How singing can be related to the scientific method

I. Am. Mindblown. I imagined HSI1000 to be the greatest chore ever since I have not touched anything science related since 2018 (full Arts stream student at your service). The very first lecture on Sway totally changed my perspective of what interdisciplinary learning has meant to me so far. As a musical theatre actor, I spend every other moment I’m not in a Zoom lecture training and practicing for auditions. I can easily get myself to train for 30 to 40 hours a week during vacation, perhaps a little less during the semester. As I’m not in a formal performing arts program yet, I’m basically working with a ragtag approach - stitching fixes here and hacks there, trying to achieve results without really knowing what I’m doing.

I watched the first lecture of HSI1000 and I had a lightbulb go off in my head. I asked myself, “Wait a minute, if the Observation-Explanation-Test method can be used to discover exactly how the entire universe is formed, why can’t I use it to diagnose problems with my voice?”. So I tried it - I recorded down my observations and looked for possible explanations online, then I attempted to correct my technique on the spot. Dear professors reading this, the euphoria was real. I did not just get results, I got consistent results that worked every single time, because I now had a specific and scientifically-proven method that I could describe and understand. Consistency is everything to a performer, and I learned to consciously apply that through the scientific method. It’s something very simple, really, and I have done it without thinking before, but when the professor mentioned that we are using the Method whenever we troubleshoot, that was the moment it clicked for me. I did not expect the scientific method, of all things, to be the solution to my problem.

I’m saying all this because I imagine this is what interdisciplinary learning looks like: The most far-fetched topics, at first glance, would never mean anything to someone on the perceived “opposite” end of the working world. But somehow, I made that impossible connection today and I am absolutely floored. I’m now thinking back to all my lectures in HSA and HSH, because I don’t want to miss any of those life lessons on how to think. Already, some of the frameworks that we were guided through come to mind. I still think I’m not a conventional student given my career choices, and the applications of every core module may not be immediately apparent to me the way it is designed to be apparent to my corporate-and-entrepreneurship-bound peers. However, I am now convinced that the CHS experience is at least a universally valuable one.

Training progress update

Alright, in other news. I AM BACK. I got that rejection notification (not even a letter, just a notification) and well, sad, but I'm jumping right back and training even harder and smarter than before. It sounds strange, but I literally feel stronger every time I fail. Because I don't just fail, I fail and I learn from the failure. I become aware of obvious mistakes and I work on them so that I don't unconsciously make them again. Here are some of the mistakes that I've caught so far:

1. I add unnecessary 'h' sounds between notes in extended syllables. (Cli-i-i-imb vs Cli-hi-hi-himb)
2. I come in too hard on vowel-first words, instead of adding a near-inaudible 'h' sound to soften it (hAttack vs Attack)
3. I forget to spin the air on my high notes, making them sound raspy. I fixed this with straw breathing exercises.
4. My vowels are wider than they are tall, which results in a thinner and less powerful sound.

As I mentioned in the above reflection, singing is truly a science. There is a lot that I learn every day, and I am pretty amazed by how much I can pick up and how much I continue to pick up from whatever resource I have. I never want to lose this curiosity, ever. I cannot imagine not feeling this excited about learning something new and adding it to my ever-growing list of things to explore about the craft.

Meanwhile, I have a short film to prepare for. 2022 is looking great.