"I feel the most nervous when I don't feel prepared for something, so the thing I do in preparing for a concert is make sure that I know what's going on! I make sure that I know my music, that I know where I'm going to be walking, standing, and singing, that I know what's going on beyond those things. If I've prepared well and I'm still nervous, it's usually because I'm nervous about how people are going to feel about my music. When that happens, I try to remember that everyone's rooting for me to succeed (no one wants to see a bad show), and I'll just go out there and do my best! Nervousness is normal, but the most important thing is to try!" -Kyle Lamb "I do lots of relaxing stretches for my body, because tension anywhere makes it harder to sing. I drink lots of water all the time. I drink tea before and during my shows. Sometimes I’ll steam my vocal cords by inhaling over hot water in a metal bowl. I blow bubbles through a big straw to help loosen up my voice. When I’m feeling nervous I try to reframe it as excitement! I know that nervous feeling is because I really want to do a good job at something that is so important to me!" -Nicole Wilder "Great question! One major thing I focus on for myself and train my students on is practicing recovering from mistakes. When a performance is coming, there is a point where I transition my practice (or my students' practice) from practice for learning the music to practice for performing the music. These are very very different things. When practicing to perform, embracing mistakes is critically important. Make your mistakes but keep going. If you are not performing by yourself, keeping accurate time in your head to quickly jump back in can be a tricky skill. If you are performing by yourself, depending on the type of music you are playing and the type of mistake you make, there are generally more options on how to recover. My best advice for performance practice is to (1) decide to do performance practice and treat each run-though as a performance regardless of mistakes, and (2) record your practice and watch yourself. Watch how you recover from your mistakes if/when you make them. At first it will probably be very difficult to avoid just stopping when you make a mistake. This is the worst thing to do during a performance! Practice recovering. Eventually you will get so good at recovering that almost anyone (including possibly you) will not recognize a mistake -- or at least not be sure if that was a mistake or not. As for feeling nervous, generally I always feel some nerves for a performance. Some of my entertainer friends *need* this nervousness to perform at their best. Embrace the nervousness as part of the package! It's easier said than done, but you want to make the nervousness become an asset and a familiar friend that helps you through it a do great." -Dan Wheeler
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"I don't really remember it, but I think my first performance was in preschool! My first music performance not in school though happened when I was in 8th grade. I was part of the Anacrusis Honor Choir down in the cities, and I remember feeling a huge sense of awe when everyone sang together! It was a choir of about 100 7th and 8th grade boys and when we gave it our all, it was so cool!" -Kyle Lamb "I think my first performance was in pre school as well! I believe it was a Christmas Concert. I remember being really excited to see my parents in the audience. And I remember them helping me practice my songs." -Nicole Wilder "It feels like I've been in a lot of performances though Dan and Nicole have probably been in more. Choir folks generally don't do as much gig work as other musicians do, instead opting for a few concerts per season...we certainly rehearse a lot though! If we're talking about number of choir concerts I've been to, I can't give you an exact number, though it's pretty high. Choir concerts are usually an inexpensive way to hear top notch music, so I go whenever it works out! If we're talking concerts in a more "popular" style of music, it'd be less than 10. Not because I don't like that kind of music (I love it!), but because they're often more expensive (especially when you factor in driving costs), and often a bit more social than my introverted self can handle. That said, I've LOVED every concert I've been to in a more "popular" style, and am trying to convince my wallet and my shyness to go to more of them!" -Kyle Lamb "I honestly can’t count how many performances I’ve been in or been to! Hundreds in each case. I feel very lucky to say that!" -Nicole Wilder "There have been many weeks in the last couple of years where I have been in more than 50 performances. During October this year I was doing around 25 performances a week. Like Nicole I have no idea how many overall. I have had conversations with some fellow musicians for some shows where we were trying to narrow down to the nearest hundred how many times we played certain shows together. How many concerts I have been to? No where close to as many as I wish! Maybe (hopefully) in the hundreds I guess, but it feels like I am constantly missing shows that my friends are in or that feature musicians I really want to see perform that I don't know." -Dan Wheeler "Yeah. It's nice to share something I've been working so hard on! The only time I don't like singing in front of people is if I don't feel prepared enough, but that's more about feeling anxious than it is about singing." -Kyle Lamb " love it because I love feeling so connected to a group of people and helping people feel their feelings through song." -Nicole Wilder "Yes! (and no). I love singing and love singing in front of people. I am not a trained singer, and although I sing well enough in a choir, I am frustrated that I often cannot sing what is in my head especially by myself. I'll sing in front of people, but if I'm honest there are a lot of times I choose not to sing when I have an audience." -Dan Wheeler "We're singing for a Veteran's Day assembly (November 11), and then for some caroling around town (November 26) and then for a school concert (December 20)!" -Kyle Lamb "I have shows the Saturday before and the Saturday after Thanksgiving!" -Nicole Wilder "I have 1 performance left today and my alarm just went off for me to get ready to do it. So, 15 minutes." -Dan Wheeler "Great use of "Who and Why"! I do know an emerging hip hop/rap artist because we went to college together! He's also an amazing keyboard player and I'd turn his pages for him on more than one occasion! His name is Donte Allen. Also, I occasionally listen to some hip hop because my students listen to hip hop. It's not a style that I grew up listening to, but I love learning about and listening to different styles of music!" -Kyle Lamb "I know lots of R&B singers but I don’t think I have any hip hop artist friends! Sometimes I feel like Lizzo is my friend because I love how open she is with her fans, but I haven’t actually met her." -Nicole Wilder "Famous ones that you would have heard of? I don’t think so. I work with a lot of singers here in Florida that sing hip-hop along with other styles. They are awesome and great fun! I have met and in some cases shared a stage with or even spent quality time backstage with some notable musicians. The closest to hip-hop would be Kirk Franklin and Take 6. A long time ago I played a concert in the Hearnes Center at the University of Missouri at Columbia and shared the stage with Take 6. I was really frustrated with them at the time because that day they hogged all 7 pianos in the facility so I was not able to practice on the piano with the choir I was playing for the day of the event. Kirk Franklin I met at a concert in a church in New Orleans. At the time I was in the African American Congress of Tulane Gospel Choir. I was an attendee at the concert with the choir and just got to speak to him briefly." -Dan Wheeler "I write mostly pop-style choir music. My students seem to enjoy singing my music, so I keep writing it for them, and that takes up most of my composing energy. When writing, I think about what message I want my performers and my audience to leave with. I'm writing a lot recently about what it means to be accepted and loved right now, and the best ways to do that! I don't have all the answers, but I'm hoping that my music can be a bit of a starting point!" -Kyle Lamb "I like to write a bunch of different kinds of music! I like to write emotional, dark, brooding, moody kinds of stuff along the lines of some of Beethoven’s and Danny Elfman’s music. I like to write quirky and weirdly catchy stuff more along the lines of Prokofiev. I also like to write triumphant heroic and kinds of music like John Williams. Hopefully I’m able to harness these influences as appropriate to create something that tells a story, often the one dictated by a film I’m writing for, though I like my concert music to have a narrative as well. Sometimes I write notes in the music to tell a sort of story that the musicians can picture as they practice and perform. When I’m not writing for film, I write about things on my mind. I have written music that captured my emotions when I was having a baby, when I was feeling like I wasn’t good enough, when I was feeling the urge to mentor and teach, when my dad died, when I was excited about my son’s accomplishments, and even about having to deal with traffic driving to work. I really enjoy writing for orchestra and band and jazz band and choir — and interesting small ensembles like woodwind trio, saxophone quartet, and flute choir!" -Dan Wheeler |
About the Question BoardThe Question Board is a whiteboard in the music classroom and/or an online form on which students can write any music-related questions they have. They can be questions that are unrelated to what we're doing in class, questions that I student prefers to ask anonymously, or questions for our house leaders. Follow this page to see the intriguing and wide variety of questions that students are asking! Archives
April 2023
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