STUDIO CLASS PODCAST Episode 122: Give Feedback in Rehearsal Featuring Megan Ihnen --- Good morning, divas. It's morning for me. I don't know what time you're listening to this, but I hope that you will receive it in the spirit that it is given. So, good morning and welcome to another Micro Action Monday. The other day I was thinking to myself, does anyone teach composers how to do the compliment sandwich anymore? Are you familiar with the compliment sandwich? Do you already use it in your pedagogy, in your collaborations, in your rehearsal process, all of those things? Then you can skip this Micro Action Monday. You're good to go. But if you don't use it or you would like some thoughts on feedback, giving feedback, giving notes, and how to have a really positive experience, then keep listening. Let's talk about it. The compliment sandwich is really just like two pieces of bread, right? And then the meat in the middle. And the compliments are the pieces of bread. So you're saying, "I really liked what you did at section A. That was lovely. At measure 34, could you consider this blah blah blah? Fill in the blank. And then also say, uh, there was a moment here where your voice was, uh, stunning, stunning. Right? Compliment sandwich. You've got a compliment, a note, a compliment, and you've given that to the person that you're working with. The compliment sandwich works in all parts of your life. This is not just in giving musical feedback. You can use this with your significant other. You can use this with your family members. You can use this with your friends. And you can use this in all sorts of settings. Highly recommend. But really, this is getting to the point of how do I give feedback to a colleague or a collaborator, a student, and move forward with the process? Especially how do I give feedback if I perhaps don't play their instrument or sing their voice type or any of those kinds of things. That's why I said, you know, does anybody teach composers how to do the compliment sandwich? Because composers, you are so frequently in the situation of guiding performers to perform the best live version of your vision of your compositional vision. So, I know that that scenario can be rife with miscommunication, but we can all work together to create a more positive experience for each other. When I'm working with composers, I don't expect you to have a master's in voice or a doctorate in voice for us to work together and to have good communication. What I do expect is for you to have clear ideas about what your vision is for the sound world or the sound concept that you're trying to achieve. So this extends outside of new music. This is in all parts of music. But really what we're going for is that if you're collaborating with someone or you're teaching them, right, in a pedagogical situation, or like I said, if you're a composer giving feedback about your own piece, is getting super clear before you give the feedback about what the intended outcome is. That's the part that I really want to practice giving feedback on. It's saying, you know, I'm going to start with, oh, I really like what we're doing here and the phrasing at, you know, at the chorus is really lovely, right? Oh, I like that. That's so cool. I was wondering, would you be open to doing a little more rubato right in this measure? I think that the rubato could be really effective if we started it on beat three of that measure. What do you think? Right? Do you see where I'm going with this? So, my examples are on the fly. I'm, you know, so come with me on this journey. You can fill them in with whatever you're usually talking about. But the idea being that you are communicating the outcome to someone. You're not telling them how to play their instrument or how to sing their voice. Right? What I'm really looking for here is can you describe the sound that we're trying to achieve together? And then I can let you know if there are challenges that are getting in the way and we can come up with other choices to get around those things. As I was mentioning, as a composer, if you give me feedback that says, in measure 80, I would really like the consonants that are happening on beat three to be a little bit before the beat. Is that something that's possible? And I can say, yeah, thank you so much. I'm really working on that. Um, I'm a little challenged by where the breath is going to happen in that measure. I think I should do it here. What do you think? A dialogue—working towards solutions like workable solutions. That's what we're going for. And that means that I don't expect the composer to understand all of the ins and outs of the technical production that I'm doing, but they're open to hearing that I might be working through some technical challenges to achieve the goal that they're setting out in the score. And so there might be a place where the composer says, "Oh, I didn't realize that the breath would be challenging right there. What about doing it here? I hear it very naturally right there. That allows you to get through this phrase and then take another one here. Does that work for you?" Woohoo. I want to take a heartfelt moment to thank Sarah and Josh for being part of the Sybaritic Camerata listening circle on Patreon. They're helping bring you this episode right now. If you'd like to join them, head on over to patreon.com/mezzoihnen. That's M-E-Z-Z-O I-H-N-E-N. Now, let's get back to the show. This is really down to the nitty-gritty of collaborative communication when you're working on a score together. But we're avoiding some of the pitfalls of "you're doing this wrong," right? Or the kind of like "let me tell you how your instrument works." Like, those are the areas that we want to stay away from in communication while being very clear, very detailed about what we do want to hear. So I hope what you hear in my examples so far are things like giving clarity around what you do like, right? The dynamics, the phrasing, the articulation, the rhythmic accuracy, any of these kinds of things. Oh, the sharpness of intonation that's happening here. So something like that, giving a note about intonation can absolutely follow the compliment sandwich version where you're saying, I love how clean and clear the intonation is in this measure in measure 102. And I would love to have the same clarity of intonation in measure 104. Is that something that can happen? And I can say, of course, thank you so much for that note. And we're modeling taking and receiving feedback in this way—saying, yes, let me try it. Or, I understand what you're saying. Let me have a couple tries. Or, I'll need to take that to the practice room. It's always okay to have a better understanding of how much time you need to implement something. As a performer, I like to say, "Let me try for that right now. I might need a couple more swings in the practice room before it's really solid." But I'm going to let's try it right now. Sounds good. Let's jump back in. I'm not trying to belabor the back and forth. I'm trying to say, "Of course, let's give it a whirl. Let's try this." So, even if you know that you're going to have to kind of work that out, make a note. Write it down in your score. Write it, you know, on your iPad. Any of those kinds of things, write it down. Show them that you've taken the note and then move forward and say, "I'm going to try for it right now, even if I need a little bit more time to cement this in the practice room." And that's really what I'm going for—is that clarity of the intended outcome. Getting so clear on what the sound concept is that you're able to communicate what you want them to try for, not what they're doing wrong. So much of my miscommunication or really difficult composer collaborations have been because composers try to give me notes on what I'm doing physically, but we don't have a shared language built around that. So they want to say things like, "Can you move your tongue to get this thing?" And I was like, "Well, that's not how I would make that sound." So tell me about the sound you want to hear. I'm going to try to do that in the technicality that I have, in the production that I have, and that is where I want us to come from for productive communication and rehearsals. Okay, again, let's recap. Compliment sandwich—composers, you can use this all the time. Get your performers on your side by saying nice things about what they're doing and then give them notes. I know that rehearsal time is really, really limited, but this goes so far in building trust. Your performers know that you're listening, not only for where you want to hear differences or where you want to hear slight iterations of something, but that you also hear what they're doing really well with your work, where they're really executing your vision, where they've really adopted your sound world and they're bringing it to life. So don't hesitate to give them those positive reinforcements while you're also suggesting a note. You can make these things move rapidly in rehearsal. It's not going to take up too much time. So, compliment sandwich. Also being very specific about intended outcomes rather than what not to do. Give someone something that they can move towards. They're able to move towards something rather than away from something. Especially in—I think all performers have this, but the more notes you give like "that's wrong, this is wrong, you have to fix this"—like those notes can really get performers locked up in their bodies. And I know that that's not what we're going for. And I know that you're trying to be clear. You're trying to give quick notes. You want to keep the rehearsal moving. But a little bit of care and compassion in this is going to go so far for you, right? Knowing that you're working with colleagues that you think are professionals that you admire in this space. Allow them to also be good at what they do. So ask them to do the thing that you want rather than giving them notes about how they're failing your vision. Okay? So that's let's work on that. So go out there, divas. Go forth, compliment sandwich away. And as always, stay sparkly inside and out. Thanks for joining me for Micro Action Monday. Again, I'm Megan Ihnen and you can find me on all the socials at mezzoihnen. That's M-E-Z-Z-O I-H-N-E-N. Did you know that Studio Class is part of The Sybaritic Singer? It is. And if you liked this episode, you're going to love my 29 Days to Diva series. That's on sybariticsinger.com. And if you liked this episode, will you please consider leaving us a review on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcast? Thanks. It means a lot to me. --- TRANSCRIPT CREDITS Music by Juanitos and Scott Holmes Patreon Support: The Sybaritic Camerata on Patreon patreon.com/mezzoihnen Learn more: sybariticsinger.com | studioclass.fireside.fm