Weekly Voice Insights #108- When a Familiar Role Begins to Feel New

Yesterday, Nicholas McRoberts, founder and artistic director of Opéra de Biarritz Pays Basque, called to offer me the role of Sharpless in Madama Butterfly. As we talked about the production, our conversation moved toward the differences between preparing Verdi and Puccini.

Verdi’s characters can sometimes be painted too monochromatically. They become good or bad, noble or corrupt, loving or vengeful. They shouldn’t be treated that way, but the temptation is there. Puccini writes in a more naturalistic style, which leaves room for more complexity.

Sharpless is the American consul in Nagasaki. When he listens to Butterfly, he hears something Pinkerton has missed: for her, the marriage is a real commitment. He recognizes the danger in that difference and later witnesses the consequences for her. His empathy is an important part of the character, particularly in the way he responds to Butterfly. But empathy is not something I can play. It has to be present in my intention, and that intention affects the way I deliver the line.

The Greek word prosōpon can mean a role, mask, or character. 

Epictetus cautions:

“Never assume a character inconsistent with your own, nor try to appear what you are not.”

There is an obvious tension in that statement for a performer. I am taking on another person’s prosōpon. Sharpless has his own words, relationships, history, and place within the opera. But if I play the outward appearance of empathy, the portrayal becomes less believable.

Perhaps that is part of what overacting is. A real characteristic is enlarged until it no longer seems real.

This can also happen when someone takes on a particular role within a team. The person may have the talent and many of the qualities the position requires. But if those qualities are pushed too far—or displayed in a way that seeks approval—other people sense that something doesn’t quite correspond. They may not be able to say exactly what they are reacting to, but they feel it.

Physis refers to one’s natural condition or inherent way of being. It takes time to become comfortable enough in one’s own skin to recognize a natural way of speaking, responding, and being with other people. The same is true when I prepare a character.

I have performed Sharpless many times. In the Foster 200: An American Jukebox concerts I have been doing, I also sing “The Vicar of Bray,” taking on that character as he moves rather conveniently through changing political loyalties. Whether I am returning to Sharpless or singing the Vicar, I look for aspects of the character that correspond with my own ideas, words, and emotions.

Mimēsis means imitation, and imitation is often part of learning. Singers borrow sounds, phrasing, gestures, and interpretations. The important question is why I am borrowing something. When I understand what drew me to a particular choice, I can begin to individualize it. Otherwise, I may simply reproduce the outward result of someone else’s work.

Repetition helps me discover my own interpretation. Each time I return to the music and text, I naturally add to or enhance the meaning. I hear something in a phrase that I didn’t hear before. A word takes on more weight. A response to another character becomes more specific. The interpretation becomes connected with what I believe.

In this production, Sharpless will speak dialogue in French, which is unusual, while the sung portions will remain in Puccini’s original Italian. I didn’t write any of those words, and I cannot replace them with words that feel more comfortable. I have to inhabit them and find a way to make them my own.

For me, that begins with intention. What am I intending when Sharpless says a particular line? The intention is served by breath, which becomes tone and eventually connects with the audience. That connection still has to leave room for the audience to react. I don’t have to play empathy. I have to know what Sharpless intends and allow that intention to affect the line.

The same problem can arise when someone is given a script for a presentation or talking points to share with a team. Memorizing the words may make the delivery accurate, but accuracy alone won’t make the thoughts belong to the speaker. The person still has to live with the text long enough to understand what each point means, why it is being said, and what they intend the listeners to receive.

Although I have performed Sharpless many times, I don’t yet know what will feel new in this production. That will develop as I spend time with the French dialogue, return to the Italian, and look again at the words and intentions Puccini gives the character.

Inner Check-In

• When have you had to make words you didn’t write feel like your own?
• What happens when you try to display a quality instead of allowing it to come through your intention?
• Where might repetition help you discover something new in familiar material?

Weekly Voice Insights #107 -What Choice Sounds Like

John Doyle begins his August 28, 2026 Fire Engineering article, “The Hero Trap: Beyond Ego,” with Marcus Aurelius, using the passage to challenge the idea that Stoicism is simply about suppressing reaction. In Meditations 8.5, Aurelius writes:

“Secondly, look steadfastly at the thing, and see it as it is…”

The passage continues from seeing the situation accurately into the question of how we act and speak in response. Epictetus approaches a related question through the faculty of choice. In Discourses 1.1, he distinguishes between the body and the faculty of choice. I paraphrase that distinction this way: “You are not just voice and flesh, but also choice and character.”

"Choice and character" are closely connected because our choices do not simply disappear after we make them. Repeated often enough, they begin to form a habitual disposition, what the Greeks called ēthos. Character in that sense is less an abstract quality than a pattern of conduct that has become relatively stable.

Some of those patterns are easy to recognize. I have a morning ritual, and writing this blog has become part of it. Other habits are less intentional and may tell me more about myself: how quickly I become irritated, how much attention I give to a petty grievance, whether I feel compelled to answer every disturbance that comes my way. Small irritations are plentiful enough that responding to all of them would require an enormous amount of energy.

The leadership article also employs a surprising amount of vocal language. The author describes the urge to “command the room” or become the “loudest voice.” Under pressure, people stop listening, deflect feedback, lash out, shut down, lecture, or create an environment in which others eventually stop speaking.

As a singer and voice teacher, I experience tone as the result of a process already underway. Intention affects what I prepare to say, breath responds to that intention, and tone becomes part of what another person actually receives. I may intend one thing, produce another, and discover the difference only when I listen to what actually emerged.

A trained voice depends on repetition. Years of physical and vocal work create responses that eventually become available without requiring conscious management at every moment. There is something worth being grateful for in having a body and voice that continue to respond and serve.

Habit, of course, does not distinguish between what I meant to practice and what I happened to repeat. Impatience can become practiced. So can interruption, defensiveness, or the tendency to withdraw. What has been repeated often enough can begin to feel natural simply because it has become familiar.

That is where prohairesis, the faculty of choice, becomes more demanding. I find myself connecting it with the Italian word volontà, partly because I associate will with continuing to search, try, work, and improve. Yet Epictetus is asking for something more precise than determination. The question is what I do with what presents itself to me, what judgment I make about it, and how that judgment enters my conduct.

Voice and body are part of how that choice becomes visible and audible. I do not have complete command over either one, but I can become more aware of how I use them and of the habits that have formed through repeated use.

The leadership article argues that leaders can become preoccupied with appearing certain, strong, or in control, and that this performance can interfere with listening and responding. I hesitate over the phrase “letting go of the performance,” because performance itself is not the problem. As a singer, I may rehearse a role for weeks and still have to hear what another singer is doing in the moment, respond to the conductor, and adjust to what is actually happening around me. A prepared performance still depends on responsiveness.

The same is true of the sound itself. I can make a phrase louder, fuller, or more technically beautiful and still miss what the words require. The sound may be impressive while remaining too general for the thought or situation. In conversation, something similar can happen when the effort to sound decisive, composed, or authoritative begins to override the meaning of what is being said or the response of the person in front of me. 

Marcus Aurelius asks us to look at what is there and know it for what it is. Epictetus repeatedly returns responsibility to the faculty of choice. In voice work, there is a related kind of examination, although it does not necessarily happen while we are speaking. In teaching, I often encourage people to pay attention to how the sound feels physically in the mechanism while they are producing it, rather than trying to monitor how it sounds in the moment.

Listening can come afterward. When I hear a recording or think back on a conversation, I can ask whether what came across was what I intended. Did the tone carry the emotion I meant to communicate? Did the sound support the words, or did something else take over? That kind of listening can reveal a difference between intention and result that may be difficult to notice while the exchange is happening.

For me, that returns the question to choice. I cannot change the response that has already been made, but I can become more aware of what happened and let that awareness affect the next one.

Inner Check-In

• When you listen back to yourself, does the tone match what you intended to communicate?
• What kind of response do you find yourself repeating when you feel challenged or irritated?
• What might you choose differently the next time that response begins to form?

Weekly Voice Insights #106 - Structure, Listening and Responding

“Be for the most part silent, or speak merely what is necessary, and in few words.”—Epictetus, Enchiridion 33

Note to self: Let him finish.

Yesterday, I recorded a conversation with John Wisner, a Managing Principal Consultant and Business Analysis Capability Lead at Capco, for an upcoming edition of his BA Insights series. The proposed subject was solution identification and the role business analysts play in helping organizations move from understanding a problem toward identifying possible solutions.

I am not a business analyst by trade; my experience comes from working with business analysts, project managers, performers, teachers, and other professionals on the way they use their voices to communicate what they know. The delivery of information therefore became my point of entry into the discussion.

A business analyst may have a considerable amount of information to communicate to stakeholders or a team. The analyst may understand the terminology, the process, the supporting data, and the relationships between the different parts, while the people receiving the information may not have the same familiarity.

The difference affects more than the content because it also affects how the content is delivered.

Knowing the Material

If I have twenty or thirty minutes to present an idea, I can treat the available time as an opportunity to include as much information as possible.

I may have graphs, labels, quotations, definitions, examples, comparisons, and data supporting what I am trying to explain. Every part may seem relevant because I already understand how it fits into the larger subject.

The audience has to construct those relationships while I am speaking.

Something that feels like a brief explanation to me may contain several unfamiliar concepts for someone else. An analogy that helps me organize the subject may require the audience to understand another field before it can understand the comparison. A series of high-level points may arrive so quickly that there is no time to determine which point carries the most weight.

The information may be accurate while still arriving too quickly for the audience to group it into a coherent understanding.

Familiarity can compress the speaker’s experience of time and complexity. Because I know where the explanation is going, I may not notice how much work the audience is doing to follow me.

Staying on Topic

Structure is necessary because a presentation needs a purpose and a meeting needs to remain connected to the issue it was intended to address. A discussion that wanders too far can consume time without producing anything useful.

There is, however, a fine difference between keeping a conversation on topic and trying to make everything fit a specific structure.

If I prepare too completely for where I believe the discussion should go, I may begin herding the dialogue toward a destination I have chosen. I may listen for opportunities to return to my prepared material rather than considering where another person’s contribution could lead.

The questions may sound open even when my listening has already been organized around a preferred answer.

During solution identification, a team may need structure for examining the problem, considering requirements, evaluating alternatives, and determining what can be acted upon. The structure can keep the discussion focused while still leaving room for the participants to affect what happens within it.

Going Off Script

During yesterday’s conversation, I listened for parts of John’s questions and explanations that connected with my expertise. I used those points to consider solution identification through delivery, vocal self-awareness, and audience response.

The discussion moved into areas neither of us had expected, and his language gave me another way to consider questions I have been exploring through voice. The prepared topic kept us oriented without determining every direction the conversation could take.

Afterward, John renamed the session:

“Off Script: The Human Side of Solution Identification.”

The new title named a direction that became clear because we had allowed the conversation to develop.

Knowing When to Enter

Throughout the conversation, I was paying attention to my own pace. When ideas begin connecting, I can become excited and want to share several of them at once, so I made a conscious effort to complete a thought, pause, and give John time to respond before continuing. His response could then become part of where the conversation went next.

Listening presented a different challenge during longer stretches of explanation. When something John said connected immediately with one of my ideas, I sometimes felt an urgency to respond before the conversation moved beyond the point I wanted to address.

An interruption can sometimes support an exchange, but the urge to respond immediately can also pull my attention away from what the other person is still saying.

I wrote down one or two words as John spoke. The notes allowed me to continue listening and decide, after he had finished, whether my thought still belonged in the conversation. If it remained pertinent, I could return to it. If the discussion had gone somewhere else, I did not have to force it back simply because I had prepared something to say.

Leaving space required some trust in what would come next.

As the exchange developed, I noticed more space between some thoughts and slightly more time for an idea to be considered before either of us continued. One contribution affected the next, and the conversation developed through the way we responded to each other.

Intention kept us connected to the purpose of the discussion. Breath gave each thought some space. Tone reflected how we were engaging with the ideas, while connection depended on whether we used what the other person contributed.

AI can continue supplying information, interpretations, and possible answers. A live conversation introduces something less predictable: another person who may notice a relationship I had not considered.

Preparation gives me material to work with, while self-awareness helps me recognize when to speak, when to wait, and where the conversation may be able to go.

Inner Check-In

• When you present familiar information, how do you determine what may be unfamiliar to your audience?
• What indicates that your structure is helping the conversation rather than controlling it?
• When you feel an urgency to speak, what helps you decide whether to enter or continue listening?
• What happens to your pace and attention when the conversation no longer follows the expected path?

Weekly Voice Insights #105 -What Happens Before the Solution?

Image created in collaboration with AI.

“Test what appears good and hold to what truly is.”
— Based on Epictetus, Enchiridion 45

I was recently invited to take part in a podcast discussion about “solution identification” in business analysis. When I received the proposed questions, I first had to ask myself where my work with voice entered the discussion.

As I read through the questions, the connection became clearer. "Solution identification"  is not only about producing an answer. It involves understanding the problem, considering possible ways forward, and deciding which possibility is useful in a particular situation. All of that happens through conversation.

One of the questions asked how a Business Analyst knows when it is time to move from understanding the problem to identifying solutions. Another asked how analysts and stakeholders can keep from moving toward a solution too early.

Those questions are very much about voice.

What Happens to My Listening Once I Have an Answer?

In conversation, timing matters. I may begin preparing my response before the other person has completed the thought. But once I have begun forming it, part of my attention has already moved away from what the other person is saying.

The same thing can happen when someone recognizes a possible solution. Instead of continuing to investigate the problem, the person begins listening for information that supports the answer already in mind. 

This is where intention matters. What am I trying to accomplish in the exchange? Am I still trying to understand what is happening, or has my intention changed to gaining agreement for what I have already decided?

Leadership requires knowing when to give clear direction and when to leave room for another person to respond. That choice begins with intention. The same distinction applies when a group is working toward a solution. There is a time to guide the discussion and a time to remain quiet long enough for another possibility to emerge.

Attachment Can Be Heard

No one has to announce, “I am now defending my preferred solution.” The change often becomes audible.

Urgency can change the breath and pace, moving the voice away from the original intention. Uncertainty can create an urge to regain control, particularly when the discussion moves away from the prepared plan. The question then becomes: Where does my attention go when the conversation takes an unexpected turn, and how do I bring it back into focus?

Tone also affects how a possible solution is received. An idea presented with confidence can sound more complete than it actually is. Another idea may receive less consideration because the person presenting it sounds hesitant. If that happens, the group may be responding to the delivery rather than evaluating the substance of the solution.

Epictetus’ instruction is useful here: test what appears good. A solution that sounds convincing still has to be examined in relation to the problem, the people involved, and what the organization can actually do.

More Answers Require More Judgment

Another question asked what the Business Analyst adds if artificial intelligence can generate dozens of potential solutions in seconds.

AI can certainly make more possibilities available. It can organize information, identify patterns, suggest alternatives, and make a detailed answer sound remarkably complete. But producing possibilities and deciding what to do with them are different activities.

I considered a similar distinction in last week’s Voice Insight. After spending a lifetime learning about voice, the harder question was not whether I had enough information. It was what to do with all of it. I may know a great deal about a subject, but I cannot place all of it into one lesson, one presentation, or one conversation. At some point I have to decide what is useful right now.

AI gives us more information than ever, but it doesn’t take away the responsibility of choosing what actually matters and deserves our attention.

Those evaluating the options still have to ask:

• Was the problem described accurately?
• What assumptions entered the prompt?
• Whose perspective is missing?
• Does an answer that appears reasonable apply to the situation at hand?

My own use of AI often becomes an act of listening. AI usually gives me more language than I need. When I hear it read aloud, I can recognize what should remain, what reflects what I actually believe, and what still needs to be put into my own voice. The answer is not complete simply because it has been produced. I have to be able to say it and mean it.

Connection Is the Result

I have been preparing The Power of Your Voice: Skills for Crucial Conversations as both a presentation and a companion book. The framework is organized around four areas: intention, breath, tone, and connection. The first three can be prepared. Connection is the result.

A potential result depends on what another person receives. You may know more than the other person can use at once.

Notice:

• When does explanation become overload?
• Has a question gone unanswered?
• Has the most important concern been buried beneath additional information?

“Solution identification” may begin with analysis, but it does not remain on the page. People have to speak, listen, question, challenge, and decide. Listening includes hearing other people, but it can also mean listening back to my own delivery. I may know the subject so well that I do not hear how I sound while explaining it.

A recording creates some distance from the moment. It does not need to capture an entire presentation. I can record one or two points as though I were speaking directly to the audience, then listen back. Keeping the passage short makes it easier to compare what I intended with what can actually be heard and ask: If I were receiving this explanation, how might I respond?

Inner Check-In

• What happens to the way I listen and speak once I think I know the solution?
• If I heard my explanation from the listener’s place, what would I notice about my breath, pace, or tone—and how might I respond?
• When AI gives me more possibilities, how do I decide which ones deserve attention?

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Weekly Voice Insights #104 – 104 Weeks Later: What Bears Repeating

This week marks two years of Weekly Voice Insights, and as I started looking back through the 103 articles that came before this one, I found myself thinking less about the number 104 and more about what has happened during the process of getting here.

When I began, I did have some imposter syndrome. I think some of that is healthy. It can make me check what I am saying, go back to a source, question an assumption, or make sure that what I am putting in front of someone is actually useful. I still have some of that now, and I am not sure I would want it to disappear completely.

But the question was never really whether I knew enough about voice. I have been fortunate to spend a lifetime learning about it through singing, teaching, conductors, other singers, extraordinary teachers such as Margaret Harshaw, the writings of Giovanni Battista Lamperti, and performers such as Frank Sinatra, whose understanding of words and phrasing continues to give me things to think about.

The harder question was what to do with all of that information.

n his book 46 Rules of Genius, Marty Neumeier writes, “You can learn anything, but you can’t learn everything.” I think there is something similar in teaching and writing. I may know a great deal about a subject, but I cannot put all of it into one article, one lesson, one rehearsal, or one conversation. At some point I have to decide what is most useful right now.

After 104 weeks, I think I am more comfortable making that choice.

Looking back at the articles with the most views has been interesting because the subjects are quite varied. Some are about the mental side of voice. Others are about hearing yourself objectively, breath, vowels, practice, trust, or the way we listen to another person. What connects many of them for me is that they take something fairly large and bring the attention down to something a person can actually notice.

I keep thinking about the familiar experiment in which people are asked to concentrate on one task so intently that they can miss the gorilla walking through the scene. Attention has a hierarchy. When I am using my voice, there are many things I could think about, and I cannot give all of them equal attention at the same time.

It is remarkably easy to open my mouth and make sound. I can start saying the words before I have really considered what I intend to do with them. Breathing is something I have done all my life, so it is equally easy to assume I do not have to think about it. Yet those are two things I would like to have available to me before the sound begins: What is my intention, and what is my breath doing?

None of this is especially complicated, but there are a lot of things happening when I use my voice, and I cannot think about all of them at the same time. Part of what practice does is make some of those processes familiar enough that I do not have to keep attending to them. Then I can give more attention to my intention and to how what I am saying is actually being heard.

This may be one of the reasons Epictetus has become increasingly useful in these articles and in my own practice. The quotation I put on the back of my Epictetus reflection journal says, “You cannot learn that which you think you already know.” I find that especially relevant to voice because so much of what we do feels familiar. We already know how to breathe. We already know how to speak.

Knowing something well does not mean I am finished with it. I may know a song from memory, but I still have to think about the phrase before I sing it so that it comes from a present thought rather than simply from recall. The same is true when I teach or speak about an idea I have explained many times before. The words may be familiar, but the communication still has to happen now.

For me, the answer has often been repetition. That word sometimes gets treated as though repetition automatically means mindless practice, when it can be exactly the opposite. Repetition is how I make something available when my attention is occupied elsewhere.

I see that in my morning Stoic routine. There are mornings when I am interested and ready to do it, and there are mornings when I think, really, again? After hearing so many variations on the importance of discipline over the years, I found my own way of expressing it: “Discipline prevails when motivation fails.” I do not have to feel particularly inspired for the practice to still have value. I repeat it because the repetition itself keeps certain ideas accessible.

If I repeatedly return to intention and breath in practice, I do not have to start analyzing several different technical ideas when I am actually using my voice. The work I have done beforehand helps me know, without having to think about it, what belongs near the top of the hierarchy.

Perhaps that is one of the things these 104 weeks have taught me.

Two years ago, the amount of information I had about voice could sometimes feel almost like the problem. Where do I begin? What belongs here? What will actually help somebody?

I feel that uncertainty considerably less now. The writing itself has been a form of repetition. I have returned to breath from different directions. I have looked at intention through performance, communication, Stoic philosophy, and the practical experiences that happen in ordinary life. I have gone back to ideas I thought I understood and discovered that there was still another way to look at them.

Maybe the useful part of imposter syndrome is the part that continues to ask, “Have I looked closely enough at this?” Experience gives me another question to put beside it: “What do I already know that can help me decide what deserves my attention now?”

After 104 Weekly Voice Insights, I do not feel the same pressure to come up with something earth-shattering every week. Sometimes an insight is something I have thought about before that becomes useful again because of what I am seeing, hearing, or working on now. Those ideas may bear repeating. In fact, repetition may be part of how they become useful in the first place.

#DevelopingYourAuthenticVoice #WeeklyVoiceInsights104 #TwoYearsOfVoice #IntentionalPractice #StoicWisdom

Weekly Voice Insights #103  The Moments in Between: What I Say and What I Do

The moment before...

As I prepare for another performance of the Foster 200 American Song Jukebox this weekend, I have been going back over the songs and thinking about what happens in the moments between phrases. I have performed this program a couple of times now, so the music and texts are becoming familiar, but I still have to approach the words as though the thought is occurring to me in the moment.

The musical score gives me some help with that because the pauses are already written into it. A rest tells me how much time passes before I sing again, but I still have to register what is happening during that time. I have to take in what I have just sung and allow the next thought to occur before I begin the next phrase. Otherwise, I am simply observing the correct number of beats before making sound again.

The musical score gives me some help because the pauses are already written into it, and of course I have to observe the correct number of beats. At the same time, I have to register what is happening during that pause and know why I begin to sing again when I do. Something has to be going on in the silence so that the next phrase sounds as though it comes from the thought that has continued through it, rather than simply from having reached the end of the rest.

That has made me think about the equivalent moment in speaking. In music, the length of the pause has already been decided for me. In conversation, there is no written rest telling me how long that moment should last; I have some control over how much time I take to register what I have heard before I respond. That brings me back to this week’s quotation from Epictetus:

“First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.”
— Discourses 2.23

The word that catches my attention is then. There is an interval between learning and speaking, just as there is an interval between one musical phrase and the next. What happens during that interval?

Original Greek 

• σιγή (sigē): silence, stillness
• λόγος (logos): speech, reasoned expression
• κρίσις (krisis): judgment, discernment
• μέτρον (metron): measure, moderation
• χρῆσις (chrēsis): use, practical application

Silence That Is Doing Something

Sigē gives me a way to think about what happens when I become quiet enough to listen. In that silence, even the act of breathing can help settle the activity of my own thoughts so that I can actually hear what someone else is saying. That pause can give me enough time to hear the other person before I begin deciding what to say.

Learning Before Speaking

Logos—speech or reasoned expression—brought me back to the first part of Epictetus's instruction: learn.

I notice this constantly in my own work. Before I speak about something, send an email, or write one of these articles, I look up names, ideas, facts, and context. Sometimes that takes a few seconds. Sometimes it requires considerably more time. What I know changes what I am able to say.

But knowledge by itself doesn't finish the process. Chrēsis, practical application or use, asks what I do with what I have learned. I can study a process or learn a musical text, but eventually I have to use that knowledge at the moment when it is useful.

Judgment Before the Word

Krisis has been a more difficult word for me because of the negative quality we often attach to “judgment.” Yet judgment can also mean discernment.

Before words come out of my mouth, I am making judgments: Is this accurate? Is this the word I mean? Have I understood what I am responding to? Do I know enough about this to say it?

Metron, measure or moderation, adds another part to that process. In speech, I have to decide how much time I need before responding. Sometimes that may be only a beat; at other times, I may need much longer before I am ready to speak.

Intention to Action

I recently published a reflection journal built around 52 quotations from Epictetus, one for each week of the year. Each week includes the quotation, some of the original Greek, and space to return to the material over seven days. When I use the journal myself, I usually begin with one of the Greek words and see what it brings up for me. I try not to overthink the process. I look at the word, consider what is happening in my life or work at that moment, and see where the connection is.

In that respect, the journal sometimes intersects with another practice I have had for quite a while, which is using a Panda Planner. The planner is organized in three-month sections, and I use it to record what I am planning to do on a particular day, along with the schedule and tasks that go with it. I also use the notes area to keep track of earlier planner pages that I have gone back to review.

There is a slightly serendipitous part to that review. I will sometimes ask ChatGPT to choose a random number for me, and I use that number to decide which page or day I am going to revisit. I may end up looking at a day from September, then one from March, then another from April, sometimes from entirely different three-month planners. Because I am not choosing the pages based on what I remember being there, I do not know in advance what I am going to find.

What has been interesting lately is seeing how often I have actually followed through on what I wrote down. I can look at something I planned months earlier and recognize that I did it, or that something I was working toward then has since happened. Seeing that across several different periods gives me some confidence that the intentions I record are not simply things I write down and forget.

That brought one of the questions in this week’s journal into a different focus for me: Do my actions match what I say I am going to do?

The Epictetus journal does not keep track of those things for me in the same way the Panda Planner does. It gives me a place to encounter an idea and see how it connects with what I am doing now. The planner gives me something I can return to later and compare with what actually happened. Somewhere between the two, I can see both the intention and what became of it.

Turn of the Breath

At the other end of all these longer intervals is a very small physical one: the moment when the inhale becomes the exhale. I’ve been thinking about that transition and about what I can do with it before whatever comes next begins.

That may be where Epictetus’s then becomes physical for me. “First learn the meaning of what you say, and then speak.” The then does not have a prescribed length. It might be the time needed to research something before writing about it, or only the brief turn of the breath before expression. What interests me is recognizing that moment and actually using it.

The quotation itself describes a sequence: first this, and then that. I recognize a similar sequence in the voice: first the intention, then the breath, then the tone, and then the connection. The time between each may be very small, but there is still something happening in those moments in between.

Inner Check-In

• When you are trying to understand something before you communicate it, what process do you use to find what is relevant?
• Where do you keep information you may return to? When the time comes, can you put your fingers on it?
• How does understanding your subject affect your confidence?

Weekly Voice Insights #102 — Who Are You Performing For?

Connecting with the audience during a live Foster 200: American Jukebox performance.

“Never assume a character inconsistent with your own, nor try to appear what you are not.”— Based on Epictetus, Discourses 1.29

Greek Vocabulary

• μίμησις (mimēsis): imitation
• φύσις (physis): natural condition, what you are by nature
• προσοχή (prosokhē): attention, careful awareness
• τόνος (tonos): tension, tone, vocal quality
• ἕξις (hexis): habitual use, acquired condition
• πρόσωπον (prosōpon): role, mask, or assumed character

As I prepare the Vicar of Bray for the third presentation of Foster 200: American Jukebox, I have been paying closer attention to what the character is doing through his own words. Each time the political situation changes, he finds a way to explain why his former convictions must change with it. His public position moves back and forth, while his underlying purpose remains steady: he intends to remain the Vicar of Bray.

The reversals make the song funny, and it would be easy to make the Vicar into a caricature. The more I work on the song, however, the more recognizable the impulse becomes. He changes what he presents according to what he believes the people in power are prepared to receive. He takes that adjustment to an extreme, although the calculation itself is familiar.

Knowing the audience is part of communicating. I may choose material, examples, language, or the amount of explanation according to the people in front of me. Those choices can help a listener enter the subject. The question is how much I change before my attention moves away from communicating the idea and toward arranging the version of myself I hope the audience will approve.

The Vicar is trying to preserve his position. In ordinary communication, the desired result may be employment, approval, appreciation, or reassurance that I have presented myself successfully. As those concerns become more prominent, the effort to connect with the listener can become increasingly self-involved.

I learned this most clearly in New York audition rooms. When someone responded very effusively—“Oh, that was fabulous! Marvelous!”—I almost never got the job. It happened often enough for me to notice the pattern.

I may still appear to be paying close attention to the audience while much of my attention is occupied with the response I hope to receive. The communication then becomes less about giving the listener a way into the subject and more about whether I will be liked, hired, invited back, or told that I have done well.

The Greek word prosōpon can mean a role, mask, or assumed character. In performing the Vicar, I am deliberately taking on a role. Within the song, the Vicar is also presenting one public character after another. His stated convictions change according to circumstance, while the purpose beneath them remains consistent.

I do not need to stand outside the character and display his hypocrisy. The contradictions are already present in the text. My work is to understand where he changes direction, which words reveal what he is doing, and how he continues to justify himself. Recognizing the impulse behind his behavior allows me to perform the character without reducing him to a series of comic effects.

Mimēsis, imitation, is often part of that preparation. I may listen to another singer and hear where the singer breathes, which words are brought forward, and how the interpretation moves through the song. As a listener, I have a more literal awareness of what I hear because I am outside the performance and can examine those choices.

During performance, I do not want to monitor myself. If I become occupied with listening to my own voice, my attention shifts away from what is happening in the moment and from the people I am addressing. I may also miss something occurring in the room that could affect how I communicate the next thought. Listening and examination belong largely to preparation.

Practice allows me to try what I have heard and discover whether it has meaning within my own interpretation. I may begin with another singer’s choice, although repetition gradually helps me discover where I need to breathe, which words carry the thought, and how the Vicar’s argument changes from one verse to the next. Knowing why I make a choice begins to individualize what I have borrowed.

This is where hexis, habitual use or acquired condition, becomes useful. Repetition allows choices to become familiar enough that I do not need to supervise each one while I perform. It can also preserve a choice after I have stopped considering why I make it. Prosokhē, careful awareness, keeps practice connected with what I continue to discover in the words.

Each time I return to the song, I may hear the argument differently. A word that seemed secondary may reveal the character’s calculation. A breath may interrupt the thought when the sentence needs to continue. An emphasis borrowed from another interpretation may no longer correspond with what I understand. Practice gives me the opportunity to make those decisions before I enter the performance.

The question of what feels natural is more complicated than it may first appear. Physis refers to one’s natural condition, or what one is by nature. It takes time to feel comfortable in one’s own skin and to recognize an inherent way of communicating. A habit may feel natural because it has been repeated for years. Something borrowed from another person may also become useful once I understand why it works for me.

What is natural for one person may appear excessive in another. The instruction for this week was to avoid overacting and be natural. Overacting can appear outside the theater through too much gratitude, over-the-top compliments, or what is now called love bombing. The amount of feeling being displayed exceeds what the person may actually feel, perhaps because the expression is intended to secure a response.

That effort may be heard in the voice. Careful attention helps me notice when my expression begins to serve the impression I hope to make.

Tonos can refer to tension, tone, or vocal quality. Tone communicates more than the literal meaning of the words. It can reveal whether I am engaged with the person in front of me or occupied with how I am being received. It can also reveal when enthusiasm has become a way of demonstrating enthusiasm rather than an expression of what I actually think.

The Vicar of Bray gives me an exaggerated example of what can happen when adaptation becomes a way of preserving approval and position. Preparing the song asks me to recognize that impulse in myself before judging it too easily in the character. It also reminds me that understanding an audience does not require presenting a different identity each time the audience changes.

Practice helps me understand what I have borrowed, what the character is doing, and what I can communicate through my own experience. Once those choices have been examined, I can stop listening to myself from the outside and remain involved in the actuality of the moment.

Inner Check-In

• When I borrow an interpretive choice from another performer, can I explain what I hear in it and why I continue to use it?
• When I adjust my presentation for an audience, am I serving the material—or am I serving my own desire for approval?