More Lessons from the World of Sport

Last week following the NE Patriots' win over the Baltimore Ravens, during the post-game Q&A, I was struck by several of Coach Bellicheck's responses. The man doesn't have a lot of patience for things that don't win football games. Sometimes he speaks a truth so plainly, it sounds harsh. Here is an excerpt from the Q&A that struck me:

Q: When you evaluate Deion Branch’s array of skills, what do you think are the best two or three?

BB: He can get open and catch the ball. Don’t make it too complicated.

What a gift of cutting right to the core! Don't make it too complicated. We all know a cappella singing is a lot like NFL football, isn't it?

Don't Make It Too Complicated: A Page From Bellicheck's Playbook

As musical directors, we coach our singers to produce better vowels, a beautiful blend, a sound that resonates and rings in the hall. We teach them to breathe from down low, support with abdominal muscles, hold the jaw this way, only use the tongue to make this sound, squeeze this, yawn, lift this, stretch that and so on. When considering how to raise the bar in your choir, remember the simplicity of Bellicheck's genius. Don't make it too complicated! A singer has to take a breath and make a good sound. Sure, a zillion components go into making that sound a good one, but everyone fundamentally knows how to do it. Your job is to draw that out without over-complicating it.

We need to recognize that fundamental truth as we coach our singers. Making a beautiful sound involves getting out of the way and allowing the body do what it was born to do. At some level, our body knows how to do it without any thinking at all.

A Cappella Singing and MLB Baseball: "We Have Eliminated Thinking!"

Remember the 2004 Red Sox? How did they overcome such a huge deficit and overcome a superior opponent? I recall it was Johnny Damon who answered the question: "We have eliminated thinking!" That team found a way to get thinking out of the way and became an irresistible force.

A couple of weeks ago, Blue of a Kind was working on a piece with quite a bit of sparse, syncopated, percussive entrances. The guys were coming in near the off-beat point, but with a pronounced staggered effect. Each "bop" sounded like "b-b-b-bop" and the effect was killing the song. For weeks, we had drilled the rhythm, talking it through while tapping the tempo. We ran it dozens of times in slow motion and fast motion. The guys listened to learning track files countless times between rehearsals, but when the moment came to sing it, all we got was "b-b-b-bop".

Becoming An Irresistible Force

I could see everyone was trying very hard to get it right. Their eyes seemed to be picturing the sheet music and trying to figure exactly where the "bop" was. Sometimes we get too tied to those black notes on the white page! I decided the only way to make this work was by eliminating all that thinking and get it down to something which had to be in their bones already. I told them they all knew exactly where the entrances were and asked everyone to close their eyes and sing as they felt it. Guess what? They nailed every single entrance! The song took on a new life, one that was totally irresistible. This is what you want!

You Already Know How To Do It

I had a voice coach who used to say, "If you can talk, you can sing." Singing is nothing more than talking with a little more time spent on the vowels. Many of us probably engage more natural singing skills calling our kids to dinner than in choir practice. When we sing, we get concerned about how it sounds in our head, we apply tension in our vocal apparatus trying to adjust what we hear hoping to diminish our sense of feeling exposed or not sounding good enough. The result is a twisted and distorted sound. It just ain't natural! We need to impart tips and tricks that enable our singers to do what they already know how to do!