Write Away Magazine - Issue No:13

Paul Sykes
I’ve always been fascinated with singing drummers. I don’t really know why. Maybe it’s because
all four of their limbs are busy and now they add yet another complexity into the mix.
One of the common questions I get is how someone can play an instrument and sing simultaneously.
For this, we defer to someone expert in the field of learning, Martin Broadwell.
Back in 1969, he developed the four stages of learning - These days, commonly known as the
four stages of competence.
They are, unconscious incompetence, conscious incompetence, conscious competence and
unconscious competence.
Let’s break them down..
Unconscious Incompetence: You’re completely unaware of the skill or the training required.
Conscious Incompetence: You have an awareness of something you’d like to achieve but you
have no idea how to do it.
Conscious Competence: You can do the task but only with much concentration and mental
effort.
Unconscious Competence: You have achieved true mastery of the craft and can do it without
thought.
From driving a car to playing an instrument, you may notice that you have gone through
these phases to achieve mastery.
Unconscious Competence is what every aspiring singer and player must get to. To be so automatic
that your attention can be on the emotion of the performance and be with the audience.
There’s no time for a race driver to be concerned with the movement of their clutch foot in
the middle of a race. That stuff is taken care of in practice so that their attention can be out
there with the track and the other drivers.
How do we get to Unconscious Competence? Repetition of a correct
technique that you’d like to develop. That’s why most coaches advocate 30 disciplined minutes
a day is waaaaay better than three hours on a Sunday afternoon.
Why not go ahead and make 2020 the year of daily repetition? 365 opportunities to add a
hundred new unconsciously competent actions into your musicianship.
Pauls Online Vocal Course
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