purpose

OK let's say you're a singer.  You have enough technique under your belt so that you can carry a tune, and you can hit all the necessary notes well.  You've got some material that is matched to your technical skill, neither so easy that you will be bored, nor so difficult that you will be anxious.  You've decided to perform for the benefit of the audience rather than ego gratification or to please your teacher, and with that goal in mind you have breathed some life into that material by creating a compelling story that connects it to real life and authentic emotion, and you have some idea of a plan that will convey your story.

Got all that?  It's not as difficult as it might seem.  Technique -> Material -> Story -> Plan.

The purpose of rehearsal is to take all that conceptual stuff and make it real.  You don't sing a song by writing down your plan - the song only exists when it is sung, and the first time you actually sing it, you can expect to learn all sorts of things about your plan that don't work, and maybe you'll want to revise elements of your story too!  Funny thing about reality - it's a lot easier to see than abstractions.  And when you can see it, you can decide whether it works or doesn't work.

The biggest sin of rehearsal is so obvious it's almost embarrassing to say it: you have to rehearse what you intend to perform!  Many groups get together and work exclusively on technique, perhaps because they view singing as a technical challenge.  That's a bit like viewing a book as a printing challenge - it's missing the point.  I mean it's true that if you don't get the words on the page, nobody can read them, but what people care about is exactly what the words say!  The meaning of the book is delivered *through* the printing, not *by* the printing.

So for many people, the biggest challenge is simply accepting their level of skill, whatever it happens to be.  There is no such thing as perfect, and striving for perfection beyond a certain point is all about you, and having fun trying to master the game of technique.  There's nothing wrong with doing that of course, but don't confuse it for a performance goal.  The audience cares about their experience of your performance, they do not care about your skills as long as they aren't getting in the way.  So if your skills are good enough to remove distractions for your audience, as far as performance is concerned any further work on skills is a waste of time.

In reality of course nearly every performer will need to work on skills.  But as long as you realize that the skills are only a carrier for what your audience cares about, you should have no trouble organizing your rehearsal accordingly!  Try splitting it 50/50 for a while - spend the first half of each rehearsal working on skills, and the second half working on higher level concepts.

For example, talk about the story of your piece until you are crystal clear about it.  Make sure every bar of your music has some meaning attached to it.  You'll have an easier time accessing that meaning if you have a rich set of images or movies that relate to the story, that you can run through in your head as you communicate your piece.

Once the story is clear, spend some time performing, and decide what needs to change about your plan.  What techniques could make the story more clear to the audience?

Get objective feedback - record yourself, audio and video, and then review the recording.  Does everything seem to work?

Rehearsal can be incredibly rewarding and enjoyable in itself if you do it right.  Try to turn each rehearsal into a "flow" experience by making sure that it has clear goals, instant feedback, and that you really concentrate your attention.  (If you can't tell from that last paragraph, I've just read "Flow" by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi.  There's a book review post on the way soon!)

It may be common sense stuff, but if you can make your rehearsals really effective, you'll have a big advantage over 90% of the other performers on the planet who commit this Deadly Sin routinely.  There's an awful lot of wheel-spinning going on out there!

I've been watching TED.com videos like a madman for the past few months.  If you are not yet a regular TED watcher, I highly recommend it.  You will have you mind blown often!  Of course I tend to apply my stage performance filter to everything I see, and these videos are no exception.  So when someone mentions art and performance directly, they get my attention.

Most recently I watched a 20 minute presentation by Stephen Pinker about public reaction to his book "The Blank Slate."  I'm definitely going to get that book and read it.  Without going into detail about the book itself, here's what he says about modernism and postmodernism and what they have offered us:

• visual art without beauty
• literature without narrative, plot
• poetry without meter, rhyme
• architecture & planning without ornament, human scale, green space, natural light
• music without melody, rhythm
• criticism without clarity, attention to aesthetics, and insight into human condition

Stephen goes on to say, "elite arts and criticism have distained beauty, pleasure, clarity, insight and style.  People are staying away from elite art and criticism.  What a puzzle!"

What a puzzle indeed!  The whole leading edge of art has lost touch with its original purpose, namely to give people something they want and need from art, and instead has turned inward, each new work comparing itself to what came before, self-consciously terrified to be unoriginal.  I've heard that every great symphony has already been written.  I suppose that's why all the symphonic works past a certain date are, let's be honest here, unpleasant to listen to.

Pop music doesn't suffer from these issues.  If it did, it would never have become "popular."  Of course arguably it suffers from other issues - perhaps the subject of a future post.  Acting is also notably absent from the postmodernism fail list.  But then it's inherently built out of realism - real people doing believable things - so it's hard to take it in a direction like "poetry without meter and rhyme" or "music without melody and rhythm."

However, a lot of performance becomes inward looking for other reasons.  I happen to be rather familiar with the cutting-edge of barbershop arrangements (don't laugh - the style does change!), and amongst the elite arrangers, every new chart has to outshine the last, by being more complex and more impressive.  It keeps the elite arrangers motivated and passionate about their work, and it thrills a certain sub-culture of barbershop arrangement fanatics and elite quartet singers.  The general audience, though, is excluded often times from performances of these arrangements, because the purpose of the performer who chose that vehicle is often inward-focused.  "Look at me and how well I can sing this impossible chart!" they scream.  It's like watching someone juggle five kittens, a bucket of water and a chainsaw.  It's intriguing.  It's impressive.  You applaud.  Then you walk away and say, "that was neat.  I wonder what's on TV?"

Don't let your art lose touch with its purpose!  "Impressive" doesn't get standing ovations.