Conductor's Corner: When What You Say Is Not What You Get

Do you feel like the instructions you are giving your singers in rehearsal are not getting the desired result? Conductor Axel Theimer, the founder and artistic director of the Twin Cities-based Kantorei, has developed new approaches that align with research on how humans learn best. Consider his strategies for putting your singers at ease and tapping into their abilities.

We choral conductors have an idea in our heads of the beautiful expressive singing we want. Yet sometimes our best efforts to get our singers to produce that sound ends in exasperation. “Why don’t they get it?” we wonder.

It’s not that our singers aren’t trying. Most of them are trying very, very hard to do what we ask them to do. And that’s part of the problem. All of this conscious effort may actually get in the way of our singers’ learning process by making them tense.

Learning by Doing

Axel TheimerAxel Theimer

As a conductor, I have been influenced and encouraged by the research about how humans learn. Humans don’t learn very well by just being told what to do. We learn by doing. Our brains need the opportunity to execute a task many times over and then to assess the outcome every time after completing the task.

Like all skills, learning singing is accomplished by doing. Learning by doing follows these steps:

  • Set an intention. (What do I want to accomplish/do?)
  • Just do it.
  • Assess the results.
  • Do it again, without feeling pressure to try harder.

Removing the pressure to “try harder” is important. Society teaches us that in order to improve, we must feel like we are working hard. But demanding that singers try harder can easily lead to tension, frustration, less free voices and, in the long run, vocal fatigue and quitting. After all, the brain is mostly interested in continuing to do things that lead to a sense of feeling successful—without the use of threat.

Going through these steps repeatedly will lead to skill development. As we provide our singers with opportunities to build singing skills, we enable them to become more vocally expressive—without having to try to be expressive.

Engaging the Entire Bodymind

Research also tells us that in order to learn a new skill—and to retain that skill—we need to involve our entire body and mind. Using activities that engage the body in a balanced and flexible way is a more productive and beneficial method of developing skills.

That also means paying attention to our state of mind, because state of mind affects the body. If a singer has a day when they feel like slumping, we need to accept that. To simply tell a singer to "stand up straight" may create feelings of conflict and resistance. We need to engage the entire person in a way that will lead to a change in how they feel. That change will then be reflected in their physical attitude.

The Things Conductors Say

Keeping these ideas in mind, I have had second thoughts about some of the things that I, and perhaps many conductors, have commonly told singers in rehearsal. Here are just a few examples:

“Maintain good posture.”

We want our singers to have “good posture.” But what do we mean by it and how do they interpret it? Often singers react to this instruction by going into a “held” position, leaving them unable to move freely and creating rigidity in their muscles. Suddenly they find it more difficult to breathe easily—or to imagine movement, fluidity, and flexibility in the body. Creating musical flow becomes work instead of being a natural reaction to the music we are hearing or producing.

Certain muscle groups engage to keep us upright and usually we are not even aware that they are working. But when singers assume a rigid posture, they activate a lot of other unnecessary muscle groups, some of which may possibly affect breathing coordination. They can still breathe, but it is more work.

The traditional steps of attaining good posture are “shoulders back” and “sternum high.” But lifting the sternum often results in people actively crunching their rib cage in the back. Imagine the rib cage as a cylinder. Lengthening one side inevitably results in compressing the opposite side. You can’t have it both ways.

Do this: Invite singers to “be present in the room” or to “be aware of what is going on around you.” Their shoulders will tend to relax and their rib cages open up because they are not holding a rigid posture. Their bodies will be ready to move and sing without interference.

Do this: Ask singers to move while singing. You might suggest a motion that reflects the text or the rhythm of a piece you are working on. Again, this will help them give up holding onto a rigid posture.

Do this: There are times we don’t want singers to move too much. Instead of asking them to “stand still” or telling them "do not move," invite them to "arrive at stillness." This creates a very different effect than a command to “stand still.”

“Take a good breath.”

Breathing should be something we simply do—it is not work. But when we say “take a good breath,” singers start to work on breathing. You can actually see and hear the special efforts they begin to make. Unfortunately, when singers work hard on breathing, they tend to engage the muscle groups needed to inhale and exhale in an adversarial way, creating tension. When these two muscle groups resist each other, breathing sure feels like work!

Choral rehearsals often focus on breath control. Many singers equate "breath control" with holding the air back. This prevents the air from flowing freely and evenly. We need to allow our singers to get more comfortable with using the air—not controlling it by holding it in. We need to allow their brains to figure it out: “Did I have enough breath or not?” So the learning process is this:

Intention: How far will I be able to sing on one breath?

Doing: Sing the phrase.

Assess: How far did I get?

Doing: Do it again. The bodymind will automatically trigger more breath intake.

Of course, the reason a singer is running out of air may have little to do with lack of breath support. It may have more to do with how trained or conditioned he or she is, how well his or her vocal fold mechanism is developed, whether or not he or she is healthy, or other things. We need to help that singer identify the real reason and address it.

Do this: Have your singers expel air on an “s” or “sh” sound. Then let them observe how easily the breath comes back in without them having to work at it. Refrain if you can from using phrases like “breath control” or “breath support.”

Do this: Have your singers sing a whole phrase on a lip buzz or on flipped “r.” Doing a lip buzz, they will be less concerned about making it through the phrase and will accept the fact that they may run out of breath.  After all, these sounds are very "breath active.” It seems that our bodies know best what they must do to make that sound—and suddenly they are not worrying about controlling the breath.

“Singers, you need to blend.”

What do conductors mean when we say “blend”? Usually, we are looking for a unified sound where no one voice is sticking out, or where all of the vowels are "the same." Singers often interpret the instruction to blend as an admonition to match the sound of other singers. Sometimes conductors actually identify a singer and ask everyone else to match or imitate that sound.

Every voice is unique. We all have different bone structures (unless you are an identical twin), which means that all of us are dealing with different voice characteristics and individual resonance spaces. That's what allows others to identify us by the sound of our very own voice.

When we ask a singer to “listen to others and see that you blend,” we may be taking away his or her voice’s capability to fully reflect the emotions and text of the music. I believe you get a blending choir if everybody arrives at a similar level of efficiency in the use and release of the voice. I don’t want to achieve blend by having singers work hard to control their voices or to imitate someone else's sound.

Do this: Make exploration your goal. Lead your singers through vocalizing and exploring the voice. The more we understand how the entire body works, how the breath works, how the brain works, the closer we will come to that natural way of singing. Your singers will then be able to use their voices in an efficient, easy manner—and because of that, they will blend.

“You’re singing flat. You need to sing higher.”

No one says, “I am going to sing flat today to get the conductor upset.” Flatness is a result of how we either use the entire body or how we are controlling or releasing the voice. Flatness is a symptom. Asking singers to just sing higher is not really taking care of the problem. Often that leads to singers exerting more control and becoming increasingly tense—one of the things that can lead to flatness in the first place.

There can be many causes for singing flat. When singing descending lines, for example, singers may simply “pull back,” disengaging their breath flow or decreasing the intensity of the breath. When they back off, the vocal folds will react, and flatness may result. Blowing too much air through the vocal folds without developing the skill to increase the "adduction" of the vocal folds and adjust the thickness of the folds can have the opposite effect—going sharp.

Sometimes when singing darker vowels, especially on a descending line, singers decrease the airflow and the tongue pulls back. At that point, they have changed the entire acoustical environment of the voice. They feel that they need to "work harder" and a pressed sound quality might replace the natural "ring" of the overtones. The vocal folds are too thick and will sound at a lower frequency.

Do this:  If there is a particular choral piece that tends to flatten, have your choir sing it on a lip trill. Most likely it will not go flat, because singing on the trill activates an efficient use of the breath. Then go back to singing the words. Ask the singers to notice what it feels like to be more connected to the breath. The point is to involve them in the process of exploring—tossing off notes with confidence and simply recognizing which notes need to be changed the next time they sing the phrase.

The good news is that no matter what kind of choral group you lead, no matter the singers’ skill level, you can create an atmosphere that allows singers to learn by doing. The goal is to give singers a deeper understanding of how their voices and bodies work based on exploration and skill development, not fear and demands to try harder.

Contact

Contact Axel Theimer at [email protected].

Resources

The VoiceCare Network
An expanding network of people who want to teach healthy and expressive voice skills; continue to learn effective teaching methods; and improve their own voices.

Stones in the Water
The website of Babette Lightner, on the faculty of the VoiceCare Network and the BFA University of Minnesota/Guthrie Theater Acting program, offers an array of resources to help performers transform unwanted tension and stress.