one note at a time

for when you’re not in the flow

Not long ago I sang in public for the first time in a number of weeks. As you may have noticed (!), summer’s siren song called me to the woods, to the lakes, to my family and away from my performing (and writing) practice. And so, as with anything we stop practicing for a bit, I got out of the groove.

Singers will know, it’s not like I forgot how to sing, but when I went to do the singing, things were not where I expected them to be. Body not quite aligned, breath not full and free. It’s like needing to take your bike in for a tune-up at the beginning of the season. Things get rusty just sitting in the garage. But, a job’s a job, and so when one was offered to me last minute, I said yes and saddled up.

So much attention is paid to being in the flow, to accessing that state where we are the vessel — and the music, art, meaning is just pouring through us. It seems like the highest good to access the flow, and that anything created in another, more mundane state will simply not be as good.

And that’s nice, and may even be true, but we are not machines. Eight shows a week, we will likely not be in the flow for every minute of all of them. Take a vacation with your family, show up to work the next day, many people in many jobs can have an extra cup of offee and ease into their email inbox. Performers are not so lucky. Sometimes we just have to show up and do the thing, and sometimes we are not in the best shape to do it.

This post is for those times.

Because IMO, if we spend our energy at such a moment in trying to find the flow - which would be a version of going for a result - we will be shooting ourselves in the foot. Like chasing a butterfly or trying to catch a feather. The more you reach for it, the more elusive it becomes.

So I showed up to this job and I knew that if I tried to find flow, or if I tried to just “let go and sing,” I would be sunk. I knew from hard-earned experience that in this state I had to dial in my awareness and stick to mindfulness - in other words, release the desire to make art or make something beautiful and instead make one note at a time, with as much presence as possible. I had to release my (intelligent, useful, necessary) awareness of the layers of meaning in the music, things I would normally include in my focus of expression, so that I could use my energy to sing note after note as optimally as possible so I wouldn’t be hoarse by the end.

That was on one level.

On another level, my awareness - particularly of the physical sensations of air on my skin, my feet on the ground, the release of my spine - was what kept me present and out of my head throughout. I was tickled to discover that when I would realize I wasn’t “here” - just like in seated meditation - and snap back to presence, my posture would instinctively snap back to optimal as well!

It was the best commercial for consistent practice I could imagine.

When we practice seated meditation consistently, we may not see the benefits or progress while we’re there on the cushion. But throughout the day, we start to notice more and more frequently when we’re “somewhere else.” Moments of waking up, snapping back to presence, happen more frequently and we realize that maybe this meditation thing is paying off after all.

It’s obviously the same with anything we practice - we take up a sport, and we gain athleticism and strength. We sing more frequently, and the technique we’re learning becomes more fluid and effortless.

So to experience firsthand that the two were working together - that when my mindfulness/awareness practice brought me back to the present, my vocal technique came along with it automatically - well, it made me wonder what else could be possible.

If this is what consistent practice can do on a tough day, imagine what a well-rehearsed performance could feel like!

So it sounds like wow! That must have been one great gig, here she is talking about not looking for flow but it sure sounds like she found it.

Honestly, I didn’t. I was one note at a time, the entire time.

But here’s the other thing about being one note at a time: the critic has no chance to stick its nose in your business.

By the time the critic can come in to tell you how sub-optimal that note was, the sub-optimal note is gone, in the past, and you’re on to this next sensation, and this one, and this one.

Even the flip side, that sense of “hey, this is going pretty well…!” that likes to saunter in, kick its shoes off and relax on the couch when we do think we’ve found the flow - there’s no time for that. Pride goeth before a fall, after all, and so all judgments get cast aside, “good” or “bad,” because whatever is happening now takes all the attention we have.

Suddenly I am reminded of those kids back in acting school who used to not really memorize their lines, because they thought it kept them more “in the moment” to be constantly having to think of them.

The only problem being that if you’re constantly thinking about your lines, it doesn’t leave much mental energy for, you know, creating a character or living in an imaginary world 🤦🏼

So this is certainly not an advertisement for being out of shape, because if you have to white-knuckle every performance to stay present, you can be sure you’ll always be present! A career full of gigs on the edge would not be enjoyable, or sustainable.

But a career full of presence, where we can trust, whether we ever find the flow or not, that what is actually happening in each moment is the key to sharing our gift with ease — now that, I’ll sign up for.