Popular Science: Why it’s so hard to swat flies, according to science.
Why it’s so hard to swat flies
As a clever singer, you understand that the voice is not an instrument, and that therefore the focus of your vocal education ought to be you. The more you know about yourself, the more you know about your “instrument”, even if you haven’t consciously connected all the dots.
The article linked above is a great example of seemingly “random” knowledge that gives us clues about opera performance. That’s right, an article about flies can help you prepare for work on the stage. Sure, you may have to swat flies on stage, especially during summer festivals. But that isn’t the point here.
“Some LED lights, for example, emit discrete flashes of light quickly enough that they appear as steady light to humans–unless you turn your head. In your peripheral vision you may notice a flicker. That’s because your peripheral vision processes light more quickly, but at a lower resolution, like fly vision.”
The point here is that the article also teaches us how our own eyes work: the center of our vision is great at seeing details, but we literally see more slowly with this part of our field of vision, compared to the sides (also known as peripheral vision). When you stare at the conductor instead of looking to the side and following with your peripheral vision, you have have less time to react.
Singers need more time than instrumentalists to react to any given cue. Flesh, bone, and sinew do not react with the precision, speed, or consistency of a machine in the first place, but that probably isn’t the primary cause for the delay. To understand what takes so long, we only need to understand that the singer, by definition, has to follow a longer procedure to produce their sound. The only partial exception to this rule is when a player has to quickly change instruments during a performance. But even a very busy percussionist playing a solo recital is following a shorter and less complex procedure than a singer. An equivalent procedure would involve not only playing the instruments but also building and maintaining them during the performance.
Looking directly at the conductor does have one advantage worth mentioning: it allows the singer to communicate with the conductor. This is a bit counterintuitive, so it helps to practice with a video of someone conducting a given piece you can sing. If you can manage to make a recording with your part omitted, that’s ideal. Make the conductor your “target” for the drill. Run through the piece and practice applying this rule: “listen” with your peripheral vision, and “signal” by looking directly at your target. It’s the opposite of how we signal listening in real life, so it will be weird. Just get used to it.
Instruments, like all tools, are shortcuts we use to perform some kind of work. Some of the work is done ahead of time, and can be stored in a case and even transferred to another owner. A singer, by definition, can never take advantage of that shortcut. A singer has to do it all, every time, all the time. A singer has to do it alone.
So don’t waste time staring at the conductor!