Becoming A Director - Part III

“CRIPPLING SELF-DOUBT”
In which I discover that I have no idea what I am doing and everybody knows I am a fraud.

So, you’ve been the director for a while now. A year, maybe? You’ve been through a contest cycle and your chorus is not yet wearing any medals and you have not received a blue director pin and nobody is hiring you for your coaching services.

Let me backtrack for a second.

Here’s the thing. I can’t write a series of blogs that are geared towards Master Directors and Faculty because I don’t know anything about that. And let’s face it, those people have each other. These articles are for The Rest Of Us. But don’t worry, Master Directors – you are still allowed to read!

I will elaborate on The Rest Of Us in a future chapter. Today, we are going to talk about the fact that I am a failure and a fraud, and everybody knows I have no idea what I am doing. Especially me.

They call it Impostor Syndrome and it’s a real thing. From Wikipedia:

“Impostor syndrome (also known as impostor phenomenon or fraud syndrome or the impostor experience) is a concept describing individuals who are marked by an inability to internalize their accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a "fraud". The term was coined in 1978 by clinical psychologists Pauline R. Clance and Suzanne A. Imes.[1] Despite external evidence of their competence, those exhibiting the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved. Proof of success is dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be. An essay by a psychology professor suggests that impostor syndrome is particularly common among high-achieving women.[2]”

Can you have impostor syndrome even if you're not a high-achieving woman?

When you first take on the director job, you think it’s going to be much easier. You do know that there is a lot of work involved but you assume that everyone will immediately understand your way of thinking, and success will be swift and tangible! But that is not always the case. As your scores may reflect. What if you take over, and you go to contest and…*GASP*...your scores go down?

THE HORROR.

Clearly, this is all your fault. You have no idea how to be a director. You don’t know how to teach anybody anything. You don’t know how to pick the right music and you certainly don’t inspire anyone.

What if you go to contest again the following year…and your scores go down even more?

Well, boo-fricking-hoo.

You now have a choice. You can mope about it and spend all your time thinking about all the things you have done wrong over the past few years, or you can pull up your pantaloons and find new ways to be awesome.

It’s time to take stock.

There are many music-related things you can be good at and they aren't the same for every director. I really wish I was good at identifying exactly what the issue is in bar 22 and why that chord isn't quite tuning and be able to say "hey, baritones, it's your fault, sing that Eb a bit higher!"(Just kidding, I don't ever want to tell a whole section it's their fault!) But I am not. I am getting better and better at it, but it is not going as fast as I would like. And in the meantime, I have to be able to identify the things I am good at, and do those things...a lot. I am getting pretty good at surviving Tuesday nights and not make everyone quit! PROGRESS.

If you had set some goals for yourself and the chorus at the time you took over, now is the time to look at those goals and be honest – are they realistic? Are they too lofty? Are they even tangible goals?

If you didn’t set goals at the beginning, you are actually in a better position because you won’t have to change your mind. But it is time to set some goals, and the first thing you need to do is look at your singers and find out who they are. You have to make the decision to either work with what you have, or try to change what you have. I believe in working with what you have, and I believe that the most important thing to do in order to attract new members (which we are always trying to do), is to make sure that your current members are doing well, and that they are on board with you. If that means you are not going to win contests soon, that’s fine. Our organization is full of choruses who don’t win contests, but whose members come to rehearsals every week, pay their dues and put in the time. Think those members contribute to the survival of SAI?

YUP.

We are important. We are really, really important.

Set a goal. A simple goal. A doable, realistic goal. Make a plan for how to achieve it. Keep repeating it to your members, because it is important that they know exactly what the goal is and that it is not going to change. This leaves them with a decision – they either get on board and take the steps necessary to help reaching it, or they have to step down.

For some, making this decision will be a long process. Be patient, but insist. Repeat the goal and the work you are asking for every week. Eventually, they will make their decision.

Make sure that you only pick songs that they can sing, songs YOU believe THEY can sing, and that fits their personality. It’s tempting to pick songs that YOU would want to sing, but you don’t get to sing much these days, do you?

And you, my dear, fake, impostor person? Learn things. Read books, go to classes, attend every educational event you can. Watch other groups being coached. Take notes. You know more than you think, and it’s time you started focusing on the things you are good at, and work on those skills even more. There will be many directors out there who are much better than you and who know lots of things that you don’t, and that’s OK.

You can inspire people to always want to do their best. You can make them laugh. You can teach them how to work with learning tracks. You can point them to resources that can teach them to read music if they don't already. You can pass on information you received from directors with blue pins. You can insist. You can persist. You can praise. And sometimes, you can get a little cramp in your shoulders from waving your arms too hard.

Happens to the best of 'em (or so I am told).

Those other, amazing directors, are not you. YOU were asked to become the director of your group because they saw something in you that they wanted in a leader. Remember that. Be you.

You’re awesome.

-M.