How To Use Beginner’s Mind To Revitalize Your Vocal Practice And Performance
Actor Willem Dafoe has said:
“I set myself challenges every time I work. Ideally, I approach everything as though it's the first time - with a beginner's mind and an amateur's love.”
No matter how many days, months, or years you’ve been practicing, approaching it with renewed anticipation and love every day is challenging. It’s easy to lose sight of the forest for the trees. Seeing the task at hand with a beginner’s mind — no preconceptions and an open mind, is one way to keep your vocal practice fresh.
Mix a beginner’s mind with an amateur’s love, and you have the prescription for a healthy, life-long relationship with your singing practice. Instead of dreading more rote practicing, you’ll see more possibilities in the present moment.
So, how do you cultivate a beginner’s mind?
One way is to actively notice things.
Psychologist, Ellen Langer, has done a raft of research about mindlessness and mindfulness. In an interview with Krista Tippet of the On Being podcast, Langer says,
“When you actively notice new things, that puts you in the present, makes you sensitive to context. As you’re noticing new things, it’s engaging, and it turns out, after a lot of research, that we find that it’s literally, not just figuratively, enlivening.”
Langer uses relationships as one example of this kind of noticing.
“I don’t think you can make a decision that “I’m going to be present.” What does that mean? So that the people who tell you to meditate, there’s an assumption that over time, that will put you in the present. But if you’re actively noticing things — so you’re going to go home tonight and, if you live with somebody, notice five new things about that person. It’s very — it can be very specific. And what will happen is, the person will start to come alive for you again, and that facilitates the relationship.”
When you apply this kind of noticing to the things you do every day in your practice, the vocal exercises you do to warm up and the songs you’ve performed a thousand times become alive again.
For more on Ellen Langer’s fascinating work, check out this video.
