Play Play Play
Last week, I found myself sitting and talking with friends about a karaoke song I had preformed the previous week at one of our local watering holes. The highlight of that conversation for me, was listening to hear myself talk and to discover an “accidental proof of a concept,” which is both my favorite kind of learning experience and an idea that takes a little explaining.
Image: Calvin Harris, H.W., M.
The song I performed was called "Welcome to the Hotel California.”
It seems that everyone there, was surprised at what came out of my mouth. It was not an award winning vocal for the song, but enough to get people telling other people who were not there what they missed.
This explanation of how they heard what they heard goes back awhile, lets say 50 years ago, when I became committed to learn how to sing. Let’s say at the time I could not hear the difference in my voice of one note from another. Let’s be kind and say I was working with a restricted musical range of less than an octave.
Marion Bell, a retired singer and musical theatre performer best known for her role in the Broadway musical Brigadoon, just happened to be a Prosperos student who had taken on the challenge of producing for the Prosperos School a musical variety show presenting material using students from the School who had little to no background in singing or musical theater. This was going to prove to be challenging and creatively stimulating, for her and her fellow Prosperos student production team. Marion’s production team members featuring Afton Pitt (Afton Pitt Orchestra 1952 OAFM, Local Salt Lake City, Utah), A pianist and musical arranger, and Lane Montgomery (formerly involvement with Sacramento Music Circus stage productions). Thane the Dean of the Properos had master mind the idea and had procured material for our little home grown shows from Wits’ End Cabaret Theater in Atlanta Gorgia who at the time (1970s), was creating humors pieces of material out of the periods significant social, racial, and cultural shifts and challenges.
Now there I am going to be part of this production but I might find myself going to need to expand my range. That is when. I was approached by Marion Bell, who took me aside to explain to me I was tone-deaf, and by taking voice lessons with her I could create compelling music within a narrower vocal range.
To reach a peak performance I went every week to practice vocal scales with Marion. Not to sing but to practice, then practice became play. Surprisingly, I practiced with a focused discipline to align voice with a note played, it took on this different approach it was not work, it was playing to hear a sound and then to correctly duplicate it. It became play, not only that, but a resonates within my whole body. Every time that I went for a lesson it was play, and then when the musical score was introduced for me to learn and duplicate its sound, it became conscious playing to reproduce those sounds. Then to mix, match or blend with the other voices in group numbers became this game this play. Then the sounds took on meaning as words, and how to get the body to express that. As a group we learn to have fun with the music and that fun and laughter flowed out to our audiences in our production of what we called the Clap-Saddle Corral, an off, off, off Broadway production.
Every time I went on that stage it was fun and laughter. It was play, play for the audience, play for the cast, play for me. It was Not about doing the Song—just about the practice, the hour spent every week in the play practice. An hour , all winter long. I micro-dosed how to sing. I didn’t judge my form. I didn’t try to improve. I just played. I treated it like an experiment: Could you onboard an extremely technical singing skill simply by spreading out the practice over time and removing all pressure?
Image: Calvin Harris, H.W., M.
Turns out, science says yes! According to Steven Kotler, bestselling author, journalist, and the cofounder Flow Research Collective. He states back in the late 1970s, researchers showed that spaced practice (short, repeated sessions) boosts both motor learning and retention. In the early 2000s, neuroscientists discovered that this style of learning enhances synaptic plasticity, the brain’s ability to rewire itself. And in the past decade, flow researchers have found that deliberate play—repetition with improvisation—often outperforms deliberate practice as both a learning strategy and a reliable flow trigger.
So here I am 50 years later, and I am pushed onto this tiny stage in the late afternoon. No Rehearsal. No looking at the music to prepare. And I begin to Play. Play what I know about the music, Play what I know about the Song, and play with the audience. The applause was a complete surprise to me.
There’ve been a lot of years between my last micro-practice play sessions and my moment on that stage.
I played, not with singing per say but with the words of the song. Without giving it much thought, I flipped to feelings of how the song made me feel. I wasn’t focused on the melody. I wasn’t even paying attention. I was looking at the words, and the audience.
That’s when it hit me.
Just by messing around and doing the karaoke song — no pressure, no goal—I’d brought back something. An accidental proof of concept.
A physical skill onboarded through micro-dosed practice, I call it play and long-term consistency.
The importance of this story: Ability loves the long game.
Ask yourself three questions:
What scary skill would massively improve your life?
How could you sneak it into your life via micro-dosed play sessions tucked betwixt and between?
What’s stopping you?
Aloha, Calvin