Supercharged CACM

Shifting to Priorities that Vitalize your Chapters

My name is Joe and I’m bored

Bored? Make meetings compellingly attractive!

Hi. I’m Joe. It’s meeting night, and my guess (and biggest fear) is that we will have the same rehearsal schedule this week as we did last week, and the week before. And truthfully, I am bored with working so hard, but not having any variety in my rehearsals!

We sing for the director, and work on great techniques, but don’t have enough chances to feel fulfilled, to prove we’ve learned something, to show off our skills, to let the new skills get to our memory banks. We just work hard on yet another song (that, admittedly, does need work) and go home having sung all night…for the director.

How about we perform each night? For a visitor, for a coach, for the person wandering the halls…for OURSELVES? Perhaps just one song…and get the kick from using all those things we just learned. Feel the satisfaction of a job well done, as we remember and celebrate our new talents…show off a bit. Let our director know we ARE learning, and proud of it.

Let’s try one new thing every week….and I promise I won’t be bored any longer.

How’s your Focus and Energy Right Now?

Crowd Waving-SuperchargedCACM.com

It’s spring contest season. It might also be spring show season for you.

The big question is: Are you still having fun? And, will your audience have fun? (OK, that’s really two questions…or not?)

It’s a great time to focus, and use that energy for fine-tuning your voices, your sections, your goals. (Perhaps, there’s no need to remind you how focused you are right now?)

The power in this fact? These are all global goals. They will serve you well in every performance effort, every rehearsal, every Board meeting.

So this is the time to reflect, and see how you’re doing.
> Are you keeping your meetings interesting, and full of variety, so everyone wants desperately to be there?
> Are you aiming to avoid burnout, to have fun no matter where/what the deadline, so everyone can be at their best when the (show) time comes?
> Are you enjoying the journey, so others can, too?
> Are your weekly meetings setting up the habits that allow you to sing with joy whether performing or rehearsing? So it’s the way you always sing?
> Are you inclusive with your activities, and your leadership, so that progress seems limitless?

Life is short-with your goals in mind, be sure to have fun!

 

What Fuels Creativity?

You just might be the most creative person in your chorus. (At least that you know of.)

But remember the fun of sharing ideas and hearing more? Those proverbial “brainstorming” sessions that likely get out of control? The “I wish I’d thought of that sooner” moments? The value is immeasurable, when teamwork is involved.

“The important thing,” Ursula K. Le Guin wrote in contemplating the cultural role of speculative fiction and the task of its writer, “is not to offer any specific hope of betterment but, by offering an imagined but persuasive alternative reality, to dislodge my mind, and so the reader’s mind, from the lazy, timorous habit of thinking that the way we live now is the only way people can live.”

Let me replace just a few critical words, and read this again:

“The important thing…is not to offer any specific hope of betterment but, by offering imagined but persuasive alternative rehearsals,  dislodge all our minds from the lazy, skittish habit of thinking that the way we rehearse now is the only way choruses can rehearse.”

It CAN be different. And different is stimulating.

Different is sometimes a step into the unknown. It can also be the door to the next adventure, the next growth spurt, the next “ah ha!” moment.

So then, what fuels creativity? Freshness, adventure, challenge, effort, diversity, education, fun…the choices are anything but “the same old” as you did last week. Don’t pass the opportunity by!

Variation Helps Skills Development

You’ve heard this before when speaking of CACM activities and roles, and now it’s part of scientific study: Vary your rehearsals, and your private practicing, and reap more benefits. It’s proven now, that the variation helps skill development.

In an article published in Science Alert, titled, “Scientists have found a way to help you learn new skills twice as fast “, it has now been proven that variation IS the key to learning.

Excerpts:

“The key to learning a new motor skill – such as playing the piano or mastering a new sport – isn’t necessarily how many hours you spend practising, but the way you practise, according to new research. Scientists have found that by subtly varying your training, you can keep your brain more active throughout the learning process, and halve the time it takes to get up to scratch.

“Our results are important because little was known before about how reconsolidation works in relation to motor skill development. This shows how simple manipulations during training can lead to more rapid and larger motor skill gains because of reconsolidation,” said Celnik. “The goal is to develop novel behavioural interventions and training schedules that give people more improvement for the same amount of practise time.”

Read the full article here: http://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-have-found-a-technique-that-helps-you-learn-new-skills-twice-as-fast