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?

Find the DYAV newsletter, website, blog, reflection journal, and Voice Insights archive below:

https://linktr.ee/DYAVwithElias

or scan

#DevelopingYourAuthenticVoice #DYAV #Epictetus #TheMomentsInBetween #FromIntentionToAction