<aside> 🧩
Combined page (2026-10-21). Original draft first; 2 variant drafts appended below under “Variant:” headings — Rant of a Mad Maestro; The Mindful Singer's Manifesto. Edit down to one post before setting Ready to Publish.
</aside>
I'm sorry to say that I'm going to need to speak a little bit about choir directors again.
Let's talk about work.
First of all, when you go to the warm-ups or exercises section of my program, you'll see that I have things divided up. There are warm-ups, technical exercises, cool downs, therapeutic exercises, and so on and so forth. The term warm-up has become a catchall for any kind of vocalization that doesn't have a specific song attached to it. This is not ideal. In fact, we've become so accustomed to the idea of needing to "warm up" that I have people coming to rehearsals saying, "Can you please give us a warm-up? I really need one." I understand that people think they need warm-ups, and sometimes they do, but for the most part, you don't.
Now, here's the problem with warm-ups. Beyond whether or not you need them, if left to their own devices, generally speaking, singers who are engaged in warm-ups or technical exercises are not fully present. If you don't believe me, maybe you're an exception and projecting your exceptionalism onto everyone else around you, but please open your eyes, look around, and you'll see that people are singing along with everybody else, but they're probably thinking about what they're going to make for dinner. One could argue that there is some small benefit to doing this in terms of "warming up the voice," but I think that this kind of mindless singing does more harm than good. Here's why. It trains you as a singer to sing without being fully engaged. And that's not good under any circumstance. Every single time you sing, you need to be connected both to what you're doing physically and to what you're feeling emotionally or intellectually. You need to be present in that moment. If you're not, that's a problem. Now, I will grant that sometimes the warm-up in a choir rehearsal or a voice lesson is an excellent transition point between the hectic everyday world and our time singing. But that needs to be a conscious choice as well, so don't just go through the motions.
By extension, you should think about how you treat your songs. Sometimes, you're practicing performing, which means that your mind is focused on the tasks of performing, even though you're not on stage necessarily. You need to treat that moment as though you were. You need to practice like you're going to perform. If you don't, the only time you'll ever practice performing is when you're actually performing. Let's think about a young person who plays Little League baseball. I suspect that every single time they step up to bat, their intention is to hit a home run. Maybe that's not the case; I never played baseball, so I'm just assuming the best. But what I know for certain is that a lot of my singers come through and phone it in. That doesn't work. All you do when you do that is practice performing poorly.
I've mentioned another time about a very strict piano teacher that I had in high school. She taught me something incredibly valuable. One time, I was struggling with a passage, and I finally got it right. And my intention was to move on. And she said, "Stop, you need to play it again." When I did, I didn't get it right the second time. And she said, "Piero, I've watched you working on this passage for a few minutes now, and you've played it wrong many, many times. If you stop practicing the section after the first time you get it right, a week from now, what your brain will remember is the 10 times you played it wrong and the one time you played it right. You need to switch that balance." So if you're just going through the motions when you warm up or phoning it in when you sing through your song, you're practicing doing it wrong. If you've been struggling with something and going over it many, many times, and you finally get it right, that should be a big flag saying, "Great, I got it right. Now I'm going to see if I can get it right again, and again, and again, and again." And when you get it right several times in a row, then you've got it.
Hidden Brain Article on Choking:
You 2.0: Overcoming Stage Fright | Hidden Brain Media
<aside> 🧩
Merged from Working Materials page “Rant of a Mad Maestro: Exposing the Choir Catastrophe” (445 words) on 2026-10-21. Text below is verbatim; the source page was marked Archived / Duplicate? = Delete.
</aside>
JULIUS: Ladies and gentlemen, I'm sorry to say that I have to talk about choir directors AGAIN. (Pauses) I know, I can hear the collective groan from here.
(JULIUS shifts his tone to sarcastic enthusiasm.)
JULIUS: Let's talk about vocal warm-ups, shall we? We've got your typical warm-ups, your technical exercises, your cool-downs, and your therapeutic exercises. You name it; we've got it. But, for some reason, warm-ups have become a catchall term for any vocalization that isn't a song. How absolutely brilliant, right?
(JULIUS rolls his eyes and continues in a sarcastic tone.)
JULIUS: I hear people begging for warm-ups at rehearsals, like they're starving for them. But guess what? You probably don't even need them!
(JULIUS leans in and continues in an accusatory tone.)
JULIUS: I see you all, checked out during your warm-ups, thinking about what's for dinner. And you know what? You're doing more harm than good, because you're training yourself to sing while you're checked out! And that, my friends, is a disaster in the making.