Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Fake it til you make it

You know the phrase “Fake it til you make it”? There may be a whole lot more to that than we think. I found a Scientific American article about a Harvard Social Psychology study regarding posture—and they found that actual physical posture is linked to the endocrine system. Oddly enough, the study showed that rather than hormone levels changing and then a confident posture came as a result, if the person was placed in a physically powerful posture, in a ridiculously short amount of time, their hormone levels would change to correspond to it. To me that means that if we act like we’re secure, we’ll actually feel more secure. In addition to that, people respond to each other based on these non-verbal physical cues. So if we see someone who acts like they know what they’re doing, we relax and assume that they do.



In undergrad, I studied Alexander Technique, which, if you haven’t heard of it, is basically a body learning technique. The basic principle is about is how the head sits on top of the spine, the neck's relationship to the spine. It also talks a lot about the Fight-or-Flight response and how we get stuck in that—that just means, whenever we get nervous, our necks shorten so that our bodies are prepared to either fight something or run away from it. It’s a natural reaction that every animal has—just watch Miss Kitty Fantastico when she’s about to make a high jump, and you see her entire spine shorten like a spring so that it can lengthen into the jump. We all have the same process built into us, but because we get nervous and then stay there (like in an audition), we don’t lengthen out of that spring, and our bodies aren’t always functioning as efficiently as they can.



Especially in an audition situation, this reflex is something to work out. We’re all insecure. As I like to say, anyone who tells you they aren’t insecure is lying about it because they are insecure about it. So fake it—not with overconfidence, but with pure physiology. In your practice, find techniques that get you to stand up straight, without tension, that give you a feeling of openness, strength and relaxation at the same time. Tie it into the breath, so that before you walk into the audition, you can take a good breath and get your body into line. Pretend that you are comfortable so that the auditioners are relaxed and ready to listen, rather than feeling for your nerves.

The best example I have personally happened when I was first on staff at Carnegie Mellon University. My best friend and roommate at the time was still a voice student there, and she auditioned for the Concerto Competition with a song cycle she and I had also performed on her junior recital. They heard one piece and then asked for the slowest movement in the cycle—and somewhere on the second page of that, she lost her place completely. My page turner looked at me in horror, cause whatever we were playing had nothing to do with what was on the page—and I mean that very seriously. We made up 2 entire pages of music together, it must have lasted almost a solid minute. The judges even had a copy of the score to follow along. 



And you know what? She won the competition! She and I never panicked, she never looked as though she was lost, she just kept singing convincingly, I just kept playing convincingly, and even though it had nothing to do with the actual piece, the judges never even noticed that, they never even looked down at the music. They only noticed how beautifully she sang.

Now I'm NOT saying that you shouldn't do your homework--in fact, just the opposite. One of the surest ways to feel confident is to do all your homework and be very solid in your preparation. Then add in this idea of a power-posture, of faking it til you make it. When you’re nervous, pretend that you aren’t, and as all the hormones kick in and the people listening relax with you, you’ll find that you forgot to be nervous anymore.

--Ellen