Hitting the high notes

Sometimes, to hit the high notes, you need to aim beyond them.

Back in my youth, I directed a production of Twelfth Night (modern dress, lots of colour, tried to keep it clear and moving at pace - and above all, funny) and had a ball. One of the reasons I loved doing the whole theatre thing was that it gets you to learn an awful lot very fast - and I don't mean the lines.

I mean things like this. We had commissioned some original music and songs for the show, but our actors were actors, not singers, so they were understandably nervous about doing the music justice. One actress in particular had trouble rehearsing one song where she had to hit a high 'A' note. Every time she tried, she lost it. Her confidence and my patience were rapidly ebbing. She turned to Chris, the musical director and said, "I can't do this."

Chris was, however, a man of genius. Infinitely calm, he said, "Let's see." And he sat down at the piano and said, "I'll change the song to a different key. Give it your best shot, trust me, and let's see what happens."

When he played the intro for the song, I was surprised - instead of shifting the song down, he had moved the key up. The actress also looked surprised, but he caught her eye and she nodded. She sang the song in the higher key - and again crashed and burned on the top note. She pulled herself up and said, in a distressed voice, "Sorry, Chris, it didn't work."

She was surprised to see Chris bound up from the piano and walk straight over to her with a big smile on his face. "Ahh, but it did work," he said. "Your problem was that you couldn't hit the high A. But then I shifted the key, asking you to go even further, to a high C. You didn't hit it - but you know what you did do? You sang a perfect A on the note before, on the way up to C. You did it."

After that, they went back to the normal key, and she hit it clean out of the ballpark.

The point is this: If we want to help people achieve their true potential, we need to set high standards. And sometimes we need to set targets that they initially believe are beyond them. But by striving for excellence beyond what we have done before, even if we don't always make it, at least we will always be good - and sometimes, we will be brilliant.

Mike