Is Technique Sexy?

I have often said that many performers/singers put the cart before the horse: they sign up for an “acting for singers” class before they actually have a grasp on their voices and how to build it/continue to build it. They want to call themselves a “baby xyz” fach in opera instead of discovering what that voice is doing now. They want to audition now/book now/study later/on the fly/when they run into trouble.

I have said, that often the reason for this is because the class, the repertoire, the audition, the callback is sexy and that technique isn’t sexy.

Guess what? It’s not true. I am speaking out and no longer apologizing for the technique! The trappings of class/business may LOOK sexy, but it’s not sexy if it’s not real, accessible, authentic. Often we hide in plain sight in a class, and frankly, even on stage.

Technique IS sexy. I talk about technical behavior as the underwear for the voice to wear. It better be sexy!

Practical, durable, reliable, doesn’t have to be granny underwear!!

Claim your sexy. Have fun exploring how your voice responds to the physical athleticism of your technical building. Seriously. Discovering how to access and build the actual voice without informing it with style, genre, allows you to see how your voice responds in its underwear! If you know how it feels, how it responds, what it needs, what it is comfortable doing, what needs more TLC, more time, more development, then you are in charge. THAT is sexy. Knowledge is power and knowledge is sexy.

The repertoire, the style, the class, the audition, the role, allows your dress and accessorize and sustain what you have built underneath the wrappings!

Build your technical behavior from the inside out. Layer it, expose it, shape it.

You aren’t a human hanger showing the repertoire.

We want to see YOU and the character you are building IN the repertoire.

Does it mean you have to have it all figured out before you begin the journey and see what fits? Of course not! But you need to know your voice enough to know what you need and when you need it. Sometimes it’s building, sometimes it’s re-assessing, sometimes it’s endurance, sometimes it’s detailed sculpting, sometimes it’s maintenance, sometimes it’s health.

Where you are and what you are doing and what you ready to do indicates what you need. Stay present enough to figure out what that is. Keep thinking athletically and artistically. Yes, they go together beautifully. The technical behavior of athleticism and the technical behavior of artistry need each other. They feed off of each other and what is created is the magic of the performance - no matter where that is.

And you know what is really sexy? When the technical behavior of your voice meets your acting intelligence and your understanding of style and how your technique of that is revealed in language, in tone, and in nuance and how you tell that story BECAUSE OF what you have developed; not in spite of what you haven’t yet figured out.

It’s sexy. BECAUSE OF what you are willing to do to embody it all!

And yes, technique is sexy if you learn how to develop it and claim it for yourself!