Incorporating New Techniques
It’s funny how our brains masticate on ideas while we sleep. I woke up the other morning with this beautiful framework for how we integrate new techniques into practice.
When we’re first exploring a new coordination—vocal, but really it could be in all sorts of areas in our lives—the clunky, foreign nature of doing something new can lead to a significant decline in our feedback monitoring. I’m calling this stage “exploration” as it feels like unfamiliar territory. We don’t really know how to even think about this new coordination because we need more experience before we can understand the subtle sensations, feedback, or cues that we’re on the right track.
Once we begin to have a predictable pattern of executing the new coordination, we enter “intentionality.” Here, successful execution feels familiar and predictable but requires significant focus. When we are in this mode, it is important not to demand the layering of other techniques, even those that might be well within our habitual toolbox of coordinations. This is one of the reasons I have students sing with sheet music and/or lyrics, depending on their comfort, during lessons. If we are actively working on vocal/postural/breathing/resonance/etc. coordinations that are new to them, I want them to be able to focus on those without the distraction of the focus necessary to sing the musical elements we are not working on. In my own lessons, I use sheet music, even on well-memorized material, when I’m working on new techniques so I can be sure that my full attention is on the new coordination. This is a completely different practice than preparing for performance and should be treated differently than a memorized performance.
A coordination becomes a “technique” that is available to you, once it is familiar enough that it no longer requires isolated focus. At first, it might only be able to be layered on for short periods or specific phrases. Eventually, the friction of focus is low enough that it can be added to that toolbox of techniques which we can grab as needed to address any variety of vocal challenges. Techniques are familiar territory; they can be played with, manipulated, and layered with significant levels of success.
The final stage is habit. Techniques move into habit when they are just the way you do things. Here, hardly any focus is needed for them because they have been practiced to the point of muscle memory and default execution. This is our performance ready zone. Anything not in here is likely to be sacrificed to the adrenalin gods of live performance. Our technical zone will be largely available to us but will show a lack of polish if there are too many of any of those stacked up in any one area of our performance. Anything that requires active focus will either be missing or leave a gaping hole in other aspects of performance which would need to sacrifice intentionality.
The habitual realm is also where all sorts of interesting undoing might be needed to reprogram coordinations we wish to change. If they are habitual, we need to bring them back into focus. We know the territory so well that we can walk it with our eyes closed, but now in order to bring intention back into it, we might need to do something to actively call our attention. An example of this is maybe using a piece of tape on your forehead so you can have a sensory reminder when you lift your eyebrows unnecessarily.
I’ve been using this paradigm to discuss vocal techniques, but I think it is also a great framework for thinking about musical preparation. I am often entertained by the thought of what I used to think was “enough preparation” for a piece to feel ready for the public. Memorizing text on the way to the audition, not having any idea how many measures of introduction I have, or maybe not even knowing how to count the measures that are there! It is, of course, a skill that develops as singers move through different performance experiences and you can’t expect a beginner to prepare music to the extent that an undergrad, graduate, emerging artist, or established artist would. That said, thinking about music preparation in the above framework can help students and teachers establish clarity on how prepared any given aspect of singing might be. Does the singer need the text in front of them to focus on the melody? If so, the text and melody are not yet fully accessible. Does artful musicality go completely out of focus as soon as the student is “memorized?” This means they haven’t memorized, or habituated, their artistic choices.