Owning The Stage

Hi everyone,

The new and vastly improved Coach Directory is half ready!  That is, you can sign up to be in the directory right now, but I have not implemented reviews yet.  Reviews are coming soon.

In the mean time, if you are a coach, you're welcome to sign up.

Cheers,
Tom

I've been working a lot lately with "the basics" of story planning - the infamous "four things" that you need to understand in order to express a short piece authentically, every time. Those things are:

1. Who are you, in the scene
2. Who are you talking to
3. What is your objective
4. What happens, or what changes

All four elements are interesting, but recently the power of point number one, you might call it "identity", came up in a session in a memorable way. We were working on the ballad "Masquerade." The group being coached had created a story something like this: you have fallen out of love with your spouse, and you want to end the relationship, and right now you're breaking the news to her. Here are some of the lyrics:

Your eyes don't shine like they used to shine
And the thrill is gone when your lips meet mine
I'm afraid the masquerade is over
And so is love, and so is love
Your words don't mean what they used to mean
They were once inspired, now they're just routine
I'm afraid the masquerade is over
And so is love

The first few times through, the group sang those lines with a lot of anger. It was very authentic, because they were committed and they had a strong story, but it occurred to me that nobody wanted to see this angry story! So I suggested that instead of being angry, they might try being compassionate towards their former love. After all, you're breaking off the relationship and you might be breaking her heart! She is no threat, and she's a good person.

The effect was immediate - instead of looking like jerks as they sang the song, they came across as compassionate and wise, and deeply conflicted, and the presentation of the song instantly had more depth. It was very compelling!

So the moral of the story is, since you can pick any identity you want, consider picking an identity that you can be proud of.

As you can see, we've got a brand new look here at Owning The Stage! There were some readability issues with the previous Wordpress theme, mostly with older browsers, and rather than try to apply band-aids I've moved the whole blog over to Drupal instead.

This will also allow me to create a proper version of the Coach Directory. It's already underway, so stay tuned.

One thing I can't easily move over from the old site is the user accounts, so if you would like to have an account you'll have to take a few seconds and sign up again.

I hope you like it! Feedback welcome.

Cheers,
Tom

Hi folks,

No doubt you're a perceptive sort, and you've noticed two things lately.  (1) I have not written as many posts to this blog, and (2) I've made obscure references to a secret project.

Well, if you've been burning with curiosity, or even if you haven't, my secret project is "done" at least to version 1.  Rather than look for another software job, I've started my own company and I've finally finished an online application for managing a large choral or other musical group.  I've wanted to write that application for YEARS, dating back to when I first started directing a big chorus and realizing some of the frustrations inherent in that game.  I started designing and building it long ago, and the last few months have been my perfect chance to finally finish it.

You can look here for details:  http://www.groupanizer.com

The product is called SING! and version 1 is available to choruses, church choirs, symphony orchestras, etc.  It's hosted online for a monthly fee, so it's very affordable even for groups with a limited budget.

Cheers,
Tom

A few weeks ago I was in the shower. I've been in the shower many times since then (really!) but this time was unusual for a few reasons. First, I was in Auckland, New Zealand, and secondly while I was in there I had a huge insight about a song.

I was in NZ at that time working with the very fine Greater Auckland Chapter of Sweet Adelines, a chorus of some 120 very good singers under the unstoppable leadership of Melody Lowe. We were working together on Time After Time, among other songs. Together we figured out what that song was really about, and created a vibrant and impactful story that really allowed the ladies of the GAC to shine.  With groups that good, more often than not that's what I do so they get the most bang for their buck.

Anyway I'm in the shower, singing as usual, and I find myself singing Time After Time:

Time After Time I tell myself that I'm so lucky to be loving you
So lucky to be the one you run to see in the evening when the day is through
I only know what I know the passing years will show you've kept our love so young, so new
And Time After Time you'll hear me say that I'm so lucky to be loving you

And I start to choke up, thinking about my wife Kari back in Vancouver, and how I don't tell her enough how much I love her.

And that, in a nutshell, is what makes music important. It catches you off guard and teaches you things about yourself and about the world. It gives you a chance to experience more things than you could hope to experience in a lifetime without it. That should be all the reason we need to make absolutely sure that music gets the support it needs to be and to stay a thriving, vital part of our society. It should be one of our most deeply cherished values, right after food and shelter.  And in some places, like Hawaii, you barely need shelter!

Anyway, I thanked the ladies of the GAC for their part in bringing me this experience, and promised them I would sing it for Kari. This past week we were in Hawaii together for our 10th wedding anniversary, and I surprised her on a crowded tour bus with just that serenade. Just the look in her eyes was worth it, but as a bonus everyone on the bus went home with a nice story.

More on the specifics of why I like Time After Time so much, in an upcoming post.

Have you ever had trouble remembering what's coming up in your own performance?  There's nothing quite so gut-wrenching as realizing that you don't know the words for the next phrase, or that the whole piece you're about to perform has somehow slipped away...

I remember one time one stage, while taking applause between two songs, when I realized I had no idea what the first words were for the next song.  I leaned over to my quartet-mate and whispered under my breath, as subtly as I could, "what are the first words?"  He thought I was kidding so he leaned over to me and whispered back, "yeah right!"

Not too helpful!

But anyway it's not surprising that memory can be a challenge.  After all, each piece has hundreds of words and hundreds of notes that need remembering, as well as other elements of plan like dynamics, changes in tempo, special treatment of important words, different vocal qualities, perhaps choreography... it can be quite a lot, especially when you consider that your immediate memory can hold only about 7 things.  That's why local phone numbers were held to just that many digits, for example.

It's even harder if you're in charge of making sure that everyone in a large group remembers everything at the same time, with some kind of reliability!

So what can you do?

Well it turns out that every bit of information in your brain is held as a series of connections between neurons.  And to make a long story short and simplify things beyond scientific recognition, the more connections a neuron has, the easier it will be to recall whatever it's holding.  So if you want to remember someone's name, you can play a trick like finding a rhyming word and connecting it with a picture.  So if you're meeting a "Cindy" you might pick "windy" for a rhyme and then make a picture in your head of Cindy on a windmill.  You'll never forget her name after that!

The same thing is true of all the little details of a song.  As long as they remain a more-or-less random sequence of instructions in your head, you'll have trouble recalling them when you need them.  BUT if you have a strong story about your performance piece (who are you, who are you talking to, what do you want, what happens, etc.), all the little details find a comfortable home in that framework, and then when you're "in" the performance, it all comes back.

I was coaching a large choral group recently and the director was complaining that they always forgot a certain dynamic instruction.  And I wondered to myself, do they know why they're supposed to do it?

Depending on your personality type, the idea of designing a whole performance plan in your head might be very appealing!  Wouldn't it be fantastic to just sit down at your desk and conceive the whole master plan in your head, write it down, and be done?

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work that way.  Performance plans that come fully-formed from the head of the director are always lacking, for various reasons.

Firstly, two heads are better than one.  Unless you have special magical powers, adding in a second and third point of view will create a better, more compelling and believable story than you could do by yourself.  Just the process of talking it through with someone will crystallize your own ideas, by forcing you to put them into words.  Talking it through is like a very early version of trying it out for an audience - you'll learn a lot from the reaction you get.  Thinking of it another way, you'll never really know what it's like to communicate your piece until you at least have to communicate your plan!

Ideally you will also involve the rest of the performers, if you're not planning to do it alone.  If you are a musical leader of a large group, don't come to them with a fully formed, inflexible plan.  You might think it will save time, but in practice it just causes problems.  First, they may not buy into the plan if they had nothing to do with its creation.  And you need their buy-in, because without it you'll never get the best out of them.  You might even get sabotage!  People can be... complex.

And even if you work with a bunch of very easy-going performers (is that a contradiction in terms?), you'll spend more time explaining your plan than it would take to develop it jointly.

This does mean that you have to give up on the idea of a plan that is *all yours* but you probably recognize, at some level, that it isn't important.  That's just your ego talking, and you should never let your ego interfere with your goals, like creating the best performances you can.

Most of the time, when I work with a vocal group on a piece, they don't yet have any plan for it.  Not even the basics.  And still, by going through the lyrics and paying attention to the clues that the composer and the arranger have provided, we can usually rough-out a plan in less than a half-hour.  And creating a plan as a group means the group are all going to be on the same page, and better yet they will probably never forget that plan!  In any case their retention will be much better than if they had been given the plan as a fait accompli.