I’ve been taking voice lessons from a teacher at Western Illinois University for about a year now. He is a master of the art of singing, teaching the whole range of singing from pure classical singing to his specialty of musical theatre belt technique. Every lesson is a lot of fun as we do different kinds of exercises and “games”, exploring different techniques and styles of singing. As he has said “In what other kind of job can you get paid to play games with students all day?” So, our lessons consist of playing “games” of vocal exercises, singing through my songs, and learning about all sorts of things.

He has really helped me with two things (besides obviously the vocal technique) - my acting skills and selling the songs. I’m preparing for a couple of auditions coming up, and so in my lesson a couple of days ago, he had me sing my audition songs for him. Let me tell you, it’s the most nerve wracking thing (besides the audition itself) to stand in front of your voice teacher full-on and sing with his undivided attention on you. It’s much easier when he’s busy playing the piano or something else while you’re singing, but to have him watching you the whole time is unnerving. But it’s awesome preparation for the auditions because that’s exactly what happens in an audition. And that’s where I discovered my “ism” - my “harryism” to be exact.

There I was - standing there, singing my song, trying to think of all of the good technique tips he has been giving me, and feeling awkward because I hadn’t really thought of selling the song much. Selling the song is about convincing my audience that I’m not Harry anymore - I’m the character in the play singing about something, and it’s about convincing them to believe in what I’m singing about. When I was finished, he smiled and told me good job. The song had sounded really good, he said, and I had incorporated a lot of the vocal techniques he had been teaching me. BUT - he had discovered my “ism”.

He explained. An “ism” is what you unconsciously do - an action - when you’re not thinking about it. My “harryism” (since it was MY “ism”), he told me, was the action of throwing my arms out to the sides, palms forward, and then quickly drawing them back in. Throughout the song, he said, I had done this same exact action 5 times.

My first reaction was “That’s ridiculous! I didn’t do that!” But as I began to think about it I began remembering parts of the song where I HAD done that action, really without thinking or consciously knowing it. He told me that the perfect way to find a person’s “ism” was to have them stand in front of you and sing a song that they haven’t totally prepared for yet. The “ism” will work it’s way into the performance since it’s their “comfort action”, what they default to when they don’t know what else to do.

My voice teacher then spent the rest of the lesson purging my audition song of the “harryisms”. The first step in getting rid of the “ism” is to become aware of it, he said. And then, you just have to consciously substitute other actions into the song that help you act out and sell the song. This was pretty challenging, but he’s a master as pulling me out of my bad habits and helping me to substitute good ones in their place.

As I was thinking about this on the way home, I thought about how applicable this whole concept is to normal life. How many “harryisms” do I have that I’m not aware of, not just in performing, but it normal life? I’ve been noticing lately that I do certain things when I’m just standing somewhere, folding my arms a certain way, standing a particular way, doing something with my hands. When I’m teaching at Bradley (which is a kind of performance), what are my “isms” there? Not all “isms” are bad, since as humans, the only way to survive our hectic days is to rely on and cultivate habits. But, in an audition or performance, an “ism” is bad because it suggests the person doesn’t know what they’re doing.

I think that everyone should at least become aware of their “isms” so that they know how they come across to other people. I literally had no idea I was doing my “harryisms”! But now, after this past lesson, I’m happy to say that by audition time, my songs will be completely “harryism” free. This is good food for thought for everyone, though, something we really don’t think about.

Ask yourself: What’s your “ism”?

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