My name is Emily Whincup and I study vocals. As a singer I find myself searching for a musical style that I can identify with. This would influence my vocal techniques, the way I present myself as a vocalist, and how I would perform to an audience. The topic of my reflective journal covers these challenges with finding my individual ‘style’ and how I began my journey identifying as a musician also on my experiences of critical self-reflection as a singer and the challenges I have had to overcome as a performer using The Kolb’s Learning Cycle. David Kolb’s learning style focuses on ‘experience’ he stated, ‘Learning is the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience” (Kolb, 1986, p. 38)
Kolb’s theory is set into 4 individual sections. The Concrete experience, Reflective Observation Abstract Conceptualisation and finally Active Experimentation. The first section ‘Concrete Experience’ refers to doing and being actively involved in the creative activity. It is about actually ‘doing’ as appose to just thinking or reading about them. This can be a new experience, a situation encountered, or a reinterpretation of an existing experience. By having an experience, it allows me to use the second section ‘Reflective Observation’ to observe and review any mistakes made in the first section. ‘Reflective Observation’ is just a reflective observation of the new experience experienced. This could involve taking time out of the ‘doing’ process and analysing what I have just done and what I have experienced. This is where I will talk to others about my practice and gain knowledge and experience, looking closely at the task to a personal degree. The third section is ‘Abstract Conceptualization’ The most imperative part of the cycle This is about fully learning from the experience and making sense of what has happened I can interpret the events by drawing upon different theories and understanding the relationship between them. Finally, ‘Active Experimentation’ this is where I would apply my idea to the world around me and see what happens. In this section I can go back to ‘doing’ the creative activity, this time with consideration into how I am going to put what I have learnt about myself into practice before it is forgotten about.
Concrete Experience
My ‘Concrete Experience’ arose when I first decided to push myself vocally and move outside my comfort zone by swaying from one genre to another. Identifying myself within a genre felt like a huge stepping stone in finding my own identity as a musician. After a few days of trying out different styles of songs that suited me vocally I found that I most identified myself as a ‘Blues’ ‘Soul’ Singer. As part of my creative practice, I was then required to learn vocal techniques that stand out in ‘Soul’ music. This included adding stylistic features into my vocal vocabulary, such as twang, riffs and runs.
This was a challenge as I had to unlearn old habits such as sometimes overusing vibrato due to my Musical Theatre up-bringing. I used the song ‘Rumor has it’ by Adele to test out these new vocal techniques I began by printing out the lyrics of the song and highlighting key lyrics and phrases I felt I would be able to stylistically embellish. I began by adding a distinct twang stylistically as well as healthily on the phrase ‘like I will’ in the first verse. I began to research into other songs using twang to help me decide where to add it and found it is used very often in Soul music but can also be found sometimes in rock pieces. I also added Twang to the lyric ‘Bless your soul you got your head in the clouds’ on the second pre chorus but this time I added the technique specifically for volume purposes. Finally, I demonstrated a run on the lyric ‘Sure she’s got it all’ in the first verse and added riffs throughout the piece as a stylistic feature of Soul and R&B.
Reflective Observation
The second stage of the learning cycle I underwent was ‘Reflective Observation’. Having reflected upon the outcome of stylistically changing this song I reflected on the vocal techniques I added what I had learnt about them and how I could also use them to embellish different songs in the future to add some originality. I learnt that twang can be used stylistically as well as healthily. It can also be used for volume purposes. After a few rounds of trial and error on different lyrics and reflecting on the better sounds I found that you can add Twang to anything, but it works really nicely with front tongue vowels such as ‘Ah’ ‘Eh’ and in my opinion worked the best with the ‘A’ vowel. Following this I also found that riffs work well on ‘ugh’ and ‘ooo’ sounds, but you can again use them on any vowels.
However, despite these learning positives in further practice I found that when I tried to develop my learning by trying to implement these techniques into different songs I found it much more difficult than expected I found that I tend to overthink the creative process due to my perfectionist approach I find it hard to naturally add stylistic changes into songs out of fear of judgement and it not sounding very good.
I turned to others for advice one being my singing mentor, I showed her the song I had tried to stylistically enhance and described that the aims of the song were for it to sound much more in the style of ‘Soul’ music and different to the original She vocalized that her main critique was that I seemed to be overthinking my performance therefore did not seem fully connected to the performance I expressed frustration in my creative activity at that point, as my aim had not been reached. The frustration stemmed from the fact that I had felt a lack of creativity and a fear of disappointing myself any further in reaching my final goal.
I found there is vulnerability in showing your own ideas to others, the feelings of frustration and annoyance definitely hurt my motivation for continuing to trust my own ideas and just made me want to step back into my comfort zone of singing covers exactly identical to the original. This cycle reinforced negative behaviors.
Overall, despite the negatives I remined myself that there were also many more positives in my reflective Observations’ which I had dismissed due to my focus on the negatives which upon reflection were much more obvious to myself and due to my own insecurities, which nobody else will necessarily have noticed as much as I did.
This experience made me feel much more in control of my own development and progress as a musician and taught me not to stress so much about the reaction of others just to be confident in performing something I think is of value.
Abstract Conceptualism
Looking at how I was feeling after the feedback and feeling like I had failed in trying to add my own individualism to a cover, I noticed the unhealthy and almost defensive reaction I responded with. It was down to the pressure I put on myself to have my own individual style developed straight away I reminded myself that this is something that takes years of practice, dedication and trial and error to perfect. It is something I should also stay motivated to create regardless of negative feedback.
To combat this lack of motivation I researched into how Perfectionism can affect your singing and one’s creativity from the article ‘How healing perfectionism Will make you a better singer’ I read that ‘Perfectionism is something that paralyses a lot of us’ . We are not willing to give something a go, take a risk, or throw our hat into the ring if there’s the slightest possibility, we might do it badly. I actually realized that my fear of doing something badly was restricting myself and progress as a musician and that by sticking to my strengths as a singer I was in fact not allowing myself to make the mistakes I needed in order to develop as a musician. ‘The Moderately Tortured Artist’ stated that by staying in our comfort zone and ultimately creating a fool proof strategy, ‘we will never fully try our best before it seems to be too daunting’. Unfortunately, what this means is we stay so far inside our comfort zone that we cannot possibly develop and grow. By playing it safe we actually strangle our creativity and curiosity in the process. This article really resonated with me and made me feel much less alone in my struggles.
Anxiety in this situation is counterproductive. By tackling my own perfectionism, more successful work can be done that will allow me to progress into the artist I aspire to be and allow myself to make mistakes.
Active Experimentation
This is where I begin to put what I have learnt about myself into practice. I have developed a much better mindset and trust within myself, and own ideas as I have found it is necessary for development to occur.
Here is an example of how I will put positive thinking into practice when I reach my next challenge. When receiving feedback from mentors, rather than feeling embarrassed at myself for not getting it right the first time. I will take the time to look back on their advice and use it to help me progress and remind myself that most of these mistakes are enlarged in my own head and not necessarily things anybody else will notice. I will give myself permission to fail and allow myself some compassion instead of judgement. I have found that using a practice room as a safe space to experiment has been very helpful in my development as a singer. I have found it much easier to let go and really feel the music which then allows me to have much more fun as a performer by giving myself permission to sound terrible and let go of my perfectionist traits which were holding me back in developing as a singer.
I need to stop looking at where I am within my development as a performer and comparing it to everyone else around me and accept that I have not developed the confidence and individuality as a singer I have been looking for yet, but I will in the future. I will also continue to investigate the Soul music style and develop my own musical understanding of the genre.
My aim from the beginning of this reflective journal was to improve my sense of self and individuality as a musician. I wanted to elevate my musical presence and persona I do believe that this learning experience has gotten me much closer to this goal which excites me greatly and fills me with hope as a musician.
Moreover, by talking to my singing teachers and conducting my own personal research I have understood the importance of pushing myself to learn more things in the future. I will certainly try to utilize this learning cycle in many more areas of my life as I believe it would be valuable in many different aspects.
I can confidently say that I am comfortable within the skills I have developed so far to positively influence my musical journey.
Bibliography
University of Hull (2021). Reflective writing: Kolb. [online] libguides.hull.ac.uk. Available at:
https://libguides.hull.ac.uk/reflectivewriting/kolb
Kolb’s theory
(Kolb, 1986, p. 38)
https://thatsweetroar.com/blog/perfectionism-and-singers
How healing your perfectionism will make you a better singer, 2024
‘The Moderately Tortured Artist’
