knowledge of piano pieces, but I love to listen to "Claire de Lune" or Chopin's "Raindrop Prelude" because those pieces seem to deliver the emotional depth that I crave in performance.  Rachmaninoff's "Prelude in C# Minor" is another of my favorites because of it's passion.

I had a request over the holidays to cover the "tune up" - that unique piece of technique for a cappella groups, since they can't rely on instruments to get them into the correct starting key (or to keep them in the right key, but that's a whole 'nuther topic...)

[caption id="attachment_1171" align="alignright" width="288" caption="Note the traditional placement of the boom mic, OUT of the picture!"][/caption]

Well if you believe as I do that the purpose of performance is to give the audience an emotional journey, and that the audience has to suspend disbelief, among other things, in order to be ready for that kind of trip, I think you have to do what you can to remove distractions. David Copperfield doesn't let you see the mirrors before he does a magic trick. If you're shooting a movie and the microphone boom gets into the frame, you do another take - it's not even a question.

So the question becomes, is the pitch-taking a part of the performance, or isn't it? Well, 99% of the time it isn't - it's a purely mechanical thing that the audience doesn't care about, that doesn't add anything to the performance. It only reminds everyone that they're watching people on a stage, dealing with real-life, practical issues like tuning up.

I cringe inwardly (maybe even outwardly... I'm not sure) when a barbershop quartet takes the pitch by blowing a pitch pipe with everyone looking at it, then they all look at each other self-consciously and sing the pitch in unison, and then a tonic chord, and then the first chord of the song, and then they finally look at the audience. I mean honestly, if it's SOOO difficult for a group to get in the same key, am I supposed to expect a great performance? More likely I'm going to sit and worry the whole time that one of them will lose the pitch and they won't be able to recover.

Sometimes comedy quartets, who as I've often said before are at least always aware that their purpose is to entertain rather than to "get it right", will incorporate the pitch-taking in a funny way, and that's all good if it works.

So my advice - learn how to take the pitch with some discretion.

I know a few perfectionists. You probably do too. You can tell who they are, because of a few giveaways.
They tend to be driven, high-achieving types. Obviously they tend to obsess about getting things "just so." They can be caught straightening the silverware at restaurants.

Another thing that tends to go hand in hand with perfectionism is an obsession with technique. Technical things are like candy to a perfectionist - they are pleasantly objective and measurable. And I don't want to downplay the importance of technical matters in performance. It's hard to keep an audience engaged in the story if you're singing out of tune! It's hard for a dancer to keep an audience enthralled with the story behind the movement if she falls into the orchestra pit!

If you're a perfectionist, or you know one, I want to help you. I suspect that at some level you are getting in your own way. This article is for you.

The first thing you need to grapple with is that there is no such thing as perfect. A chord can always be more in tune, better balanced. A phrase can always have a better shape. A pirouette can always be straighter. (You can probably tell from that comment that I am no dancer!)

I mean, you don't want to give up on making things technically good, but you need that 80/20 thing. That last 20% of technical perfection isn't getting you anywhere near the benefit of the first 80%, but it's much, much harder to do.

You've got to understand that technique is a means to an end, not and end in itself. Geeks in your chosen field will respect excellent technique, but the audience doesn't care about it at all - they care about the feelings you are inspiring in them. It wouldn't matter to them if you did it through flawless technique or smoke and mirrors - the experience is what they want, and how they get there makes no difference. Now if *you* are a geek in your field (and I confess that I am certainly that), you might enjoy striving for flawlessness, in the same way that some people enjoy trying to bowl 300. So go nuts - fill your boots! Just don't confuse it for something that the audience cares about.

The beautiful thing is, you don't need to be perfect even if you're trying to win a contest. You need to be just perfect enough so that the technical flaws are not distracting. You need to be good enough to let the scene shine through, and evoke emotional reactions from the audience.  This is an incredibly liberating belief, because you can save yourself a lot of time in rehearsal.  Maybe you'll be able to use some of that rehearsal time on higher-leverage activities like understanding the music, and creating high-impact scenes!

This is what I'm saying - any effort you put into technique after it's already a non-issue is wasted effort from the audience's perspective. The real pinnacle of the art form is to create a situation in which people are inclined to ignore your mistakes. And that is the topic of a future article.

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.