"We Were Awsome!"

Reflections on Affirmation and Hype

Carlyle Manous

When it comes to questions of affirmation and hype, I always think of a spirited exchange I heard after a concert I attended: first player: "Boy, we were awesome."; second player: "Yeah, we really kicked butt!"

The problem was, measured by any kind of objective criteria, what I had just heard was not a very good concert. There was little sense of phrasing, the balance was poor, the intonation was bad, and both tone and dynamic control were pretty uneven too. I must go on to say that perhaps for that band their performance was awesome. Perhaps they had started from so far back that to have reached even that level of performance was a real feat.

Nevertheless, having heard the concert, that exchange between those two players set me to thinking: What is the relationship between affirmation and hype? The corollary question must be, "How do we affirm our students without letting it become hype?" By asking these questions I do not mean to imply that the director of the aforementioned band had necessarily fostered the opinions and attitudes of his players, but it has happened and we must all be aware of the problem.

 

Surely, one of the most important concepts in all of education is that of positive reinforcement. Nowhere is that more true than in performing groups, for any kind of performance, be it musical or athletic, depends so much on the mental/emotional condition of the participants. We have all had performances when our groups were "flat" - not in terms of pitch, but emotionally. We have also seen how the very next performance can be outstanding, the only change being the mental preparation or condition of the players.

Some years ago while playing in a community orchestra I was made acutely aware of the importance of affirmation to the mental/emotional component of performance. The conductor of the group was certainly a competent musician. He had a good sense of humor and many other positive qualities. I ended up quitting the group, however, because of one thing, I got tired of working in a negative environment. Almost never did we hear things like: "That was great," or, "Now you've got it," or, "That's exactly what I want there." Rather, it was always, "Why did you play that note?" or, "Can't you ever get that right?" Perhaps one could say that the group never did anything right so he never had anything to affirm, but that is highly unlikely. The real problem was that the conductor didn't understand the concept of positive reinforcement. As a result, we never played too well either.

So, as we look at this subject, the first thing I would like to urge is positive affirmation of the best in our students. I think it is especially important to do this in rehearsals. Students come to expect that when a conductor stops in a rehearsal it is because something is wrong. Often I like to stop when something is really good and say, "that was really great. Did you hear what you just did?" Students are so used to hearing only what they have done wrong that they are sometimes almost shocked when they hear the positive. We have to remember that people need to know what is right, as much as what is wrong, in their playing. They need to be able to model on the right way of doing things.

If such affirmation is positive, in fact, is necessary, how then, or at what point, does it become hype? And, can we create hype without meaning to?

I would like to suggest several things to watch out for on this side of the equation.

First . . .

Students can be hyped when the view of the teacher and or the students is too restricted. Sometimes we may confuse the poor for the good and the good for the great. To maintain a proper appraisal of ourselves, and what we are doing, it is necessary to hear greatness. This can be done through recordings, or, better yet, in live concerts. All it takes for any of us to keep a proper perspective is to hear the Empire Brass, or the Canadian Brass, or the United States Marine Band. They are really and truly awesome. They really do "kick butt."

Second . . .

I believe it is necessary to look carefully at comparisons. I'm sure I've said this too, but I always wince a little when I hear people say things like, "So and so is the best (whatever) in the denomination." That's nonsensical for two reasons:

1) Nobody is really in a position to make that kind of comparison, because nobody has heard or seen everybody in the denomination.

2) Even if it were true, so what? What kind of sampling is that anyway?

Recently I saw an early Funky Winderbean cartoon strip that relates to this. When someone tells him "The band sounded pretty good tonight," he is incensed. "You're calling the band that won the fuchsia ribbon for best over-all seating and posture in the tri-county contest for medium sized senior high bands PRETTY GOOD!?" I am also reminded of the sports commentator who made fun of irrelevant comparisons by saying something like, "So and so is the only left-handed Egyptian who has broken his right big toe on the 23rd yard line when it's 14 degrees below zero." Be careful of comparisons. Do they have validity? Do they have meaning?

Third . . .

A third way in which students are hyped may verge on the deliberate; it is affirmation carried to the extreme: "You are so wonderful." "Nobody can do this like you can." It becomes a matter of over-selling a product. We have to remember that students actually believe us more than we might wish to think. Told enough times that they are great, they will come to believe it. When we say "great," we may mean "for the length of time you have played," or, "for the amount of time you have put in on this." They may just hear the "great" part and not any of the qualifiers.

This reminds me of an author of a set of bird field guides that bear his name. The man is without question the greatest painter of birds of our time, perhaps of all time. He has made more of an impact on birding than any other living person. There are hardly enough superlatives to describe this author. I have a good friend who knows him personally. He says the problem with this person is that "everybody tells him he's God, and he believes them." Be careful of telling students they are gods when they might believe you.

Another kind of situation where hype is possible is through association with extensive travel. Now, nobody quite says it like this, but the underlying idea is, "We have traveled to Inner Mongolia with our band; therefore we must be very good." You and I know that all it takes to travel is money. I often say to my students, "You each bring me $20,000

and I will take you anywhere in the world you want to go." What students sometimes don't know is that teachers get ads all the time from travel agencies who would like to get us to part with their (that is, the students') money. Such travel has nothing whatsoever to do with how well our groups may play. The fact that someone has played in an exotic place does not automatically mean that he plays well. What many do not realize is that even playing at a place like Carnegie Hall is often not based on musical merit, but by buying one's way in.

I have no problem with travel. It is fun for students and it can help generate a lot of interest in one's program. Let's just not mistake travel for performing proficiency. And if, or when, we travel, let's help our students keep things in proper perspective.

 

A last kind of hype, similar to the travel hype, is the "Look-at-the-difficult-music-we-did" ,kind. You may notice that with this kind of hype you often won't hear about how well they played the music, only that they did it. I remember a band director of some years ago who always liked to talk about the difficult things his band was doing. Almost anybody could tell you that he did not have a good band, but they were "doing" the hard music.

Like the "you're so great" hype, the "difficult music" hype may often be caught from the director, even if unintentionally. Be careful of this. It is always good to have things in the folder that will make the group "stretch," but (to change the metaphor) if the entire diet is at that level, there can be nothing but artistic indigestion. Yet students often do not realize it. All they know is "they can't believe they ate the whole thing," but they are getting hyped in the process. When we do those pieces that may be too difficult, we need to be frank with our students, and tell them why we're doing what we're doing.

 

Now let me sum up what I have been trying to say. First, affirmation through positive reinforcement is important and necessary for proper education. If we are to have good bands, orchestras, and choirs, we must tell students when they do well, when they accomplish what we want them to accomplish. We, in fact, must build egos, if you will.

Second, what we must not do is overdo. Students don't naturally have good perspective; that is one of the features of immaturity. We must provide this perspective for them. We must always hold up before them the idea of excellence not necessarily as an immediate point of arrival, but as part of the big picture, the long-range goal. After all, as the saying goes, "You can never be too rich or too thin." Bands, choirs, and orchestras can never be too well in tune, too balanced, too beautiful. But they can constantly be told that they are making progress, that they are, for a particular moment, in tune, and balanced, and beautiful.

Both positive affirmation and hype build, but only affirmation builds positively. Hype leads first to "we're awesome" - which is probably not so. Next it leads to "If we're awesome, those other guys must not be; isn't it great to be better than they are?" - which is also probably not true. Last, and most sadly, hype leads to the idea that there is no musical life after whatever it is that one is doing at the moment. After all, how often in your life can you really count on being awesome? Could it actually ever happen again?

Affirmation or Hype? The difference for our students lies largely with us.

 

Carlyle Manous, now retired, was band director at Pacific Union and Walla Walla Colleges. He completed a doctorate in French horn performance at the University of Michigan in 1971.

 

This article was printed in the 1991 issue of The IAMA Journal