Criticism is the Thief of Creativity

We all can do better; teachers too

I’ve heard we’re born with confidence that gets chipped away. Some say encouragement from other people builds confidence. Some say confidence is built with experience. A few years ago I read that confidence is the byproduct of the courage to be vulnerable. I like that one. There seems to be truth in all of them!

I know for sure that confidence gets squashed by other peoples’ judgment, and by our own. Critical self-talk is maybe worse; because it’s there all the time. Those internal thoughts came from somewhere though.

Maybe it’s a snide remark in jest, a thoughtless comment; maybe it’s sarcasm (covert cruelty). Or, the silent covert judgments from society or culture. I see it daily on social media. And, I’ve seen the evidence, year after year, the harm those slight judgmental jabs have on the creative spirit. Singing has been my lens for so many years, and I’ve witnessed the pain comparisons and judgments cause, so this is the arena I tend to write about. 

“Comparison is the thief of Joy”

This Teddy Roosevelt quote is the most often recited quote of my career! I’ve probably said it (on average) once a week for 20+ years. 

I learned it the hard way. As much joy that singing has brought me, it has also produced heartache; the results of comparison.

I remember the hints of comparison creeping in, starting with puberty. For me, this started at the age of 10. First it was body comparing; clothes; what we had/didn’t have. I was the new kid a lot (2 elementary schools, 2 junior high schools, 2 high schools). On paper it doesn’t look like a lot, but energetically, they were tough transitions. I was looking for places to fit in when so many relationships were already established. The choir was the only place where I felt consistently welcomed. 

If there were comparisons there, I didn’t notice. Of course, I got solos all the time, so maybe I would have noticed if I wasn’t chosen. Choir in 9th grade found me at my most settled and confident self in my school years. My friends and I teamed up to sing songs together in our down time. We recreated some of New Edition’s songs with our 4 and 5 part harmonies. I remember the fun, not the Competition. Maybe it’s because our favorite boy band was telling us through their hit (by the same name), to come together!

You know how you can remember a feeling, but you can’t remember the details? I can picture my choir room in 11th grade (another new start at a new school) and can remember a visceral wash of shame (maybe that’s what it was) from a girl’s reaction to how “good” my voice was. I can’t picture who she was, what she looked like; just the memory of a look. A look of… disgust and/or disdain?

People enjoying my singing had never been a bad thing.  It was my first experience with comparison that made me view competition as a bad thing. I was never really competitive; didn’t play sports, was an easy loser and humble winner at card games. I’d never felt that nasty sting of jealousy before. I didn’t like it. That began a new distortion and stained relationship with singing. It felt very confusing and disheartening. 

Singing had been fun; a release, a way to express, an escape. (Check out my latest musing where I questioned my first love.)

Do It Right

In college, the goal with singing became learning how to do it correctly. I left a high control religion for a high control academic set of rules and restrictions around the freedom of my voice. Technique-wise, the goal was to find more freedom, more space, less constriction, for those big operatic sounds to come out. But, it felt so unnatural to me, yet, that was the assignment, and I was a trained rule follower. 

The sense of my loss of freedom in singing was around me getting to be in charge of what I sang and how I sang it. I was trying to change the one thing that had brought me the greatest comfort in my life; my voice. And, I learned how to judge it. Like literally, we had Juries, our singing exams where we were scored/graded/judged on our singing. 

I was quick to buy into it the right way/wrong way of it all. Perhaps because those were the years I was starting to untangle myself from a very rigid religious experience, and it was scary. In one shape or form or another, I’d been told my whole life that I was inherently bad and needed someone else’s (church) rules; that I shouldn’t trust my body, that it was bad too. So, I easily traded one form of righteousness for another. I was no longer judging you and me for heaven or hell, but judging what I sang and how I sang. And, therefore, I was judging your voice and musical choices too. 

I had kind teachers. There wasn’t anything blatantly critical, the judgment was very matter of fact; it seemed like that’s just how the education system works in training singers. Maybe the system isn’t as harmful to a person who already has a good balanced sense of self and self worth. That was not me. It fed into my already programmed people pleasing, black and white thinking brain. 

I started an admin job at my alma mater after I graduated. I kept singing with my teachers and in a few years, they asked me to take on some students myself. I’d never planned on becoming a teacher; I tripped into it

I began teaching how I was taught. That didn’t really work for true beginners. Or, singers that weren’t interested in classical music. But, those were the rules. Sing like this, not like that. That actually wasn’t so much fun when the student didn’t want to. And, near impossible when they didn’t have skills to start with these sophisticated techniques. Trying to teach a 13-yr old or a 60-yr old classical technique on a folk song or theater song was like trying to put the square block in the round circle, again and again. I faked my way through those first couple of years, because the students seemed to like it, and I didn’t know another way. But, I was curious when it didn’t work.

And, after a lifetime of doing what came easy for me, and avoiding challenges (because surviving life was challenging enough), I actually embraced not knowing something for the first time and decided to learn all that i could about the voice, and how to sing ALL types of music, so that I could help people sing the songs they loved. It was the beginning of me unwinding about ten years of learned rigid thinking around singing.

Are Teachers Helping or Hurting?

I began teaching in 2000. By 2002, I had folks coming who wanted to audition for American Idol. I was out of my depths with only my instincts and my classical education. 

I also wanted to help the people who couldn’t match pitch; the outcasts; the ‘unteachable’. (This is what I was told) I didn’t buy it! And, so many of these singers were the ones who told me of their traumatic memories of being told not to sing, or told to mouth the words in choir - told by a teacher. People can be taught; someone just has to be willing to teach! I don’t think singing is a gift. Maybe if it naturally comes easy, that’s the gift part. But, that doesn’t mean everyone else can’t find it.

By 2012, I knew I was already onto something really different. My college colleagues started to shun me because of song and technical choices. I was coloring outside the lines. But science embraced me. I began a relationship with a local ENT practice where we shared an interest in educating and helping injured voices. I made dozens of voice teacher friends around the country who were curious and exploring more somatic and functional approaches to singing all types of music.

Right before I opened my own studio 10 years ago, I had a website built. I thought about putting “not your mama's voice teacher“ on there. Thought that might be too casual and quirky at the time. I was happy to try lots of different approaches to help folks find the sounds they wanted to make. I put my text books away, put on my science lab glasses (ears) and we played with sound. We made faces and singing became fun again.

I remember going to a voice conference a month after the movie, LaLa Land came out in 2016. I couldn’t believe the criticism Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone were getting for their singing. It is still one of my favorite movies, and I was so touched by the songs; their voices. It was so disheartening to hear the snobbery of people criticizing their sound. Most of the teachers in this organization teach in academia. Is that what we want to be teaching?

I recently read a delightful article by an old opera colleague of mine, on singing 40 years with the local opera chorus. He said that he hopes that more people see the beauty of the art form and realize it’s not just for the elite. But, I think the hierarchy and elitism lives deeper; it’s more endemic. There is judgment about people’s sounds from the people who are employed to do the training. So, the judgment and elitism continues generationally. 

When I started teaching, I was just as righteous about the right way to sing (the way I was taught), as I was when I handed out “Answer” tracks with the youth group in high school. I see now, in both instances, that so much of my need to be in the right was tied to my concept of being safe. 

Finding Peace & Support

As I began my healing journey - doing trauma recovery work, and truly finding myself, my value - I started rooting out messages and sources of unworthiness. I had decent self-esteem; had confidence in my abilities as a singer, teacher, but my self worth (as a human) was low. 

I had to let go of some relationships, find new supportive people and places to grow and who would buoy and support my interests. And, in my experience, it was easier to see my value away from the judginess of the classical world. Really, quitting the church choir was helpful too. Surrounding myself with people who believed in me, appreciated me and what I had to offer, and that includes my voice/sound, continued to build my confidence in my worth.

Harm of Hierarchy

I began to see that the high class position of singing classically, or operatically, is in the ether. It’s why people “ooh” and “ahh” when I’m introduced as a former opera singer. It’s also why I hate being introduced that way. It continues to hold up the myth that there is something better (posh) about that training. I sang opera for awhile, but I never identified as an opera singer. Maybe because it was never my passion. Is there a label that you get that irks you?

And, while I’m much more comfortable singing popular music styles, and find it a less judgmental world, snarky criticism shows up there too. 

Maybe it’s the influence of American Idol and the like, and now, social media, that have created a free forum for judging and criticizing others’ art (and bodies!). It’s commonplace to sling thoughtless comments at singers. Really, towards anyone new to an art form - picking up an instrument, paint brush, dance. I see professional musicians on social media almost weekly, expressing sarcastic disdain for people who aren’t doing music the way they think it should be done. 

The judgment can be overt and mean on Facebook! And, because I’m a lifelong musician and longtime voice teacher, I have a lot of friends in the music and teaching world. My feed is a veritable minefield of criticism after every single national anthem performance with questionable pitch or style. That last poor girl entered rehab after the big social media kerfuffle! People don’t know what is happening with someone’s voice (body) and are so quick to criticize.

I usually just take a deep breath and roll my eyes when I read somebody’s critical Facebook post. They say we get angry about what’s important to us. And, when we allow the anger to come through. It can turn into passion. I guess that’s what this is… a passion post. This musing began after seeing yet another judgey comment on someone’s feed about the wrong way someone is doing music. Ugh. Eye rolling and moving on wasn’t in the cards on this day.

Photo by Jovan Vasiljević on Unsplash

Socrates, Sherlock & Faith

I’m obviously in the philosopher phase of my life. I’ve been the technician, the manager, the scientist. Perhaps it’s the time in my life, or coming through so many styles of education as a voice teacher, intersecting with the healing journey and recent nervous system education; I find myself questioning everything. That philosophy minor is coming in handy now!

I immediately stiffen and balk when I hear someone (of any field) say: “THIS is the way.” No way there can be only ONE way. The questioning has served me, and my clients. Investigate and find a different way, another way; what works for one, doesn’t work for everyone.

I tell my clients: be a detective, not a judge. We are correct to recognize when something doesn’t go right; we mess up; it sounds wrong. We sit in judgment. I have to prod them into investigating. Why did it go wrong? What happened? When we get curious, we can find new paths. I have to remind myself of this all the time too. It’s helpful in all walks of life, not just in singing! Be Curious; find your inner Sherlock!

At the root of all of the learning and doing whatever you want to do, it’ll be harder when you don’t believe in yourself, or when you judge yourself or take to heart the judgments of others. Start with believing, and then start learning. Add curiosity. And notice when the little critical voice pops up. They need a little reassurance and a counter offer. Get out your magnifying glass.

I’ve experienced and witnessed the correlation: You judge others, you judge yourself. Judge one less, the other reduces too. Since I know that comparisons and judgments can be curbed in our own head, why not ask everyone to notice, and try?

I’ve heard some of the most beautiful voices that belong to people who don’t believe it and think that they sound awful. Who told them what/when?

I worried about being good enough, even when I was. For a time, I worried about being the best, or not being the best, and it took me too long to realize that that wasn’t important. When I woke up to the reality that I was worthy to have a life that I desired, and that I could choose the people to be in my life that made me better; I started repairing my relationship with my voice.

Thanks for reading my passion post.