The Eyes Are the Window To the Soul…

The eyes are the window to the soul…

Perhaps a great saying like this abides in our language and culture because of the truth that it contains—and there is much truth in this one.

My wife Julie and I were watching Grimm on television last night.  It’s a show about Nick Burkhardt, a detective who can see certain, unique people as they really are, that is, supernatural witches, werewolves or wildermann. In the season finale, Nick’s girlfriend Juliette seems to have been changed by the show’s antagonists for some evil purpose.  How do we know?  We know from the look in her eyes. When they suddenly open as she awakens from a coma, they are quite different. Solid brown, animal like, pupils missing, her once lovely eyes tell us now that something is quite wrong with her. She is no longer herself.

Have you ever noticed that there’s an art to looking at someone in the eyes?  Business people will tell you that a deal can be made or broken—depending upon how skilled the presenter is at looking into the client’s eyes.  If the presenter doesn’t make enough eye contact and carefully observe the client’s level of interest, the client may feel slighted, or think perhaps that the presenter is lying.  On the flip side, looking too long into the eyes of another can be disconcerting.  We tend to wonder about the motives of those who look at us in the eyes for too long.

Singers and groups of singers—such as choirs—need to understand the power of eye contact.

In a performance class that I was once coaching, a young woman with a really terrific voice was struggling to connect with the other members of the class as she sang.  She sang with power, conviction and style, and on a recording, her performance would have been stunning.  Yet, at this moment in time, we all felt like something was missing. 

Finally, someone asked her what she was looking at.  She put her head down and answered kind of sheepishly, “The wall.” 

Perplexed, we asked, The wall?  Why are you looking at the wall?  Why not look at us?  She kind of scuffed her feet and answered quietly, “Because I love the wall.”  

The room burst into laughter together with her. We all knew how she felt.  Looking into the eyes of another is one of the most intimate and sometimes difficult things we humans can do.  We would much rather look at the wall.

For choirs, the “wall” is the folder of music held in their hands as they perform. Even though they have looked at that same piece of paper dozens of times during rehearsal and they know its directions for singing well, they still look intently at those directions during the times when they are trying to communicate its truth to those that are listening, that is, the performance.  

We conductors often inadvertently reinforce this wall.  How many times have you heard a conductor say “C’mon people, on measure forty-nine, there’s a rest on beat four, would you please mark it and observe it?  So, when it comes to the performance of measure forty-nine, beat four—where has the choir rehearsed its eyes to look?  On its music of course;  certainly no one wants to experience the wrath of a conductor!

Gustavo Dudamel

So conductors, let’s start with ourselves.  How can we get a choir to connect with us—and then correspondingly with those listening to our performance?  Here’s how: When we stand in front of a group, we must overcome our natural inclination to look down at our music—and—make every effort to always be looking into the choir’s eyes, using the printed music as little as possible. 

Try this: Take a piece of music that you know by heart, close the page, move your stand off to the side and then, as you lead, simply look into the eyes of each individual choir member throughout the entire piece.  Try to “land” your eyes on each individual once for at least three seconds.  Count how many times you look down at where your music stand usually is.  Or better yet, have a trusted member of the choir count for you! It’s not easy, but if you want your choir to have the power of communication that the eyes afford, you must set the example and lead the way.

The eyes are the window to the soul for instrumental groups too.  Take a look here at the life Gustavo Dudamel brings out of the Venezuela Youth Orchestra as he conducts Leonard Bernstein’s Mambo.  Notice Dudamel’s eyes.  They are always challenging his people—yet they are also enjoying the life nurturing, mutual experience he shares with them.

Music is a form of communication, and that communication becomes much deeper and richer when we utilize the windows to the soul, that is, the eyes.  Looking into the eyes of your group is a skill that you too can learn.

I’ll enumerate some more practical ways as to how to accomplish this in my next blog, June 10th.