Letting down the whole team by staying in our comfort zones

Playing or singing in a musical ensemble is the epitome of team activities.

But many musicians let their teams down far more often than they realize, thinking they are doing good.

Get stuck taking the lead or the bottom

With generous hearts, performers find their place in an ensemble and do what they can to serve the group in that manner.

Forever.

Some folk turn up expecting to take first chair regardless of who else is in the ensemble.

Others even turn up expecting to sit in the back row simply because they lack confidence and don’t want to be in the limelight.

Neither approach helps the team.

Letting the team and the whole ensemble down

In fact, quite the opposite is true.

Because we like our comfort zones, we are quite happy to find our place and stay there.

But what happens if, all of a sudden, the person who always takes the solo line isn’t there one day – or worse, one performance? The whole group suffers. There’s no one the team knows and trusts to take that solo and make sure the audience still gets the most spectacular performance.

And the opposite is true as well – those who always take the solo line begin a slow and steady decline of musicianship, because they lose the ability to empathize and support the whole group (rather than being the one who is always supported). They lose touch with several elements that contribute to the emotional impact of music, AND they even lose the ability to enhance their listening skills.

That’s right – sitting in different positions in the ensemble, be it in a rehearsal or for a whole concert session, adds to a successful musician’s ability to hear the music from a different angle. This helps musicians notice far more than when they get stuck in the same seat performing the same parts over and over again.

Work with your Section Leader or Conductor

The solution is very simple:

Every once in a while, sit in a different position.

Or take a different part.

Imagine if you sat next to a member of your section whom you barely know (more to be said about that, for sure!), who watched and listened to you, and maybe even asked you a question on how to do something better. Imagine their joy when, with their permission, you paid a little bit of attention and showed them how to do something they didn’t know how to do before.

THAT’S working as a team.

Here’s a Triple Win Lesson:

(Nurture you audience)

Give your audiences the most spectacular performances you can by not getting stuck in one seat, on one part, always taking every solo. They will actually sense the effort to continually grow as a team – it is noticeable visually as well as audibly. True teamwork is perhaps one of the most effective ways you show respect for the music, for your peers, and for your audiences.

If you’d like to explore how this happens in my ensembles, I’ve put together an amazing training session that shares with you five keys my successful clients implement to get better as musicians. This training is so priceless, there is no price! Its value to me is when you IMPLEMENT what you learn.

Go to http://concertuniversity.com now to watch my next webinar training.