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Singing on the Upbeat
A Positivity Primer for Singers and Teachers
by Lisa Houston
“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.”
Herm Albright (1876-1944)
I once heard a description of a teaching method by one of the great Italian singing masters. She sits at the piano and plays a note. The student sings the note and the teacher says, simply, “No.” The process repeats itself many times with the student singing the note and the teacher responding, “No.” Finally, through simple trial and error, the student sings the note correctly and the teacher cries out, ecstatically, pointing at the student, “Si!”
This story was told to me by one of my teachers, and the point of telling it was to emphasize the responsibility of the student for understanding and replicating what is done to sing well. As physical disciplines go, singing is perhaps unique in that the actual mechanism for performing the action is invisible to all, including one’s teacher. The muscles of the larynx, the breathing and the vocal cords that produce the sound cannot be directly manipulated, corrected, or even pointed to by the teacher. That is why good vocal pedagogy must help to build a strong sense connection within the mind and body of the student. Ultimately, you need to know what you did right and, somehow, do it again. Learning to sing well demands that a student take a good deal of responsibility. But what about all those “No’”?
My current teacher, David Jones, was a student of the late Alan Lindquest whom he says simply never used the word “No.” It is something he emulates in his own teaching. So how does he teach? Well, it sort of reminds me of the advice given to fiction writers, which is “Show, don’t tell.” In writing fiction, it is said to be more effective to show your characters behaving in ways that reveal who they are, rather than to use a short cut and tell the reader who they are. When I have a voice lesson now, I am given an idea, or exercise to work with. The instruction includes what to avoid, but very little time is spent focusing on what I’m doing wrong. If David says “Let’s try this” and switches to a different exercise, I can well believe that there was something less than ideal about what I just sang that inspired him to change gears, but it is often in the doing of the next exercise that I learn what may have been lacking a moment before. The “No” in the moment is conspicuously lacking. Often, by the time I’m aware of a problem, I’m deep into the solution. Not only do I find it better for my self-esteem and self confidence as a singer to study this way, but I think it is a faster, more effective way to make adjustments because as much time as possible is spent building positive muscle memory.
“We have been taught to believe that negative equals realistic and positive equals unrealistic.”
Susan Jeffers
One reason I would like to address this topic is that I think in the arts we often have an unreasonably high tolerance for the “evil genius” type. Singers seem sometimes to be particularly vulnerable to this, and stay with teachers who have a very negative psychological impact on them. There are certain voice teachers that I often hear horror stories about, and yet students continue to flock to their studios. Perhaps it is a case of putting up with bad treatment because they get great results. But it may also be that those singers simply believe the quotation above. They think that the more a teacher focuses on what’s wrong with their singing, the more they must know. There is certain logic to it, but if a teacher is harsh and continually exasperated in a way that makes the student feel discouraged, frustrated, or even humiliated, the results can be devastating. I know of one singer whose teacher would come backstage at intermission to berate her. Eventually, that singer’s confidence was damaged and she retired early. That teacher may have known a great deal about singing and vocal technique, but that doesn’t mean they knew anything about good teaching. So the question for singers is: is it alright to want both accurate technical vocal information and a positive learning environment? Here is how one of the characters in my new favorite TV show, “Smash” (which is about the making of a Broadway musical,) asked the question: “A lot of people are talented. We are in an industry which is lousy with talent. Is it too much to ask for kindness, too?” There are many teachers and many coaches in the world, and despite what some of them would have you believe, the mean ones do not have a corner on the vocal wisdom market.
As a teacher, I would say that my own negativity has usual come from frustration or a lack of flexibility on my own part. Sometimes, when I have had an idea that I felt was very important for the student understand, I would just be very stubborn about getting it across, even when I could see that it wasn’t working. But people have different ways of taking in information and no matter how valid the idea may be, sometimes, you’re going to have to go through another door, or wait till another day to make your point. As David Jones puts it: “We all identify slightly differently with our body focal points, therefore teachers need at least 4 or 5 ways to teach each concept.” If a teacher has only one way to get a point across and the student fails to grasp it, their only recourse could be to find fault with the student. Therefore, a teacher’s negativity may actually be an indicator of a lack of experience or depth in teaching abilities.
When one begins to see that there are teachers who are both skilled, and kind, it is difficult to justify putting up with anything else. I recently had a first (and last) coaching with someone who did not have one single positive thing to say in the course of the whole hour. I decided then and there never to work with him again. I think in the past, I would have been drawn to a coach like that, falling into the trap mentioned above, namely, the idea that mean teachers somehow have a monopoly on wisdom. In the workplace, one finds all kinds of people with all kinds of attitudes, and as singers, we do need to have tough skins at times. But does that mean we need to pay for a negative environment? As a recent online post of a singer friend of mine declared proudly “I will no longer work with coaches who think they need to be @#$#@s! and take my money!” Can I get an Amen?
“I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
The case above where a singer retired early could have been an example of a condition called “learned helplessness.” The concept was coined by Martin Seligman, a psychologist, author and educator known for his pioneering research in the field of positive psychology. Learned helplessness is the result of repeatedly having one’s actions fail to illicit a positive outcome. In an educational environment, if the student’s experience of study is that nothing is ever good enough for the teacher, the natural motivation of the student can be inhibited. Despite success at major opera houses, the singer couldn’t do anything that was deemed good enough by the teacher. Seligman’s more recent work, as head of Penn State’s Positive Psychology Department, also draws correlations between the experience of positive emotions and enhanced learning. His research has shown that “greater well-being enhances learning, the traditional goal of education. Positive mood produces broader attention, more creative thinking, and more holistic thinking.”
But what degree of positivity actually enhances the feelings of well being that promotes learning? Does this mean that the more positive a learning environment, the more a student learns? Most singers are probably familiar with the type of teacher, often a retired Diva, who sits with her Pomeranian on her lap stroking the dogs ears and saying nothing but, “that was beautiful Darling.” Such meaningless praise hardly helps the singer to achieve his or her highest potential. Most teachers know that it can be a bit of a high wire act, finding the balance between encouragement and critique, and the goal is always to find the middle ground that helps the student understand what needs to be improved, and to feel excited and good enough about themselves to work on it. There has been some research on work place productivity that offers insight into just where that sweet spot or middle ground may lie. Donald O. Clifton, another researcher in the field of Positive Psychology, discovered something that seems to prove that using positivity excessively may also be ineffective. In a book (co-written with his Grandson,) Clifton reveals the results of Gallup surveys of 4 million workers, which show that there is an upper limit to positivity in the workplace. The studies indicate that there is not only a “magic ratio” of positive to negative interactions at work (five to one) but also an upper limit. “More than 13 positive interactions for every 1 negative interaction could decrease productivity.”
But just what one deems to be a negative environment is very personal and depends on the temperament and skill of both student and teacher. An environment that seems unduly harsh on the surface, may actually be very supportive of the student’s growth if administered with depth of skill. One analogy for this is the use of the stick, or Keisaku, in some schools of Zen Buddhism. It is a flat, wooden stick sometimes used by the teacher to slap the student between the shoulders to strengthen concentration or keep the person meditating from getting sleepy. One Zen Master in the Rinzai lineage described the use of the stick. “It can be very refreshing. It shouldn’t be painful. After you’ve had a Keisaku from someone whose practice is very deep, it is quite different. Soen-roshi’s Keisaku was not a loud and whacking and big sound like [that of] some of the monks who whack you so hard you’re hurting for hours afterwards. His was very strong, but not loud, and just in the right place so that you felt: Uhhhhh. There, now I can sit up again!” So perhaps critique in singing lessons is like the stick. It is most important how it is used, and depending on the student and teacher, may not need to be used at all.
One final point. The teacher is not the only one who is responsible for creating a positive learning environment. As stated at the beginning of this article, learning to sing requires that the student take a good deal of responsibility. What if a student replies to every critique with a lengthy explanation of why he or she cannot do what the teacher is asking, or does not take an active role in the learning process, in essence provoking a negative response from the teacher by accepting too little accountability? If that is the case, a student may become a studio hopper and find teacher after teacher to be overly critical and ultimately become discouraged about studying in general. An honest self-evaluation would prevent that from occurring.
Positive psychology is a relatively new field, but its goal is an old one: Finding out how to help people be happier. The work agrees with what the Dalai Lama has said: “The purpose of life is to be happy.” And isn’t that the fundamental purpose of singing? Whether amateurs or professionals, we can all remember that spark, that buzz, that incomparable feeling of joy that singing first brought to us. It is the thing that first drew us to singing. Remember that?! If, somehow, we can keep that feeling at the top of the voice studio’s “to do” list, we will all be happy teaching, studying, and singing for a long time. Whether you are student or teacher or both, if you really want to know how it’s going in the studio, just ask your self at the end of the hour-and answer honestly- did the lesson help you to reconnect with that special feeling, or not? That is the gold we should all be mining for.
A Positivity Primer for Singers and Teachers
by Lisa Houston
“A positive attitude may not solve all your problems, but it will annoy enough people to make it worth the effort.”
Herm Albright (1876-1944)
I once heard a description of a teaching method by one of the great Italian singing masters. She sits at the piano and plays a note. The student sings the note and the teacher says, simply, “No.” The process repeats itself many times with the student singing the note and the teacher responding, “No.” Finally, through simple trial and error, the student sings the note correctly and the teacher cries out, ecstatically, pointing at the student, “Si!”
This story was told to me by one of my teachers, and the point of telling it was to emphasize the responsibility of the student for understanding and replicating what is done to sing well. As physical disciplines go, singing is perhaps unique in that the actual mechanism for performing the action is invisible to all, including one’s teacher. The muscles of the larynx, the breathing and the vocal cords that produce the sound cannot be directly manipulated, corrected, or even pointed to by the teacher. That is why good vocal pedagogy must help to build a strong sense connection within the mind and body of the student. Ultimately, you need to know what you did right and, somehow, do it again. Learning to sing well demands that a student take a good deal of responsibility. But what about all those “No’”?
My current teacher, David Jones, was a student of the late Alan Lindquest whom he says simply never used the word “No.” It is something he emulates in his own teaching. So how does he teach? Well, it sort of reminds me of the advice given to fiction writers, which is “Show, don’t tell.” In writing fiction, it is said to be more effective to show your characters behaving in ways that reveal who they are, rather than to use a short cut and tell the reader who they are. When I have a voice lesson now, I am given an idea, or exercise to work with. The instruction includes what to avoid, but very little time is spent focusing on what I’m doing wrong. If David says “Let’s try this” and switches to a different exercise, I can well believe that there was something less than ideal about what I just sang that inspired him to change gears, but it is often in the doing of the next exercise that I learn what may have been lacking a moment before. The “No” in the moment is conspicuously lacking. Often, by the time I’m aware of a problem, I’m deep into the solution. Not only do I find it better for my self-esteem and self confidence as a singer to study this way, but I think it is a faster, more effective way to make adjustments because as much time as possible is spent building positive muscle memory.
“We have been taught to believe that negative equals realistic and positive equals unrealistic.”
Susan Jeffers
One reason I would like to address this topic is that I think in the arts we often have an unreasonably high tolerance for the “evil genius” type. Singers seem sometimes to be particularly vulnerable to this, and stay with teachers who have a very negative psychological impact on them. There are certain voice teachers that I often hear horror stories about, and yet students continue to flock to their studios. Perhaps it is a case of putting up with bad treatment because they get great results. But it may also be that those singers simply believe the quotation above. They think that the more a teacher focuses on what’s wrong with their singing, the more they must know. There is certain logic to it, but if a teacher is harsh and continually exasperated in a way that makes the student feel discouraged, frustrated, or even humiliated, the results can be devastating. I know of one singer whose teacher would come backstage at intermission to berate her. Eventually, that singer’s confidence was damaged and she retired early. That teacher may have known a great deal about singing and vocal technique, but that doesn’t mean they knew anything about good teaching. So the question for singers is: is it alright to want both accurate technical vocal information and a positive learning environment? Here is how one of the characters in my new favorite TV show, “Smash” (which is about the making of a Broadway musical,) asked the question: “A lot of people are talented. We are in an industry which is lousy with talent. Is it too much to ask for kindness, too?” There are many teachers and many coaches in the world, and despite what some of them would have you believe, the mean ones do not have a corner on the vocal wisdom market.
As a teacher, I would say that my own negativity has usual come from frustration or a lack of flexibility on my own part. Sometimes, when I have had an idea that I felt was very important for the student understand, I would just be very stubborn about getting it across, even when I could see that it wasn’t working. But people have different ways of taking in information and no matter how valid the idea may be, sometimes, you’re going to have to go through another door, or wait till another day to make your point. As David Jones puts it: “We all identify slightly differently with our body focal points, therefore teachers need at least 4 or 5 ways to teach each concept.” If a teacher has only one way to get a point across and the student fails to grasp it, their only recourse could be to find fault with the student. Therefore, a teacher’s negativity may actually be an indicator of a lack of experience or depth in teaching abilities.
When one begins to see that there are teachers who are both skilled, and kind, it is difficult to justify putting up with anything else. I recently had a first (and last) coaching with someone who did not have one single positive thing to say in the course of the whole hour. I decided then and there never to work with him again. I think in the past, I would have been drawn to a coach like that, falling into the trap mentioned above, namely, the idea that mean teachers somehow have a monopoly on wisdom. In the workplace, one finds all kinds of people with all kinds of attitudes, and as singers, we do need to have tough skins at times. But does that mean we need to pay for a negative environment? As a recent online post of a singer friend of mine declared proudly “I will no longer work with coaches who think they need to be @#$#@s! and take my money!” Can I get an Amen?
“I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.”
Albert Einstein (1879-1955)
The case above where a singer retired early could have been an example of a condition called “learned helplessness.” The concept was coined by Martin Seligman, a psychologist, author and educator known for his pioneering research in the field of positive psychology. Learned helplessness is the result of repeatedly having one’s actions fail to illicit a positive outcome. In an educational environment, if the student’s experience of study is that nothing is ever good enough for the teacher, the natural motivation of the student can be inhibited. Despite success at major opera houses, the singer couldn’t do anything that was deemed good enough by the teacher. Seligman’s more recent work, as head of Penn State’s Positive Psychology Department, also draws correlations between the experience of positive emotions and enhanced learning. His research has shown that “greater well-being enhances learning, the traditional goal of education. Positive mood produces broader attention, more creative thinking, and more holistic thinking.”
But what degree of positivity actually enhances the feelings of well being that promotes learning? Does this mean that the more positive a learning environment, the more a student learns? Most singers are probably familiar with the type of teacher, often a retired Diva, who sits with her Pomeranian on her lap stroking the dogs ears and saying nothing but, “that was beautiful Darling.” Such meaningless praise hardly helps the singer to achieve his or her highest potential. Most teachers know that it can be a bit of a high wire act, finding the balance between encouragement and critique, and the goal is always to find the middle ground that helps the student understand what needs to be improved, and to feel excited and good enough about themselves to work on it. There has been some research on work place productivity that offers insight into just where that sweet spot or middle ground may lie. Donald O. Clifton, another researcher in the field of Positive Psychology, discovered something that seems to prove that using positivity excessively may also be ineffective. In a book (co-written with his Grandson,) Clifton reveals the results of Gallup surveys of 4 million workers, which show that there is an upper limit to positivity in the workplace. The studies indicate that there is not only a “magic ratio” of positive to negative interactions at work (five to one) but also an upper limit. “More than 13 positive interactions for every 1 negative interaction could decrease productivity.”
But just what one deems to be a negative environment is very personal and depends on the temperament and skill of both student and teacher. An environment that seems unduly harsh on the surface, may actually be very supportive of the student’s growth if administered with depth of skill. One analogy for this is the use of the stick, or Keisaku, in some schools of Zen Buddhism. It is a flat, wooden stick sometimes used by the teacher to slap the student between the shoulders to strengthen concentration or keep the person meditating from getting sleepy. One Zen Master in the Rinzai lineage described the use of the stick. “It can be very refreshing. It shouldn’t be painful. After you’ve had a Keisaku from someone whose practice is very deep, it is quite different. Soen-roshi’s Keisaku was not a loud and whacking and big sound like [that of] some of the monks who whack you so hard you’re hurting for hours afterwards. His was very strong, but not loud, and just in the right place so that you felt: Uhhhhh. There, now I can sit up again!” So perhaps critique in singing lessons is like the stick. It is most important how it is used, and depending on the student and teacher, may not need to be used at all.
One final point. The teacher is not the only one who is responsible for creating a positive learning environment. As stated at the beginning of this article, learning to sing requires that the student take a good deal of responsibility. What if a student replies to every critique with a lengthy explanation of why he or she cannot do what the teacher is asking, or does not take an active role in the learning process, in essence provoking a negative response from the teacher by accepting too little accountability? If that is the case, a student may become a studio hopper and find teacher after teacher to be overly critical and ultimately become discouraged about studying in general. An honest self-evaluation would prevent that from occurring.
Positive psychology is a relatively new field, but its goal is an old one: Finding out how to help people be happier. The work agrees with what the Dalai Lama has said: “The purpose of life is to be happy.” And isn’t that the fundamental purpose of singing? Whether amateurs or professionals, we can all remember that spark, that buzz, that incomparable feeling of joy that singing first brought to us. It is the thing that first drew us to singing. Remember that?! If, somehow, we can keep that feeling at the top of the voice studio’s “to do” list, we will all be happy teaching, studying, and singing for a long time. Whether you are student or teacher or both, if you really want to know how it’s going in the studio, just ask your self at the end of the hour-and answer honestly- did the lesson help you to reconnect with that special feeling, or not? That is the gold we should all be mining for.
©Lisa Houston 2022