Being Baffled Is [Not] a Virtue

A Time for Teaching Reflection

Teaching voice for the performing arts in the middle of a global pandemic has taught me the value of clarity. I want to think I have always valued clarity in education (Sansom 2016), but as with many things since March 2020, this idea has been “turbocharged” and heightened to a degree I never thought imaginable. Over the past year, I have taught courses and held coaching sessions virtually, and like so many teachers and trainers this past year, I have stumbled (often) and learned along the way. I have grieved the loss of face-to-face connection with my students and clients. I have found moments of joy in working online. I have discovered new and useful technology and tools. And I have essentially had to reimagine how I teach, coach, and work in the field of voice. Even for instructors who are offering more face-to-face or hybrid instruction now, everything has changed. And we all struggle to teach the arts while acknowledging the tremendous public health, social, and environmental challenges surrounding us.

But with the COVID-19 vaccines slowly making their way into society, I am hopefully optimistic for some sense of public health normalcy in the future. With that, my imagination wanders to how I will teach “post-COVID.” Let me be bold, I support that much of vocal training can be taught successfully in a virtual setting, and I do plan to incorporate elements of online learning even after the pandemic. Nevertheless, teaching during this strange and difficult time has made me sincerely appreciate the human connection. It has also renewed my belief that clear teaching is essential to a good education. In building new, virtual voice courses, I have had to ask myself deep and challenging questions about my teaching: What do I truly value as a teacher? What are the most important goals of my course? What do students ultimately need to know to be successful? And as a teacher, how can I communicate all of that in ways students will enjoy and understand? How can I be clear? These questions are not new to educators; these are foundational questions. Yet, they somehow feel new during this time, and I keep coming back to ideas that highlight teaching clarity.

Being Baffled Is [Not] a Virtue

In the American Theatre article “The State of the Play,” Shaw (2016) explores the landscape of contemporary American playwrighting. She argues that theatre today is in a state of great peril because of “intellectual gatekeeping.” To Shaw, contemporary plays exist on a continuum. (A) Plays can be important in theme and content but inaccessible to mainstream audiences. Shaw asserts that most plays in high-level regional theatre fall in this category. (B) Plays can be accessible to mainstream audiences, but the plays typically are unimportant in their theme and content. Shaw asserts that much of theatre on Broadway falls in this category, jukebox musicals being the ultimate example. Audiences rarely experience (C) plays that are both important and accessible. The Pulitzer Prize winning musical Hamilton is that rare unicorn that finds both, Shaw argues, which helps explain Hamilton’s incredible popularity. Audiences (and especially young people) are hungry for theatre that is understandable and weighty at the same time.

In this article, Shaw quotes director and scholar Herbert Blau when he states that “being baffled is a virtue” in modern theatre (as quoted in Shaw 2016, 1). “Good” theatre, high-quality theatre, the kind of theatre at a Tony Award winning regional theatre must be hard to grasp or require a level of knowledge and experience before audiences can have any appreciation whatsoever. Plays can be weird for the sake of being weird, and/or plays require audience members to hold a PhD in English literature in order to comprehend the story’s allusions and high concepts. The idea that good theatre must be confusing or erudite or both has a long tradition, and Shaw ultimately argues that we have to rethink this module or risk losing the art form as a theatre community. Indeed, there is room for theatre to have complexity, sophistication, and “weirdness,” but these cannot be the only hallmarks if theatre is to be a thriving, vibrant, and self-sustaining artform.

I wholeheartedly agree with Shaw and her reflection on the state of the play. And I also find stark parallels in voice training. Voice for the performing arts has its own continuum that values being baffled.¹ Voice teachers can favor a teaching style of unfiltered freedom. (Think of actors dancing around a studio making indiscriminate vowel sounds, which is objectively weird to those outside the arts.) Or voice teachers can favor a highly academic teaching style. (Think of a voice class for actors that borders on being a medical school lecture, which is often inaccessible to many learners.) Both extreme types uphold the virtue of being baffled, just in different ways. Both have problematic elements. And if I am honest, as a teacher, I have flirted with both.

Beyond this, however, I believe there is a genuinely toxic idea living in the performing arts and in voice classes that students must be confused to learn. (This idea is the cousin of the similarly toxic notion that actors must be “broken down to be built up.”) In my theatre training as a young man, I had more than one teacher relish when I said I was confused. I would ask something to the effect of “I’m not clear on this exercise; I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be doing.” And the retort was always some version of “Good, that means you’re learning,” which I never once found all that helpful.

Of course, some kinds of learning take time—lots of time. Of course. Skill-based learning such as acting and singing absolutely needs days, weeks, months, and even on occasion years for certain concepts to come to fruition. But students can understand that learning takes time without teachers making them unnecessarily confused. As I got older, I realized that the question I wanted to ask and should have asked my teachers was, “Would you please clarify the goals of this exercise?” That is what I was trying to ask. I asked for clarity of the goals; I was not asking for a reminder that it would take me time to achieve them.

But in my experience, even changing the question does not always help. I remember being in my early thirties at a voice training workshop, and I asked the trainer my now older, wiser question: “Would you please clarify the goals of this exercise?” The answer this time was, “Don’t focus on goals. Focus on the experience.” You will notice that the trainer did not actually answer the question. But you will also notice that the theme in all of these interactions is that the voice teacher thought that “being baffled was a virtue.” Of course, in experiential, skill-based arts training such as acting, singing, and voice, being open to unknown experience is essential. Process is essential. Art is not necessarily goal-focused, so as learners, we should operate from curiosity rather than goal seeking. Absolutely. But at the same time, if asked respectfully, the question “What is the goal of this exercise?” is perfectly reasonable, and every teacher can and should be able to answer that question at any given time about any given exercise.

Art without goals can lead to discovery; teaching without goals can lead to chaos and frustration. I did not necessarily learn this concept during the pandemic, but it has come into sharp relief as I have had to reimagine and restructure my classes as a teacher. I have found that virtual learning for voice takes me longer, and the students and clients go a little slower. (That has been my experience, and anecdotally, many colleagues have expressed similar thoughts.) So with this change, I have constantly had to ask: Am I being clear? Do students understand the goals right now? Do they understand the reason for this exercise? And is this exercise valuable right now? In other words, is my teaching both accessible and important? Once I built from that place, then I found the ability to offer students freedom. Then, I found the ability to discuss more complex concepts. It was then that students had the flexibility to be unsure and flex themselves and grow as artists. But first, it started from a place of clarity.²

In This Themed Issue: “Voice and the Artist-Scholar”

When looking at the submission for the 2021 volume, I realized that a theme emerged; authors were engaged in more (dare I say it) “formal” research than I had seen in my tenure as Editor. Not only were authors creating new original research, but authors were also writing more about research. The Voice and Speech Review (VSR) has always welcomed various articles and kinds of voice explorations, and the VSR has always encouraged original research. But the sheer amount of original research and the wide breadth of topics amazed and excited me, and I am proud to offer you this themed issue that is research focused. I am also heartened because these articles seek to bring clarity to research topics, clarity to students and teachers, and clarity to the voice field itself. And as you can see from my musings above, I esteem clarity.

The issue opens with “Decentering Listening: Toward an Anti-Discriminatory Approach to Accent and Dialect Training for the Actor” by Daron Oram. This article continues Oram’s journey into reimagining accent training. Oram has published extensively on the topic (including in the VSR) over the past several years. This article develops many of Oram’s ideas on how to empower actors through speech training. Methodologically, Oram explores a kind of deep reflection in himself as he investigates more comprehensive teaching practices. Joe Hetterly, Sammi Grant, Sarah Nichols, and Pamela Prather then give a sizable qualitative snapshot of the current state of voice trainers in “Depictions of a Voice and Speech Trainer: Current Trends in the VASTA Community.” This VASTA-wide project sheds light on how the organization sees itself, and I especially invite all VASTA members to take a deep dive as the article seeks to show us who we are and what we value today.³

Brian Manternach, Lynn Maxfield, and Jeremy N. Manternach offer “Effects of Varied Semi-Occluded Vocal Tract Exercises on Acoustic and Perceptual Measures of Music Theatre Singers: A Pilot Study.” This article offers a formal research study on the effectiveness of semi-occluded vocal tract exercises within musical theatre singers. The piece serves as a reminder that research directly impacts training and what training can provide. “The Language of Teaching Voice: A Qualitative Study” by Dawn Sadoway explores how teachers and trainers “language” vocal learning and the effectiveness of such speech. Next, Lydia Flock offers “Freedom of the Singing Voice: An Exploration of the Mind-Body Connection, Performance Anxiety and Confidence through Methods of Fitzmaurice Voicework, Organic Intelligence, and Ziva Meditation.” This article examines a variety of pedagogical modalities through state management and how the mind-body connection impacts performance.

The Articles section ends with two pieces about research. In “Voicing a Practitioner Research Methodology: Further Framing the Conversation,” Deborah Winter reexamines Practice as Research (PaR) through the lens of management studies. Winter proposes possible theoretical frameworks suitable for voice studies students within a PaR paradigm. Then, Antonio De Lillis closes the special issue with “Imagery and Science in Singing Pedagogy: A Debate Introduction and Literature Review.” This article is a literature review that introduces the imagery and science debate in singing. Even if you are not a singer and even if you are a veteran researcher, this article functions as a reliable resource for understanding a fundamental debate and research topic in the voice field.

The Forum section touches on a variety of subjects. In her VSR inaugural address, Pamela Prather gives her 2021 VASTA President’s Note and reflects on this challenging past year and its impact on VASTA. Unlike previous years, there is no conference reflection in this March issue: instead, Amy Hume and Jennifer Innes record the loss of the 2021 VASTA conference in Sydney, Australia, due to the pandemic. Both Pamela’s note and Amy and Jen’s account of the conference experience express both a sober, touching, inspirational, and ultimately hopeful view of a world and the VASTA community in the not-too-distant future. Closing out the issue is Joanna Cazden’s “My Journey to Now.” This ongoing series consists of autobiographical reflections that honor and highlight distinguished practitioners from the world of performance, voice, and communication training and pedagogy. The hope is that this series offers wisdom and inspiration to other voice professionals and the VSR readership. Joanna Cazden is an artist, scientist, humanitarian, and Dudley Knight Award winning VSR author. The journal is delighted to share her story.

This themed issue, “Voice and the Artist-Scholar,” is deep and wide in its content, topics, and research use. My hope is that it not only inspires you as a reader and as a voice trainer, but I also hope that it inspires you as an author (and, of course, scholar) as well.⁴

I hope you enjoy the issue.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rockford Sansom

Rockford Sansom, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Voice at Louisiana State University and the voice coach of LSU’s resident Equity theatre, Swine Palace. As a coach, he has worked with actors Off-Broadway and in regional theatre, Fortune 500 executives, UN delegates, and members of the US Congress. He holds a PhD in education (Capella University), an MFA in theatre (University of Central Florida), and voice certifications from Fitzmaurice, Knight-Thompson, and Estill (Master Trainer). As an actor, he performed Off-Broadway, regionally, and in international and national tours. He is the Editor of the Voice and Speech Review and the editor of the book The History of Voice Pedagogy. Member, AEA, SAG-AFTRA.

Notes

1. In the article “The Sacred Cow in the Conservatory,” I advance a detailed argument on the educational debate between direct instruction vs. constructivism. I relate that debate to themes and ideas within voice pedagogy (Sansom 2016).

2. I would so love to engage in dialogue about this topic. If you are reading this Editor’s Note and you disagree with me, I invite you to write a response! I would love to hold a published conversation on this topic. Respectful disagreement is healthy and good for our field.

3. The Voice and Speech Trainers Association (VASTA) is the sponsoring organization of this journal.

4. For more information about writing for the journal, I invite you to read Sansom (2018). I wrote this article for the artist transitioning to artist-scholar. I begin at the beginning and give an overview of the journal and the publishing process, and I offer tips and thoughts on writing articles.