Baby, it’s Cold Outside.

I recently caught a 'Live from Broadway’ concert in Times Square as it live streamed. It was a cold and rainy morning and it really got me reflecting:

Are performers actually prepared to succeed in the variety of contexts they have to sing in?

Let me explain what I mean (with no disrespect intended against these amazing performers).

We spend thousands of dollars on voice lessons to become vocally masterful, but we do it in relatively unchanging conditions. However, performances often have a multitude of changing conditions, sometimes inherent in the gig itself.

If we don’t train for the adaptability actually required, how do we expect ourselves or our students to become adaptable?

In non-linear pedagogy, constraints are used by changing conditions to change the outcome. There are three kinds of constraints:

1) individual - about the performer/technique/emotions/etc

2) task - the music itself (things like key and tempo)

3) environmental - acoustics, size of space, distance to piano, etc

Imagine a voice lesson where a student sings a song in the voice studio - then in the concert hall… then the theatre, in a stairwell, outside, etc. How would those changing variables alone help a performer have better subconscious strategies to adapt to their physical environment?

When a performer sings in a variety of spaces, they also have to deal with different aural feedback - why not include this as an aspect of training by exploring plugging and/or cupping one or both ears to dampen or enliven the sound? Or maybe altering the spacial relationship to the piano…

And yes - why don’t we have a voice lesson outside on a cold rainy morning every once in a while? Wouldn’t it help us be better when we actually have to perform in those conditions? It's going to happen, so instead of resenting the conditions, be prepared to work with them!

Consistent practice conditions don't prepare us for inconsistent performing conditions!

The need is obvious. These amazing performers perform these pieces 8x/week, but in these outdoor concerts they don’t display the same sort of mastery as on the Broadway stage (though a lot of grace for it being Sunday morning, they had two shows the day prior and deserve to be tired - another good variable for training however).

This also gives you full permission to count practicing in the car, shower, while cooking & cleaning as official practice! Those moments of singing for joy in a variety of spaces with distractions may actually be more valuable than goal-oriented moments in the practice room. Who knows, and why now?!

I don’t know how it resonates with you on an emotional level, but it excites me. How much would the subconscious systems involved in singing improve if we embraced all of these variables and conditions, including the internal ones like sleep, hydration, and stress.

Adaptability is written right into our form, are we taking advantage of that gift?

If you want to listen to a great podcast all about preparing for unpredictable situations, check out The Happiness Lab's episode, “Don't Accentuate The Positive.”