What is Practice?
I want to redefine practice. For most of my adult life I’ve only felt like I’ve had a “successful” practice session when I am able to sing full out, and sing through multiple songs from my repertoire. I do this to the point of not even counting my less-than-satisfactory sessions on my practice log. But that’s not sustainable, because being an adult and working full time in the midst of late stage capitalism is exhausting. Then I had to go and have ambitious dreams too? I can feel my body screaming at me to rest and I can feel myself resisting. I hear a tiny voice in my head that says “if you don’t practice every day you’ll never make it to Broadway.” But let’s face it, that’s some utter bullshit.
First of all, do I even want “Broadway” specifically? Not necessarily. I mean, of course I want that, but ultimately I just want to tell moving stories with the best of the best artists in the world. And those artists aren’t all on Broadway. We know that Broadway is more than just raw talent; it’s luck, it’s nepotism, it’s fame, it’s politics. This whole ideology of Broadway being the end-all/be-all of “making it” doesn’t make any sense. And while I understand all of that intellectually, emotionally it’s harder. I believe, however, that there are steps to take to help my somatic being understand. One of those steps is redefining practice. So let’s do it.
Practice is engaging with my art.
Practice is flexible.
Practice can and must meet my body and mind where it’s at on any given day.
Practice is sacred.
I feel warmed up when I have moved my body, when I have meditated, when I have massaged my feet and built a connection to the earth beneath me. I feel warmed up when I take time (a commodity that is so hard to come by these days). I feel warmed up when the day before I too much water for my tiny bladder to even comprehend. I feel warmed up when I’m actively taking care of myself. I want to make a habit of moving through life in a constant state of “warming up.” And when I come to my official “practice time” I want to be gentle and kind. I want to meet myself where I am, and thank myself for showing up in the first place.
Now let’s get practical… here is a list of tangible activities that count as practicing (oh god I already feel myself resisting this):
Listening to other performers sing my repertoire
Analyzing the text
Studying the show/context of the piece
Watching recent recordings of myself, and taking note of what I’d like to try differently
Writing more thoughts on singing, and attempting to integrate the thoughts into my lived experience
S.O.V.T. work
Journaling about the character, or through the perspective of the character
Straight up having a full on practice session where I don’t feel like I sounded particularly great. Even when I sound bad, or feel mediocre, this is still practicing.
Being less than amazing at something you care about as an adult is so awful. We become so unwilling to be bad at stuff. I sing because I love it, and I don’t love it because I’m good at it (which I am…), I love it because it feels good. So I choose to love it even when I don’t feel particularly good at it.