I just walked through a very special rite of passage with the Elon Seniors: the spring casting directors/agent master class series.

Each year, the seniors pull together, raise thousands of dollars by themselves, and invite the industry’s top casting directors and agents to campus.

It is not for the faint of heart: imagine working all year to make sure you have every possible musical style and requirement in your audition book, understand what type you are, or think you may be one day, have a few good monologues in your back pocket just in case, organize several original Broadway combinations in your mind and body, get your pictures and resumes all set, try to get yourself in a good psychological headspace…all to hear vastly different points of view, reactions, and opinions from industry professionals who are the ones who help actors get jobs.

Aaaaahhhh. And people ask why actors act crazy sometimes; our career environment is antithetical to mental balance.

The seniors did a phenomenal job, and all this got me thinking about an essential question so many auditioners ask: What makes a person stand out?

I’ve also pondered this question after watching over 400 very talented students audition for a small number of spots in next year’s incoming class.

I will offer you my opinion  on this. There are the obvious steps of preparation and technical skill that we must display as actors and singers in the audition room. That’s a given.

I’m talking about the many many, actors who enter a room prepared and skilled and offer a performance that is lovely, nice, well done, and completely forgettable in the sea of lovely, nice, well done auditions.

Don’t panic, though. This is not about competition and numbers. This is about you.

I tell my students regularly, “God only made one you.”

And that’s the secret.

And that’s the most difficult thing to trust.

It feels like nothing. It feels like, “That’s it?”

But in order to stand out I have to DO something. I have to make them notice.

Sure, there are things we do to make the table people look up: choice of material, masterful execution. Sure.

But the real encounter, the thing that makes the other humans in the room have a substantial, real experience is when you open the door to your heart and trust what is there. Because what is there you didn’t make, and it’s beautiful and transcends all competition.

I often describe it like this: imagine you have double doors right on the front of your heart. You walk in the room, you open the doors, and you say “You’re welcome here.”

Sharing a song in a room is an act of hospitality. You are like a mansion, and you have no idea how beautiful the architecture is.

So let this be part of what you think about when you stand in an audition room or on any stage. You’ve done the work. You’re prepared. (If you’re not prepared, I can’t help you.) So just open the door.

And if you feel the door closing, you can simply re-open it the next time you breathe.

I didn’t post yesterday because I stopped writing mid-blog.

This is what I had written so far:

We sat on our front step this afternoon to breathe in the early spring-like weather (we like to call ourselves the neighborhood watch).

The trees looked like sculptures, and the sky looked like a Maxfield Parrish painting. I said, “It looks like a painting.”

Only it was an actual experience of beauty and warm breezy grace.

I often assign beautiful experiences that happen in my everyday life an alternate identity in a painting, a poem, or another locale: those clouds look like Parrish; that birch tree like a Frost poem; those grassy hills near the 101 Freeway I imagined were like the Scottish Highlands.

I did that ever since I was a kid…

Then I just closed the computer, listening intently to a voice that said, “What is your point? Who is going to care about this?”

The point I was trying to get to was that I think there’s a paradoxical both-and about experiencing beauty; there is something immediate and present and at the same time remote and longed for when we encounter it.

Stars, clouds, sunsets, mountains, ocean waves, Mozart, Rembrandt, Simon and Garfunkel :).

It gives me permission to enjoy the present while also letting whatever that thing is spark a forward-looking into the future, into the longed-for even if that’s unnameable.

The other point is that when we pick ourselves, create, share, hold ourselves responsible for adding beauty to the world, shame and resistance will come hand in hand and try to silence us.

I love what Seth Godin says about this, that when resistance kicks in, that’s when he knows he’s on the right path. It’s a compass.

Enjoy beautiful things. Make beautiful things. When resistance comes, lean your shoulder in and keep moving.

I write you this missive from the throes of man-flu.

Here are some things I’ve been reminded of between chills and sweats:

• My grandma Frances always said “If you have your health, you have everything.” I want to take more moments to be grateful for health and energy.
• The immune system is miraculous.
• People at work can make do without me. My family shouldn’t have to.
• I have a wonderful wife.
• We are simultaneously strong and weak.
• There is always something to be grateful for.

Can we all get clear on something?

Sometimes it is right and proper to use object pronouns.

The pronoun that suffers the most neglect: me.

Now, I admit: growing up in Surry County, it seemed as right as right could be to say to my mama, “Me and Ben (read: Bee-yun) are going down to the creek.”

But just because poor “me” has been misused, misplaced, and misconstrued as a subject pronoun doesn’t mean that we throw the grammar baby out with the object bathwater.

Quick example. “This means a lot to Melissa and ____.”

Y’all, it’s “me.”

Melissa and me.

There is a to before those people in that sentence, so I spy an object pronoun coming up.

Let’s do it again. Put yourself in this scenario. “The multiple Grammy Awards were awarded to my producer and ___.”

Yes! My producer and may! (It was a pop album.)

When in doubt, take the first person out of the list, and you’ll see what it’s sposed to be.

“The multiple Grammy Awards were awarded to my producer and me.”

See?

If I can inspire just one of you to consciously embrace and hold fast to the object pronouns in your life, it will be so meaningful to you and I me.:)

Before I moved to New York when I was 23, I put together a pass-the-hat concert at the Andy Griffith Playhouse to raise some money to move.

My internal dialogue startled me when I walked out on the stage. : “YOU did this. You made this whole thing up and invited the people here, and you’re responsible for it.”

I mentioned in the last blog how giving ourselves things to commit to that people will see is a good way to inspire (or harangue) ourselves into action.

I mentioned this to a brilliant singer I know, and she said, “I have a concert in two weeks, and I haven’t looked at the music yet.” Mind you, she has a ton on her plate right now, but I thought of all the gigs when I’ve procrastinated my preparation.

I realized there can be a difference in our investment when we see ourselves as the hired talent as opposed to when we generate and produce the work.

I know there are disciplined actors who diligently prepare for the rehearsal process, but I know there have been several times when I showed up to a first rehearsal feeling disappointed for not providing myself ample nights’ sleep with the material I was hired to perform.

I don’t have the answer on this–the hired hand versus producer/generator contrast. I just thought it was an interesting difference to note–

And the real point is that anything we bring ourselves to is work that we are generating and producing ourselves.

We can invest anything we do with a kind of work that makes us feel satisfied. That is a very helpful standard: am I satisfied with how I’m working? 

I remember watching a very accomplished actress I worked with in LA do this. We were performing in a new musical that was bad.

As my people say, she made a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. She didn’t bitch about how bad the show was; she did her work, and she elevated the material. She was a lesson to me.

Today I entered a very important phase of rehearsal and song relationship: beginning to dislike the song and myself singing it.

I practiced today with a headache and some throat crud, and I was a little locked up. (Man with a headache!–ahhhhh–it was pretty dramatic, but I soldiered on.)

That’s why it’s good to give ourselves real things to commit to that people are going to see; they make us show up and do our work when we don’t want to.

At least that’s what works for me. For my ENFP self, intrinsic motivation lasts as long as the original excitement of the new idea.

(As I write this, I realize this means that I just need to schedule the date for the reading of the musical I’ve been kicking around and working on since, well 2012. That will make me actually finish the first draft.)

Creative relationship stages mirror our own human connections; we move into the part of relationship when the uglies come out, we have to navigate conflict, and here’s the ringer: we actually have to face ourselves.

The tough parts happen in all creative endeavor just like they do in our human interactions because we are the ones creating them. They come from us. So that means we have to meet ourselves.

If we truly develop an intimate relationship with a song, a role, a painting, a story, meaning that we’re going to break through to something real and meaningful to share, there will be friction and frustration.

When we put one foot in front of the other with an open heart and the willingness to look with love at what the challenges squeeze out of us, we do better work, and we can offer something more true and beautiful to those we want to share it with.

Iyanla Vanzant wrote the bestseller Yesterday I Cried. 

I am hard at work on my own book: Today I Cracked. 

Practicing for an upcoming house concert of Richard Strauss and Stephen Sondheim, my friend Crack was right there with me. He’s never far away.

I happened to capture this magic moment in my trusty phone, and now I can share it with you.

(This is one practice technique that works well for me. Once I get to a certain stage of learning with a song, I’ll video myself to give myself a sort of observer. I’ll then go back and listen through the recording with my editor’s ear and mark my music accordingly, slow down and practice the sections that need more attention.)

Here’s the breakdown:

This is “Wie sollten wir geheim sie halten” from Strauss Opus 19, Lieder aus Lotusblätter.

:07 the crack happens on the text, “durch die Natur.”

:10-:20 you can see my 10-year-old OCD start-over-again impulse, then decision to work it out.

Then follows various elements with my own psyche and cell phone camera that you can diagnose for yourself.

Here’s what happened technically. You can spot some of these things from yesterday’s crack treatise.

• “Natur” is pronounced [na-tʊr] 
  • [ʊ] is like the sound in book. I spot some oo-vowel trouble. That’s what happened. The vowel was too closed when I sang it, more like [u] (oo) than [ʊ].
  • I’m in an overdrive mode here, so [u]/oo no likee. It yodeled into neutral
• The other factor for me was the [r] at the end of the syllable. Knowing what voiced consonant we’re heading toward can sometimes influence the current vowel we’re singing. In this case, the [r] idea brought the back of my tongue up as if I were going to say an American ‘r’ sound, and that disrupted the space in my vocal tract.

So then you can see me clarifying the vowel for myself and then doing whatever that is I’m doing communicating again with my cell phone.

But those two factors cleared it up.

And here’s a commitment to remembering this when I’m singing it in front of people on Feb 21.

I also missed a spot shaving.

In case you’re curious, here’s the text and a translation:

It’s what we fear more than anything as singers. Okay, maybe not anything, but it can really make a performance go in an unwanted direction.

My voice has cracked in audition rooms and in front of paying audiences.

I was fortunate enough to read some online commentary about it thereafter. People can be mean, y’all.*

*(This is one reason why I have a hard time with the schadenfreude-fest some people have with youtube singer fail videos. Singing is hard, and as fellow singers, we need to understand that and give each other a break.)

Cracking is frustrating, and many times we’re mystified as to why it’s happening.

So, here’s some help so that you can sort out what may be going on.

• Abrupt or static support.
  • Sometimes we engage the abdominals too quickly and rigidly when we sing. This basically punches the closed vocal folds that then respond by adding tension. Depending on the pitch we’re singing, a release of certain muscles is needed, and we’re yodeling. See here for a brief description of dynamic support.
• Trying to directly control the larynx position. Let the larynx suspend and hang out and just respond to the air coming through. Trying to focus on it or keep it in a certain location leads to brittle, crackable, and inflexible sounds.
• Uncontrolled constriction or vocal tract shape.
  • The other thing that’s hard to learn is to let the constrictor muscles relax while we move a lot of vocal energy through our head. This takes practice. Also, the way we shape the vocal tract (the space from the folds to your lips) has a huge impact on this–too many variables here to describe.
• Choice of vowel.
  • Not all vowels are singable in every mode or gear of the voice. For example, it’s not really possible to sing a pure [u] (oo) vowel in overdrive or edge (what some might call belting or a calling voice). That’s why we hear a lot of singers switch to an [o] (oh) vowel when they’re stuck in overdrive.
    • “I love yoooohhhh!”
  • Same thing with [i] (ee). It has to move toward an [ɪ] (ih like sit) in edge in order to sound like (ee) as in “me” or “see.”
    • “It’s gonna be may.”
    • “You’re gonna looo-o-o-o-o-oooooo-o-o-o-o-vah, (gasp inhale), maaaaaaaayyyyyy.”
  • If we insist on singing the vowel as we say it and it doesn’t agree with the mode or gear, we’re going to yodel because the vowel itself wants to tend toward it’s home base. [u] will be neutral or curbed, for example.
• Time to grow. Your voice is part of you and needs time to coordinate and grow. Singing in certain modes requires oppositional muscles in the larynx to coordinate and cooperate. This takes time to coalesce and for your body–neurons, muscles, mind, understanding– to make the connections. Work with a knowledgable teacher, and commit to practicing and staying in the game.

Here’s a good way to learn and memorize a song.–in a few days or a few hours if you have to.

Start as early as you can–there’s no substitute for sleep time when it comes to memorization.

This feels like a slow process when we want to dive in and learn all the elements at once, but it ends up being faster and creating a sturdier structure in your memory.

1. Start with text. Spend more time with the text than you want to. Read it. Say it. Pay attention to the punctuation. Give your imagination time to paste images to the words.

“If” — do I really? — “I loved” — what does that mean to me?  — “you” — who am I singing to? What does he/she look like, smell like, their expression, their emotional state, — “time and again” — what times, when, where, how? What locations? When would I try?  — “I would try to say” —  What does my voice sound like, feel like? Would I be able to say anything? — “All I’d want you to know.”  –All??? What do I want you to know?  What’s the deepest most intimate thing I’d love to share with you, and knowing you knew that, accepted that, meant that you truly loved and knew and embraced me?

That’s just the first line.

2. Now you know what your text is about and something of what it means to you. Now learn your notes and rhythms.

Take your time with the melody, note values, and rests without the text. Hum, sing on different syllables, mark it vocally. Table any choices about how you’re going to sing it yet. Let the melody seep in. Look for dynamic markings, expression marks,

3. Speak the text in rhythm while deepening the images and questions you asked about the text before. Let your subconscious bring up all kinds of associations to the lyric, doesn’t have to make sense.

4. Put the text and melody/rhythms together. Sing gently, letting your imagination and instinct play with possible choices you’ll make vocally.

Now you’re at a new beginning point to grow with the song.

There’ll be times it’ll be helpful to go back and repeat/mix up some of these steps, like just being with the text again.

We form opinions and habits we’re not aware of. This is a good way to loosen up our perspective and see new possibilities.

Ironically, I’ve been procrastinating this post by looking up quotes and thinking about what I’m going to write rather than writing, and the thing I want to write about is allowing ourselves a shitty first draft.

An SFD as one of my favorite writers, Anne Lamott, wrote about in her book on writing and life, Bird by Bird.

I can’t find the quote now, but I think Stephen Sondheim once said that you do yourself a favor as a writer by letting your stream of consciousness flow and getting it all out on to the paper. He’s not the only one who’s said this, but he’s Stephen Sondheim.

When we do this, then we have some clay to mold.

What are the reasons that we stop the stream?

Perfection(ism) represents different things to each individual.

To some it was/is the way we learned to get love. For others it may be rooted in fear of rejection or looking like a fool. They’re the same thing

It’s rooted in our real need for acceptance.

So that has to be step one in order to let yourself write or sing or act or dance or cook or paint a shitty first draft: acceptance.

And the job is ours, this robust act of saying, “Self, I accept you, and you can write down this thing that your brain is telling you is stupid and will never work. You can sing this phrase that your brain tells you sounds terrible and will never be beautiful, etc.”

What’s the worst thing that can happen? You cut the line. You try another direction for the story. You break down the phrase and figure out how to sing it better or realize it may be a year before you can. You take the script to a good coach. You try the recipe again.

But the ground has to be sown with acceptance.

Maybe all those shitty first drafts are manure that fertilizes the creative seeds we plant every day and helps it turn into a beautiful, cultivated garden.

And the thing is, the garden is always going to need  periodic fertilizing.