"The Comfort Zone Assignment
One of the biggest enemies of the skilled artist is fear. Courageously attacking the complex tasks related to the “habits” and acting expressively on the music being rehearsed is not a casual activity. If something is “normal,” it is not art. If the music is “nice,” it is not art. To be classified as art, something has to be special, unique, deeply meaningful. Art can be created only by those who are willing to put something personal “out there” for others to observe and scrutinize. This creative act can be frightening but also liberating.
In order to expand personal comfort zones and enhance the ability to adopt the identity of “skilled choral artist,” each student will complete 3 comfort zone assignments in the course of the term. For each assignment, do the following:
1. Humbly identify an action that you tend to avoid because of fear, but that would be meaningful to you it some positive way.
2. Do it!
3. Write a 2-paragraph (or more) report. In the first paragraph, describe what you did and anything that happened as a result. Tell the story. In the second paragraph explain why your action was meaningful."
Below is the text from one of the comfort zone assignments I had to do for choir:
For my
comfort zone expander this time I searched for something that was as close to
performing a solo as I could get, without actually performing solo in front of
people (because that frightens me to the point I just about faint every time)
which led me to another thing I don’t particularly like doing because of how
much it depends on yourself – Playing competitive singles tennis matches. So,
in order to expand my comfort zone I signed up for the intramural men’s
singles tennis tournament that happened the 14th-16th of
March. When you sign up, you fill out a survey that they try and use to gauge
your skill level and match you with people who are about the same level as you.
This led me to end up in division III – A, pretty much the dead middle of the
pack. As it turns out I probably should have been in a division lower if I
really wanted to win, but I ended up losing 4-8 in the match I played (if you
don’t happen to understand tennis scoring, that’s alright – just know that I
lost, but not by a huge amount). Anyway, I think I’ll have to work on doing
things solo more often, especially if I want to seem confident performing a
solo, or win tennis matches.
Now, what you’re asking is why this is a significant
extension of my comfort zone, right? Well, when I was on my high school Junior
Varsity tennis team a few years ago (like 3) I always played doubles whenever
the time came to pick what we played. This was largely because, even though I
was a pretty good singles player, I preferred to have somebody out there
playing with me as a support and to help make it a bit easier and take away
most of the pressure. So, I’m pretty sure I only played one or two singles
matches the entire year I was on the team – and lost them both horribly (like
0-8 each time). Additionally, I’m naturally a pretty introverted person, so
much so that whenever I’m in a group of more than about 3 people it’s
incredibly easy for me to just sit back and listen without actually talking very
much. This, in combination with my extreme fear of performing solos is likely
what has led to me only attempting to perform a solo once in my life – as an 8th
grader in my middle school choir. That didn’t end up so well… Anyway, from this
experience I learned that it’s not always necessary to have someone else there
to help soak up the pressure – it just makes it a lot more comfortable to do
whatever it is. I also learned the value there is to being confident and
willing enough to do things by yourself, be it singing or playing a sport, as
it really helps you to hone your skills in multiple ways. I found that after my
singles match, I was able to pinpoint a few things I really needed to work on
in order to do better next time, which is a lot more difficult when you have
someone else playing (or singing) with you – which allows you to blame them for
things.
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