Golden Nuggets 14th Feb - nerves, confidence, vocal technique & poop

In the Golden Nuggets Week of 14th February, we're talking about nerves, confidence, vocal technique versus story telling, and poop. 
We're sharing gems from Webinar 5 - Exams Auditions and Competitions - and how to ace the audition.
You'll hear Gillyanne and I talking about the cycle of nerves and why it's important to know that your cycle might not be my cycle.
The surprising fact about peak heart rate and when it occurs for a performer.
And we chat to Rachel Lynes of @TheSingSpace on how much vocal technique we should be thinking about during a performance. 
And finally, our Inspiration of the Week centres around poop. Listen to the end to find out more

More of the interview with Rachel Lynes @TheSingSpace is on the Vocalprocess YouTube Channel here https://www.youtube.com/vocalprocess

The Learning Lounge with Belting Explained, Exams Auditions & Competitions, My Singer Has A Voice Problem, and over 50 free previews is available here https://bit.ly/VocalProcessLearningLounge

Why Do I Need A Vocal Coach (paperback, ebook and audiobook) is available here https://amzn.to/3HgdQHP

Successful Singing Auditions paperback is available here https://amzn.to/3B4Tsan 

The original blog interview with Dr David Roland is here https://vocalprocess.co.uk/interview-the-confident-performer/
Dr Roland's book is available here https://amzn.to/3spe7SB 

Transcript

Jeremy: 0:11

This is a Voice, a podcast with Dr. Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher. Hello and welcome to this week's Golden Nuggets.

Gillyanne: 0:25

So what in the Golden Nuggets grabbag today Jeremy?

Jeremy: 0:29

Well I'm judging you.

Gillyanne: 0:31

Um, do you know, every time you go out on Facebook or the internet or you do a podcast or anything, do you ever feel like you're being judged?

Jeremy: 0:41

Oh, you definitely are being judged. Absolutely. That's human nature I'm afraid. Uh, anytime you see anything new or you want to know somebody or you want to find something out, you are judging.

Gillyanne: 0:51

Well, we could say we make decisions.

Jeremy: 0:54

No I just prefer judging.

Gillyanne: 0:54

Which is a nicer way, but in fact, um, the topic of judging is quite important for this week's Golden Nuggets. Isn't it? Do you want to say why Jeremy?

Jeremy: 1:03

I do, but just before we do, we'll do the Golden Nuggets, but then we're going to come back at the end and talk about our Inspiration of the Week. And the Inspiration of the Week this week might surprise you. We're going to tell them we're going to give them a clue about what the inspiration is?

Gillyanne: 1:16

It's about poop, or if you live in the UK, poo.

Jeremy: 1:21

Okay, we'll just leave it there. Um, so the focus of this week's Golden Nuggets comes from a book review, then an interview, then a webinar, and then another interview 10 years later. So, the theme of the week for February the 14th happy Valentine's day!

Gillyanne: 1:37

Yes, happy Valentine's day

Jeremy: 1:38

is long pause, plus a closeup of a singer, praying that we're covering something that affects every singer. The Cycle of Nerves. Okay. Gillyanne, we'll see you later. How many times have people said to you, you're a professional. Why are you nervous? The cycle of nerves is normal and follows a pattern. Getting friendly with your personal cycle can really help. We dive into Dr David Roland's research on the Learning Lounge. 10 years ago, I reviewed a book called The Confident Performer by Dr. David Roland and interviewed him for the website. We talk about it on the Learning Lounge in Webinar 5, Exams Auditions and Competitions. Judged performances are a special challenge for nerves. Here's a little excerpt. cycle of nerves.

Gillyanne: 2:23

We're not trying to put on this cycle here, every aspect of nerves, but these are very typical things and they're all interlinked, which is why it's a cycle. I'm sure you recognize some of these symptoms, shaking, breathlessness. Sweatiness. Yes. Going blank. Going blank. Slow motion. Slow motion is going into slow motion. That's one of my things. Yeah.

Jeremy: 2:43

And it's interesting because the more you shake, the more breathless you get and the worse it gets. So that's a cycle of nerves example. Now what we're going to talk about now comes from a book called The Confident Performer by Dr. David Roland. And for those of you who have seen the website, I did an interview with Dr David a couple of years ago on The Confident Performer, really fascinating stuff. So we'll send you the link to that on the west side as well. Okay. This is all stuff from his book. So performance anxiety is based on the potential of social approval and nerves are normal and essential. And in fact, I love this piece of information peak heart rate happens before the performance, not during. And this is a lot of research that he did wiring people up and peak heart rate is up to 160 beats a minute, which is pretty fast and it tends to drop when the performance starts and I can absolutely vouch for that.

Gillyanne: 3:41

Yep, me too

Jeremy: 3:42

And the more professional experience you have, the faster the drop happens. So the more you do, the more you can control it. Once the days or weeks of preparation are complete, there seem to be three distinct stages of nerves. There's the pre-performance build the performance experience and the post-performance ski ride in my case,

Gillyanne: 4:05

It's very important to know there's an after thing that happens. Otherwise you're not aware of it actually being a cycle

Jeremy: 4:13

Your cycle of nerves may not be my cycle of nerves. This is super important. If you want to be part of a group performance, or if you're sitting in the waiting room with auditionees. Gillyanne and I share our personal cycles and it took years to work out they're not the same. Gillyanne always says she only learned how to deal with nerves. Once she'd stopped performing and then continued performing in public workshops in present day. My interview with Dr. David Roland and our subsequent chats in Webinar 5, Exams Auditions and Competitions really helped us to understand what happens when we co- present, even recording this video in webinars, five exams, auditions, and competitions, the cycle of nerves I described going from normal to, and I quote shaking gibbering nerves incredibly fast. And why snapping a tendon in my finger changed that cycle. I even put it on a graph. That's the cycle, not the finger. We got so excited by the concept of the cycle of nerves that we made graphs for each of us. They're very different. Just seeing the patterns in front of us, helped us understand how to manage our nerves. We definitely encourage you to do this for yourself and for your students and for your partner. And bringing things bang up to date, we share a moment from 2022's@theSingSpace interview with Rachel Lynes. How much of our brain should we use for technical thoughts? When performing I have the numbers,

Rachel: 5:42

Um how much of your mind when you're performing is on the knowledge that you have about your voice, or are you able to take to go into that kind of unconscious competence stage where you can go, I've done that. I've practiced it. I know it goodbye for now. I'm on stage, I'm into context now, and it's a cabaret and I'm just going to give it and I've done my work

Jeremy: 6:03

When you get on stage, the job is different. I don't want to see somebody rehearsing. I want to see somebody embodying whatever it is. If it's musical theatre, I want to see that character and what that character goes through. a, If it's a gig, then I want to feel the emotions that that singer is portraying. So it's very much when you're going on stage it's 95% what's the story

Rachel: 6:28

I agree, yes

Jeremy: 6:29

and there's 5% of you? That is just in the background going. There's a tricky high-note coming up. I'm just going to do that technique to make it work. Good. That worked great back into the story we loved this question from Rachel Lynes @theSingSpace and found we were chatting more about performance and music and less about vocal technique. Although I would argue that the techniques for performance music and nerves are just as important. You know you're ready for the audition, but can you deal with the nerves? The audition Countdown. Know your cycle of nerves, rehearse everything, including walking on, talking and interacting with the pianist, then just do it. We've coached so many actors on successful singing auditions. It's amazing how surprised they are by the feedback they get, not on their singing, but how they walk into the room, interact with the panel (and of course, the admin staff) and guide the pianist. Why scupper your own performance by not being prepared to interact? It's all part of the job. We talk about the audition countdown in Webinar 5 and much more about auditions in our books, Successful Singing Auditions and Why Do I Need a Vocal Coach. Check them out and get better at auditions. Okay, Gillyanne's back. Or do you want to tell me what you got inspired by this week? Well, it's something that we did a while ago, but I've been sort of following it ever since and, and reading about it. And it's, uh, a piece of research that is very much a kind of community research. Called the blue poop challenge. I knew we were going to poop somewhere.

Gillyanne: 8:05

Yep. Absolutely poop or poo. And it's based on the research of an Anglo American research group, um, under the title of Zoe, They've looked at thousands of identical twins in a long, longitudinal data study. So that means over several decades. And they started sort of mapping, uh, any health challenges, what they were eating and so forth. Did you know that your microbiomes, which are the, the little cells that live in your gut? Are completely unique to each person. bacteria is actually the word I was looking for people

Jeremy: 8:46

earlier in the Golden Nuggets. We talked about how our cycles of nerves are very different. And it's the idea that your microbiome is also very different. It's completely unique to you.

Gillyanne: 8:57

And in fact, what we found out when we did the blue poop challenge, and we're not going to reveal all which was.

Jeremy: 9:03

we're going to do diagrams and pictures.

Gillyanne: 9:04

Clearly his microbiomes were very different from mine and sometimes that implies that you need to eat differently. Yeah. And honestly, I think this is such an inspiring project. So if you just Google blue poop challenge, you can take part in it even now by making yourself some blue muffins. And then the goal is that you wait to see. How long it takes for the blue to arrive in the poop. And if you then report this, you will get, uh, at the moment it's a fairly broad profile, but they are very useful markers.

Jeremy: 9:40

Can I say don't report it to us. much as we'd like to hear from you, we're not quite sure that we want to hear that from you. So report it to Zoe.

Gillyanne: 9:46

Yeah and you will get some very interesting information about what the Zoe team have found out about, your profile from the blue poop. Now in this part of the blue poop, challenge, you do not need to send your poop anywhere. Shall I say that again?

Jeremy: 10:04

No I think you should keep it exactly as it is.

Gillyanne: 10:06

You do not need to send your poop anywhere. Just look for the blue. Okay. I hope that inspires you as much as it inspired us. Information is super useful. So do check out the Zoe project. Your goal might be long-term health or your goal might be losing weight for good. And they have information on both topics.

Jeremy: 10:28

So I think that's enough poop for the day. We'll see you soon. This is a Voice, a podcast with Dr. Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher