Rehearsing

In the world of consumer products, the mass-produced item is cheaper, more plentiful and generally less-respected than the hand-made, bespoke item. This is both because it is replaceable – lose it and you can buy another exactly the same – and because it requires only the ability to operate processes on the part of the people who make it, not the individual acquisition of skill.

We tend to think of artistic products as being inherently artisanal – that is individually-crafted, non-massed produced – but when you think about it there is quite a whiff of the production line about several standard aspects of rehearsal processes in barbershop choruses - and to some extent in mainstream choral societies too.

We all know that singing makes people happy, but do we know why? Is there any way that we can guarantee the singers we work with get the most out of the experience every time?

The authors of Mind Gym: Give me Time offer a useful analysis of happiness. They suggest that it operates in three dimensions, pleasure, challenge and meaning. Any activity that offers one of these will make us somewhat happy, one that offers two will feel very rewarding, and to get all three in one go leads to a state of rapture.

I recently read Marco Iacoboni’s book Mirroring People: The New Science of How We Connect with People. I would highly recommend it, despite a couple of reservations about its style.* It came out shortly after I had finished my book on choral conducting, and I think it’s fair to say that had it come out 8 months earlier there would have been more mirror neuron talk in my book. On the other hand, several of the other key theoretical sources I drew on also feature heavily in the Iacoboni, and I am very relieved to say that I find this book develops and deepens my understanding of the neurological processes that underlie the practices I discuss rather than fundamentally changing them.

One small corner of the Iacoboni that I found interesting from a general perspective of teaching and learning was his assertion that we use different parts of the brain for newly-learned and well-practised tasks. He says:

Along with Awareness and Will, Trust makes up the trio of central principles of the Inner Game. In some ways, Trust is the most fundamental of the three: the heart of the inner game is about getting your judgemental, conscious self out the way and letting your carefully-honed skills get on with the job.

The second central Inner Game principle is Will. This is about the performer’s capacity to choose how they do something, to take control. But again, crucially, it’s not about getting it right and all the judgements that implies. Rather, it assumes that the ability to do something in one way rather than another is a more fundamental skill that is not only logically separable from, but actually precedes the decision about how it should be done.

Awareness is the first of the three cornerstones of the inner game approach. It refers to the non-judgemental perception of what we’re doing. Instead of the kind of self-monitoring that immediately classifies what we’re doing as either adequate or inadequate, it aims simply to get a clearer a picture of what’s going on, without leaping to judgement. It’s rather like the NLP principle that there’s no failure, only feedback, and involves replacing the instinct to say to yourself, ‘that was crap,’ with ‘what happened there?’

I’ve been threatening since last winter to write about how the Inner Game ideas can inform rehearsal techniques, and the time has at last arrived. This post will outline some big-picture principles, and three subsequent ones will look at how to apply the three central concepts of awareness, will and trust in choral contexts.

But for those who are not familiar with Inner Game ideas at all, here’s a bit of background.

Earlier this week I received an email with the above subject line from the director of a small early music vocal ensemble. He has been grappling with the challenge of getting his singers to learn music in their own time to make the most of scarce rehearsal time – and grappling also with the personal tensions that result when not all of his singers cooperate. I’ll quote an extract from his email, as his account of his experience will resonate in the heart of anyone who has found themselves leading a group:

During the time that rehearsals were ongoing, I was never sure what to do about the singers who would not learn their music. I didn't feel I could reprimand them, because we were all students of about equal experience and, while mine was the responsibility to choose the repertoire for the year and to lead the rehearsals, I did not have any authority over them. I could not replace (or threaten to replace) any of the singers, as I did not have any other equally capable singers wanting to join the group. The only motivating tool I had was the music itself, which I cared deeply about and wanted to sing well. Whatever way I had been communicating to the group, my enthusiasm had rubbed off on some singers but not all.

I was just wondering if you have written anything about this, if it's something you have experienced, and if you have any strategies for dealing with it?