Good morning, singers!

This week, I came across a term that really struck me - have you heard of the Zone of Incompetence?

Its opposite, the Zone of Genius, gets a lot of press - this is the "zone" of activity where we should be striving to spend most or all of our time so that we can be the most PRODUCTIVE! and create the most SUCCESS!

That Zone of Genius idea has always sat a little funny with me.

Like, isn't it ok to spend SOME time being bored and not being good at stuff?

So I was really interested when I heard the whole theory of Zones explained by its creator, Gay Hendricks, in his book The Big Leap.

He posits that we have four Zones of activity - Incompetence, Competence, Excellence, and Genius - and that in order to develop ourselves, we should strive to spend more time in the last Zone and less in the first three.

In explaining the Zone of Incompetence, Hendricks tells the story of a big-time consultant who cancels a full day of high-fee clients to set up a new printer, which ends up getting done by the college kid next door for $100 after a day of frustration on the consultant's part.

I get it!

Don't waste your time doing dumb stuff if it makes you crazy and you could get out of doing it.

Do you know what this made me think of?

LIP TRILLS.

I know SO many singers who have major drama around lip trills.

They can't do lip trills, so they spend the whole choral warm up blowing out their lips, furrowing their brows, starting and restarting the trill, getting worked up, rolling their eyes, and throwing their hands in the air.

Those activities do not get you warmed up!

Furthermore, lip trilling is not an actually useful singing skill!

I have sung a lot of weird modern music and I have never once been asked to lip trill in performance.

It is literally only useful for its technical function as a Semi-Occluded Vocal Tract exercise, and there are many perfectly good lip trill alternatives that will accomplish the same goal.

Trying to lip trill when you can't is CLASSIC Zone of Incompetence behavior - you could just do any other SOVT!

Never lip trill again!

Can't roll an R?

Just say a "D" instead and move on with your life!

There is no need to keep trying to do this stuff, and more importantly, there is absolutely no need to feel bad about not being able to do it.

Another weird Zone of Incompetence hang up that I see all the time is breathing.

I've seen so many students who feel their breath in one place (belly, side ribs, or back), and their breath works absolutely fine, but they spend a lot of time worrying that they are not ALSO mastering other ways of breath.

Pals, if your belly breath is letting you sing long phrases and support your singing without fatigue, don't spend another second worrying about your intercostals.

Once you find something that works, move on!

There was one more thing that struck me about Gay Hendricks' description of the Zone of Incompetence.

Most of this passage stressed the uselessness of doing pointless stuff we dislike, but before Hendricks left the Zone of Incompetence to move briskly up the Zone Ladder, he dropped in one casual sentence that really struck me:

"It’s worthwhile to do something you’re not good at if the intention is to enjoy or master it."

For me, this was the most interesting sentence of the whole book, because it touched on my most fundamental belief about singing:

IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE ENJOYABLE, whether you're young, old, amateur or pro.

I bet that many of you would say that "incompetent" is a pretty good descriptor for your general feelings about your own singing.

So hear this, and I mean it: it is absolutely ok to not be a perfect singer if you enjoy it.

There is nothing morally wrong with singing badly, even if the singing is really terrible, even if you don't try to do it better!

Note that Hendricks says, ". . . if the intention is to enjoy OR master it," not, "enjoy AND master it."

I don't even need to get into the absolutely true fact that most people are far too critical of their own singing, because we ALL deal with those self-critical thoughts.

The point is, if you enjoy it, there is worth in that, end of sentence.

(. . . descends from soap box . . . )

So, I hope you can now enjoy a weekend free of self-recrimination over your lip-trilling ability.

And if you're singing this weekend, ENJOY it.

Joyously, incompetently yours,

Laura