THE ART OF POSSIBILITY A demonstration of effective

THE ART OF POSSIBILITY A demonstration of effective techniques to motivate, inspire and improve rehearsal attitude. Dr. James Stegall Distinguished Faculty Lecturer Director of Choral Activities Western Illinois University www. wiu. edu/cofac/choirs October 17, 2015

THE SITUATION… The Treadmill, The Schedule, Light Deprivation, and Inactivity

A UNIVERSE OF POSSIBILITY Emily Dickinson 1830 -1886 I dwell in Possibility – A fairer House than Prose – More numerous of Windows – Superior – for Doors – Of Chambers as the Cedars – Impregnable of Eye – And for an Everlasting Roof – The Gambrels of the Sky – Of Visitors – the fairest – For Occupation – This – The spreading wide my narrow Hands – To gather Paradise –

LET’S WORK TOGETHER "We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall hang separately. “ In the Continental Congress just before signing the Declaration of Independence, 1776.

Students will experience a wide variety of scholarly performances and experiences which are offered in the context of nurturing learning environment. WIU CHOIRS PHILOSOPHY

FOCUS POINTS

Everyone … …wants to do a good job. FOCUS POINT

Don’t Assign… Blame. FOCUS POINT

Blaming students [for poor academic performance or motivation] is like doctors in a hospital saying, “Don’t send us any more sick people – we don’t know what to do with them. Send us healthy patients so we can look like good doctors. ” The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life – Parker Palmer

Teaching by doing… is better than teaching by preaching. FOCUS POINT

We need communicate! to FOCUS POINT

The evidence!

Don’t complain! FOCUS POINT

Complaining is one of the ego’s favorite strategies for strengthening itself. Complaining as well as faultfinding and reactivity strengthen the ego’s sense of boundary and separateness on which its survival depends. But they also strengthen the ego in another way by giving it a feeling of superiority on which is thrives. There is nothing that strengthens the ego more than being right. For you to be right, of course, you need someone to be wrong. In other words: you need others to be wrong in order to get a stronger sense of who you are. __________________________ A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle

See the… extra in the ordinary. FOCUS POINT

VINCENT’S CHAIR Van Gogh didn’t say : “That’s just an old chair. ” He sensed the beingness of the chair. The chair itself would sell for a few dollars, the painting of the chair today would fetch in excess of $25 million.

Use the whole sheet! FOCUS POINT

Can you connect the nine dots using four straight lines without lifting your pencil? . .

We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are. – Anaïs Nin, American Author (Cuban) [ana|is nin] FOCUS POINT

Power vs. Force FOCUS POINT

Teach With Skill The skillful are not obvious. They appear to be simple-minded. Those who know this know the patterns of the Absolute. To know the patterns is the Subtle Power. The Subtle Power moves all things and has no name. Power Vs. Force – The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior - David R. Hawkins

FORCE v Force must always be justified. v Force creates counterforce. v It polarizes rather than unifies. v It inevitably produces a win/lose dichotomy. v When someone loses, enemies are created.

POWER Power arises from meaning. v It has to do with motive, and it has to do with principle. v v Power is always associated with that which supports the significance of life itself. v Power appeals to what uplifts, dignifies, and ennobles.

POWER v The source of power is associated with meaning and this meaning has to do with the significance of life itself. We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. Preamble, The Constitution of the United States of America

THREE PATHS TO POWER 1. The person has the capacity to, authority, or ability to hurt you in some way. 2. The person might be influential with others because of what they can do for them. 3. The person you believe is powerful is someone others believe in, someone they honor, someone they respect. They comply with this person’s wishes because they want what he/she wants. This person has power with others, not over others. The Power Principle – Blaine Lee

MOTIVATIONAL TECHNIQUES

Expression in Performance Visual TECHNIQUES

THE GERMS MODEL Performance expression is best conceptualized as a multi-dimensional phenomenon consisting of five primary components: (a) Generative rules that function to clarify the musical structure; (b) Emotional expression that serves to convey intended emotions to listeners; (c) Random variations that reflect human limitations with regard to internal timekeeper variance and motor delays; (d) Motion principles that prescribe that some aspects of the performance (e. g. timing) should be shaped in accordance with patterns of biological motion; and (e) Stylistic unexpectedness that involves local deviations from performance conventions. Five Facets of Musical Expression: A Psychologist’s Perspective on Musical Performance - Patrik N. Juslin, Psychology of Music Vol 33 No. 3

GERMS According to the GERMS model, a music performance should (a) convey the structure of the music, (b) express emotions, (c) exhibit motor precision, (d) be suggestive of human motion and gesture, and (e) deviate from stylistic expectations in creative and aesthetically pleasing ways. Five Facets of Musical Expression: A Psychologist’s Perspective on Musical Performance - Patrik N. Juslin

The aspect of expression in most need of a formalized teaching strategy is emotion (E). This is regrettable, considering that the strongest predictor of listeners’ judgments of expression in the GERM experiment was the emotion component. This suggests that music teaching should pay more attention to the emotion component of expression. - Patrik N. Juslin

The findings [from recent research] add to an emerging literature demonstrating that visual aspects of music performance can powerfully affect our interpretations and experience of the music. Visual effects on perception of music are observed not only for vocal music but also for instrumental music. Audio-visual integration of emotional cues in song - Thompson, Russo, Quinto

• • • Sing to a child. Sing to your puppy. Sing to your lover. Sing to your enemy. Sing to a person with a few minutes to live. • The Mirror Technique • Create your own scenario EXPRESSION TECHNIQUE

• • • LOVE HATE ANGER FRUSTRATION HAPPY EMOTIONAL CUE CARDS The Radiant Performer: The Spiral Path to Performing Power – Wesley Balk

Expression in Performance Diction Skills TECHNIQUE

FACIAL EXPRESSIONS OF EMOTION IN SPEECH AND SINGING An experiment dealing with the recognition of emotions in speech and in singing for two subject populations (opera amateurs and non-amateurs) was conducted to assess the respective roles of a professional singer's voice and facial expressions in the perception of emotions, and to determine how the audience decodes those emotions. The results of visual, auditory, and audiovisual perception tests showed that emotions expressed during speech were identified better than those expressed during singing.

FACIAL EXPRESSIONS OF EMOTION IN SPEECH AND SINGING While facial expressions appear to play an important role, the voice proved to be a relatively poor conveyor of emotional information. When voice and facial expression were combined, the recognition of emotions improved slightly for speech but not for singing, where the acoustic cues of emotions are partially destroyed and therefore do not provide any additional information. Facial Expressions of Emotions in Speech and Singing – Di Carlo, Guaïtella

DICTION SKILLS The International Phonetic Alphabet

IPA NOW IPANow! by Phonetic. Soft is a software application that automatically transcribes Latin, Italian, German and French texts into International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols by applying rules utilized by scholarly lyric diction textbooks. Simply type or paste in a text, click a button, and IPANow! produces an IPA transcription underneath each line of text that can then be exported in Rich Text Format (. rtf). http: //www. ipanow. com/

EASYPRONUNCIATION. COM Phonetic Transcription Converters Tired of looking up the pronunciation of each word in a dictionary? Not sure where to put an accent in a word? The phonetic transcription converters on this site will help you! Save your time and learn a foreign language comfortably! Paste in some text and press the submit button – the converter will show you the phonetic transcription of your text written with International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) symbols. The phonetic converters are available for the following languages: Chinese English French Italian Japanese Russian (stress marks) Spanish

VOWEL RECOGNITION [ ɑ ] father [ Ɔ ] awful [ Ɛ ] wed [ u ] you [ i ] see [ Ʊ ] look [ o ] obey [ Ȝ ] learn

Digitally Record Your Choir Audio - wave, mp 3, m 4 p Video – DVD, DV, VHS TECHNIQUE

Explicit monitoring theory postulates that with pressure, the performer focuses attention on the step-by-step processes in an attempt to execute the task correctly. Explicit monitoring theory can account for why participants trained under the video-monitoring condition were immune to the detrimental effects of performance pressure. Training familiarized them with performance under conditions that encourage conscious monitoring of task processes. They were, therefore, less likely to fail under pressure. Performance degradation under pressure in music: an examination of attentional processes – Catherine Wan, Gail Houn

Perform More Often A choir must perform as frequently as it can concertize with polish and finesse. Preparing for performances maintains interest and keeps the choir members in the mood for work. A group that performs very little or not at all is usually a dying organization, because the desire for perfection and feelings of accomplishment and organizational pride are not aroused. Choral Music Education – Paul Roe TECHNIQUE

WHITE SHEETS Real Rehearsal Evaluation TECHNIQUE

• Evaluate your rehearsal today. • Were you adequately prepared for rehearsal? • I would like further clarification on the concept of… • Provide a place for a signature. • Please include your helpful comments. • Leave the sheet blank • All white sheets should include the student’s signature REHEARSAL EVALUATION

• • • The silent rehearsal Skip a measure The blindfolded rehearsal The Socratic rehearsal Change your formations regularly Unusual Music OTHER TECHNIQUES

References Balk, H. Wesley. 1991. The Radiant Performer: The Spiral Path to Performing Power. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Di Carlo, Nicole S. , Guaïtella, Isabella. 2004. Facial expression of Emotion in Speech and Singing. Semiotica 149, No 1 -4: 37 -55. Hawkins, David R. 2002. Power vs. Force: The Hidden Determinants of Human Behavior. Carlsbad, CA: Hay House Inc. Juslin, Patrik N. 2008. Five Facets of Musical Expression: A Psychologist’s Perspective on Musical Performance. Psychology of Music 31(3): 273 -302. Lee, Blain. 1998. The Power Principle: Influence with Honor. New York: Simon and Schuster. Palmer, Parker. 1998. The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner landscape of a teacher’s life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc. Phonetic Soft. IPA Now. http: //www. ipanow. com. Thompson, William F. , Russo, Frank A. , and Quinto, Lena. 2007. Audio-Visual Inegration in Song. Psychology Press. Tolle, Eckhart. 2005. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. New York: Penguin Group. Zander, Rosamund, Benjamin Zander. 2002. The Art of Possibility. New York: Penguin Books.