Soloing
I don’t watch a lot of television, particularly at night, but I watched American Idol the past two weeks. The music is good, but what I find interesting is the same thing that fascinates me about Presidential debates; the excruciating pressure of the moment. I love to watch people attempt to deliver the performance of their lives in front of millions. Any slip up can ruin them. I cannot imagine the pressure.
All the while they sing or deliver a speech, a tiny voice screams in their head, issuing commands. It is the voice of failure. The voice that says you can’t do this, you shouldn’t be up here. Run! It’s like a secondary soundtrack that only the performer can hear. And when they listen too close to the voice inside, their concentration wanes and disaster strikes. They miss a note, or their voice wobbles, the nervousness sneaks out.
Harriet Rubin in her book Soloing, related Linda Amiel Burns' rules for soloists. Burns, a former cabaret singer, has mentored thousand of individuals on how to thrive in the spotlight. One of her rules is “master your material so it doesn’t stand in the way of your voice.”
To truly deliver a knockout performance, a singer or speaker needs to know their material so well that they can deliver it without thinking. The risk of this is it allows the tiny voice inside to scream louder. The key is to know your material so well that it is part of your very being, then instead of listening to the negative voice inside, you focus on what your song or speech means, how it touches your heart, how it has changed you. Then your true voice, your true self shines for all to see.
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