Unlock your potential
Through learning by doing, you may unlock your potential for active participation in the moment of music-making.
The main topic of this article is musical practice and practical knowledge essential to singing together with rhythm, for amateur and professional singers alike.
Is this for me?
This part of Play It By Voice is for anyone who may have said to yourself, at some point in life: “I don’t have a sense of rhythm” or “I can’t sing” or “yes, I can sing, but I don’t have a beautiful voice”. When we see people having fun together and long to be a part of their group, and something holds us back, then we say these things to ourselves, don’t we?
The practice modules of Unlock your potential are also for you who already sing in a choir or vocal group and who may have a feeling of “how can I bring more of my authentic self into this group” or “how could my choir sing this song that I like so much” – while respecting how the music style of that song really sounds, rather than falling into a habit of “the choir who sings jazz or pop or r’n’b or folk music or schlager or blues or rock’n’roll or K-pop or epadunk or bossa nova in a way that choirs do”. As if choral music were a separate music style.
How can you get closer to the real thing, with your choir or vocal group, in the styles of music that you love to listen to?
As a child, you knew
When small children hear music, then they begin to dance. This is a natural part of being human. Music and dance belong together. But in European culture, singing and dancing got separated at some point, somehow.
When we start school, then somebody says to us: “sit still, shut up and listen to me”. And then we begin to separate our natural physical and musical activities from the main learning processes of school.
In that process, many of us lose contact with our natural sense of rhythm and dance and music. But the rhythms and the sounds are still there, somewhere deep inside, longing to come out.
It is a potential waiting to be unlocked – when you are ready for it.
Craftsmanship
For me, being an a cappella singer by profession, the Play It By Voice practice modules are also about craftsmanship as a musician.
Before deciding on the title “unlock your potential” for the practice modules section of Play It By Voice, I did consider an alternative framing: a phrase that would refer to the musicianship of every individual a cappella singer. Like “A Cappella Singers’ Practice”, for example. Such a title would emphasize the reality that our individual practice as ensemble singers is an ongoing activity as important as our collective rehearsals.
However, through several decades of a cappella singing and choir coaching, plus a few years of choir leadership and a decade of choir leaders’ education, the most important aspect of teaching and coaching that I have learned goes like this:
Before being ready to open up with their voices to exploration of a vast field of musical possibilities, many choir singers first need to release their innate capacity for basic musical skills. Through learning by doing, you may re-connect with physical knowledge that you may have lost as a part of growing up and going to school. Release, or unlock, your innate musical skills. Your built-in potential.
All of us who sing in choirs and vocal groups are connected by the most basic practices. It is as important for amateur choir singers to go back to the basics, from time to time, as it is for professional a cappella singers.
Cycles of activity
The Choral Wheel gives an overview of typical cycles of activity in choirs and vocal groups:
Start – Collect ideas - Get songs - Unlock your potential - Rehearse - Prepare for the stage - Perform - Celebrate - Rest - and then back to Start again.
Video #1 - Unlock your potential
You can unlock your potential for knowledge essential to ensemble singing by doing practice modules.
Learning by doing.
Most of the Play It By Voice practice modules take between 1-3 minutes to do.
Sooner or later, by doing each practice module, you may unlock your potential for specific pieces of practical knowledge to become fully internalized; musical skills available within yourself that are fundamental to active participation in the moment of music-making.
Individual and collective knowledge
When you join a choir as a new singer, is there then a minimum requirement in terms of your knowledge as an ensemble singer?
I would say: there is an individual part and a collective part of choir practice. Every choir singer has potential for developing the individual knowledge as well as the collective knowledge required.
There are specific individual skills that every choir singer has a potential for. But we rarely spend time to develop individual skills of ensemble singers. In choir rehearsals, we practice collective skills, that you get through interaction with other singers. Collective knowledge.
When and where shall choir singers practice their individual skills ? And which are these skills? I think it’s important to make distinctions between individual practice of ensemble singing, and individual practice of solo singing.
Why isn’t individual practice of ensemble singers a part of mainstream choir culture? I would say: this is mainly because it’s poorly understood what a choir singer does, or could do, in the very moment of music-making. What do you do to get the rhythm right? What do you do to get the intonation right? What individual skills do you need in order to get a satisfactory sound and blend, and expression, together with other singers?
I find all of this incredibly interesting to explore, especially since it is the singers who make all the sounds of vocal music. Not the composers. Not the conductors.
Practical knowledge
The knowledge that I’m talking about is practical, like knowing how to walk, how to tie your shoes, how to chop wood, how to cook food, how to sing in tune, for example.
Practical knowledge has little to do with theoretical understanding. It’s mostly about physical understanding. Embodied knowledge, for rhythm, intonation, sound and blend, and so forth.
Good news:
There is a limited amount of knowledge for you to unlock, as a starting point.
Play It By Voice provides exercises to embody such knowledge. Each of these exercises, or practice modules, doesn’t take a lot of time to do. It does take repetition, though. Ten minutes every morning; sometimes less, sometimes more.
This practice is fun to do.
All you need to do is to do your practice, on a daily and weekly basis.
There is no final destination in learning processes in music.
Breathe out before you breathe in
Video #2
Some of the things that I’m about to say could perhaps be confrontational to hear, or even painful to consider. So I’d like to ask of you: hear me out, before you dismiss what I say. Thank you.
Sometimes you may be ready to just add new knowledge.
And sometimes you may need to breathe out first, so to speak, before you can breathe in new pieces of knowledge.
Before we are ready to assimilate new knowledge, to make it a part of ourselves, we may have to let go of habits from the past. Habits of the mind and habits of the body. Patterns of thinking, being and doing.
Things to unlearn
Mainstream choir culture of today has inherited many of its practices from old school European music pedagogy, sometimes without conscious reflection, apparently. I think there are important distinctions to be made. Which of the old school practices do you really want to inherit, and which practices do you prefer to let go of? While there is universal musical value in some of it, there are core elements of default choir practices which are counterproductive to active participation of choir singers.
Chances are that there are things for you to unlearn before you are ready to assimilate new knowledge and new practices that are relevant to a wide spectrum of repertoire, including music styles that have emerged since the early 1900s.
Some of the things to unlearn may be embedded in collective patterns of thought. For example: a common habit of thinking is that choir singers shall follow impulses from their choir leader, without assuming musical initiative. The choir leader knows everything, or should know everything. Right? This type of mindset may create blockage in the flow of learning processes.
Letting go of false patterns of thought
Or someone may have told you that you don’t have a musical talent. Which isn’t true, but still, if someone said that to you, it may have inflicted trauma in yourself. Trauma which would constitute blockage, since we tend to avoid any experience that could remind ourselves of the event that caused the trauma in the first place.
A time may come when you want to dissolve blockage within yourself. Letting go of old and false patterns of thought, or letting go of trauma, can sometimes be painful. In order to clear the field for new ways of thinking, being and doing, you may have to re-live the experience of the event that shaped your trauma. You don’t have to re-live that actual event, but you may need to re-live your experience of the event, before you are ready to let go of the pain and the shame connected with that experience.
Upgrade your knowledge
When you create new habits in your musical practice, then you establish new patterns of activity in your mind and in your body; new ways of doing things and new ways of thinking. Or perhaps you won’t be thinking at all, which is a great approach in the moment of music-making. Being in the music, not in your head.
And then everything may run smoothly, until one day when your habits of thinking and doing needs another upgrade.
The constant process of learning, letting go of old patterns, upgrading your knowledge and so forth, often involves that you do the same exercises again, but from a new mindset. You may reach a deeper level of practice with the same exercise that you already have done many times.
Micro-second response habits
Before you get to deeper levels of practice, chances are that you will meet resistance from within yourself. Scepticism to anything new is built in with human response. In human interactions, automatic resistance to new initiative often shows up within a micro-second, and blocks the flow of interaction in that moment.
Remember this: it’s just habit. It’s not who you really are. In essence, you are music. And music is not about resistance. It’s about flow, within boundaries – like a river.
In my experience, it is possible to break micro-second response patterns, when you apply self-observation combined with respect for boundaries of others.
Eventually, you may fully embody the experience of going with the flow in the moment, with the music.
Leadership
From your point of view as an ensemble singer, what are the consequences of all of the above – for choir leadership?
For example: to what extent do you think that it is your choir leader’s responsibility to inspire you and the other singers to unlock your potential?
To what extent are you and other singers responsible for initiative, curiosity and inspiration in the moment of rehearsals and performance?
Who is responsible for letting go of counterproductive response habits - everybody else, or everyone including yourself?
Is it your leader’s role to initiate musical processes set up with the purpose of letting go of old habits?
Is it your leader who shall inspire you to self-observation? Or do you naturally include self-observation as a part of your individual musical practice?
Have fun, good luck!