One of the things I hear a lot from choral conductors is that their singers don’t seem to want to try. They’re not motivated to put in the extra work outside of rehearsal, they tune out, they don’t seem to think it matters if they miss time as long as they can make the concert because they “know the notes.” Motivating a diverse room of singers can be a real challenge, because they all have different realities for their life outside of the choir. Sound familiar?
I used to try to fix this with quartet checks, memory checks, and punitive measures for those who failed. The parts got learned, but the attitude didn’t change. Now I’ve realized that such measures promote a culture where a singer will work just hard enough to not get in trouble. In other words, singers are singing for themselves. They’re on defense, and this leads to a mentality where the goal becomes to not fail. Unfortunately, failure is often the best teacher. In failing, not only do we learn how to not fail the next time, but we learn to not fear failure.
So how do we teach our singers to embrace failure? One of the best ways is to model the process of failing for them. I believe that the idea that we need to walk into our rehearsals and present ourselves as perfect is wasted on today’s singers. If I make a mistake, own it, learn from it, and then do better the next time in such a way that my singers can understand that process, they not only can learn how to do the same, but they learn that failure is not the end, but the beginning of our success together. Some examples of modeling failure from my own rehearsals:
- Tenors, sorry I missed that cue. Let’s try it again, and if you promise to look for it, I promise I’ll show it!
- Let me see if I can show that entrance better.
- Mozart seems to strongly recommend D-natural, but I played a D-flat… It will probably sound a lot better if I go with Mozart’s suggestion!
Pretty soon, you’ll hear this attitude reflected back from your singers. They’ll be saying things like “wait, let us try again, we can do that better!” It’s worth noting that you can use humor, but that a big part of learning to move on from failure is moving on. There’s no need to dwell or linger on the failure. Just acknowledge, adjust, and get back to what really matters which is making great music with great people.
This can be the starting point of a longer journey that I’ll write about in the future–one where we create an community where, instead of working for themselves, our singers are working for each other. Think about it: if I’m in choir working for myself, I’m working to get above the minimum; if I’m in choir working for the other people in the room, I’m going to work a lot harder, because I don’t want to be the weak link, I want to be the person that everyone hopes they get to stand next to. If the whole choir has that mentality, the potential for success skyrockets.
Have ideas for promoting failure in rehearsal? Please let me know in the comments below!
Paul H. Thompson 