Artistry & Expression

add section on Performance Anxiety

Raise one hand over your head until you can't see it. Even though you can't see your hand, you know exactly where it is, right? Wiggle your fingers. Note that you can use your inclusive awareness as you continue to wiggle your fingers, expanding your awareness to include the rest of your body in your kinesthetic awareness.

How does the rest of your body feel?

With inclusive awareness, you can use your other senses to include your chair, the room temperature, the color of the walls, the size of the room, the hum, the color of the lighting, and the faint sounds next door. You can always choose to expand your awareness.

You include other stimuli and become aware of how all the elements relate to each other.

DEVELOPING AWARENESS [Activity]

WHY INCLUSIVE AWARENESS IS IMPORTANT

INCLUSIVE AWARENESS IN PERFORMANCE

3 Types of Attention:

1) Concentration

2) Rapid Scanning

3) Inclusive Awareness

Concentration and rapid scanning alone don't provide enough awareness for singers to perform to their highest potential. Only inclusive awareness allows singers to perform in relationship to music, the text, other musicians, and the concert hall.

Concentration is an extremely limited tool because it is attention on a single object. For example as you sing, you might concentrate only on your jaw, only to leave the rest of your body in the dark. Because you are narrowing your focus on your jaw, you may not notice that the cause of your neck tension is that your head is off balance and placed too high. You may not notice that your breathing is restricted because your arm structure is too low.

Using rapid scanning (sequential concentration), you quickly move your attention from one area of the body to the next. In a voice lesson, you might concentrate exclusively on your jaw, then your rib movement then your facial expression, and then your tone quality. This can be exhausting and unnecessary work for your brain.

Rapid scanning and concentration are exercises about isolation, whereas inclusive awareness is an exercise about relationship. For singers, the most effective mode of attention is inclusive awareness. Imagine that you are holding the flashlight of your attention, and that you take several steps backward so that the beam of light takes in everything necessary for singing. Your awareness is everything necessary for singing--all at once. Each part of your body relates to the other parts because your inner awareness is integrated with your outer awareness. With inclusive awareness you are not working hard to become aware of all these elements simultaneously. Nor are you trying to exclude other elements. You are simply expanding your awareness to include yourself in relationship to your world, and your world in relationship to yourself. Within inclusive awareness, your focus can easily shift to what needs your attention the most: the conductor in one moment, how much air are taking in during the next moment. The difference between inclusive awareness and rapid scanning is that you are still in relationship with the other elements even as you shift focus from element to element.

The finest singers, dancers, and athletes naturally use inclusive awareness. Some of us simply need to expand this skill, and others need to completely relearn it. The reason we say 'relearn' is that we actually had this skill as children. So the good news is that the skill of inclusive awareness can be both relearned and refined.

ATTENTION TYPES

Inclusive awareness can allow you to expand your awareness to include yourself and your environment. Using information from all of your senses, it will provide the link between yourself and your environment. You can use inclusive awareness and kinesthesia to be simultaneously aware of yourself and your surroundings: your body in terms of movement, the music, the text, other performers, the audience, the stage, and the performance venue.

When you do a personal recording or sing in private, it can feel easier to sing without the distraction and fear you feel with an audience. Often, public performance can affect the quality of the performance because of distractions and/or anxiety. Learning to use your kinesthesia and inclusive awareness when singing in public can allow you to perform more confidently.

USING FORMS OF ATTENTION [Activity]

Choose a part of your body and concentrate on it. Now, sing a few phrases, and notice what happens to your moving and singing. Next, rapidly scan parts of your body as you sing and notice what happens. Finally, use inclusive awareness and notice what happens to your body and to your singing. If you expand your awareness to include yourself and your environment, you should notice that this form of attention is easier and far more beneficial than concentration or rapid scanning. Furthermore, you will notice that you can easily shift focus and can make any necessary adjustments to your body and singing in order to attain the best performance.

Resource: What Every Singer Needs To Know About The Body, Malde/Allen/Zeller