Choir Baton Podcast Episode 7. Ensure Consuming Choir on Social Media Doesn't Consume You

Choir on social media is awesome. But, we would be ignorant to ignore how unhealthy consumption of choirs on Facebook and Instagram can affect us. This episode discusses mindsets and thought processes that could derail you from participating in the online collaboration social media offers.   Host, Beth Philemon, shares personal insights, moments of doubt and insecurity about showing up online, encouraging you to change your internal narrative to engage and observe with gratitude and excitement.

Choir Baton Host: Beth Philemon @bethphilemon | www.bethphilemon.com Visit Choir Baton Online: @choirbaton | www.choirbaton.com Choir Baton Theme Song by Scott Holmes

Beth Philemon: I am here to tell you that when I hear conversations like that, so often I think, WWBD...what would Bach do?

Welcome to the Choir Baton, a podcast designed to engage with people and stories, ideas and inspirations stemming from choir. No other art form, no sport, no hobby, no business requires a group of people to execute a communal goal with just their voices. Join me, your host Beth Philemon, as I interview guests who are singers, teachers, conductors, instrumentalists, and community members. Together, we'll ask questions, seek understanding and share insight from our experiences in life and in choir. You're listening to the Choir Baton podcast where we want to know, what's your story?

Okay my friends, welcome back to another episode of the Choir Baton podcast. I am excited to tell you today is a solo episode with yours truly. And before we dive into the topic, I just want to take the time to celebrate 1000 followers on our Instagram account. I am so stoked to tell you about this and about this milestone. When I started Choir Baton on Instagram a year ago this month, I was nervous and excited and knew that this really had the potential to be a great platform to share about choir and the cool things that happen in our choral space. But it kind of took off a little bit more slowly than I was expecting. And so that led to a bit of a hiatus for the promotion of it while I got a couple other things in order, and I'm so glad to say that in the last several months, we've just really picked back up. And so much of that is due to other people being on social media and other people sharing what they're doing in choir, whether it's on their personal accounts, or whether it is on a public choir account for their elementary, middle, high school choir, community choir, collegiate choir, so on and so forth. 

So thank you guys for showing up on social media. Not that you owed it to me to do this, but I'm just glad that it's happening. And thank you for connecting with Choir Baton on Instagram as well and in this podcast too. It's been really neat to hear a lot of you find so many great nuggets of information and encouragement from the guests that we've had. 

So that leads me into the topic I want to talk to you about today. And in the spirit of full transparency, this is the third time that I've recorded this because each time I've recorded I’ve thought, I want to do this better, I need to say this better. And it's down to the point now where I cannot spend any more time re-recording this and it's not going to be perfect and that has to be okay with me. Which perfectly leads into the first point I want to talk about. Today we're going to talk about social media in our lives as choral musicians. And, unfortunately, some of the trappings or the pitfalls that we need to be mindful of, as we look at other people's posts on Instagram about choir, about what they're singing and conducting and warming up and things like that. 

And these are two things that I have struggled with personally and I, this past week, was watching actually a takeover on the Choir Baton. And I began to feel insecurity rise up in myself about these and I thought, I've been doing so much personal work to fight these mindsets, not just in choir but in my daily life and the daily conscious work of fighting these sorts of things. And I know that if I'm experiencing these at times that there are others that are experiencing this as well. And as I was thinking through all of this, I could remember conversations that I've had with some of you that have been like, “I love Choir Baton, but I'm just too afraid to share, no one wants to see inside my classroom, or my choir is just not quite ready” or something like that. So I know that these two things really are affecting not just me but others as well. 

So the first thing I want to talk to you all about today is that of imposter syndrome and imposter syndrome is defined by the great and mighty Wikipedia as “a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their accomplishments and has a persistent, internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud.” Again, imposter syndrome is defined as “a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their accomplishments and has a persistent, internalized fear of being exposed as a fraud.” And I don't know about you, but there have been so many times in my musical journey where I have felt like a complete and utter fraud, whether it was just when I was singing in high school chorus, and people would be like, oh, you're a singer? And I'd be so tempted to say, oh, I'm not a singer, but I mean, I sing in choirs, or, this would occur when I was in college, and pertained to areas like partaking in so many different musical activities. And I actually, in my undergrad, went to school in Nashville, Tennessee, where everyone was a musician, even 15 years ago when I was there. People saying, oh, you're a musician? And I'm like, well, I mean, I'm a music educator, I am a choir singer, not really finding or identifying as a musician in that sense. 

When I got into teaching, there were times when I felt like, what am I doing? How am I really a choir director? I have no idea what I'm doing. I am a fraud within this. Three years after teaching 6th through 12th grade chorus I went to graduate school and now looking back to some of my grad school auditions, I definitely was like, I am in the wrong league here, namely my audition at USC, which will be a great story for another time. But when I entered grad school at NAU, there were times when I thought, okay, someone must have just really pitied the girl over there and let her in this program because I mean, I must have had some sort of odd redeeming quality that let me in because I definitely didn't feel musically competent. And honestly, when I got into the program and saw the level of musicianship in regards to theory and history that a lot of my colleagues were at, I definitely felt incompetent and ill prepared. 

So, especially in that graduate school environment where aspects of it were collegial to a certain extent, we were kind of pitted against each other at times. And I always felt, not necessarily the least experienced, but that I had the least pedigree out of some of my other colleagues, there were only five of us, well no, kind of five of us my first year and six of us my second year. So really a small, small class and depending on the graduate school that you were a part of depends on your experience. And I have amazing relationships with a lot of my grad school colleagues, but I didn't necessarily consistently have great relationships with my colleagues. And so much of that was not just their attitudes, but also mine because I was so insecure. And I firmly believe that insecurity breeds meanness, and I was not always the nicest person. Oh, I cannot believe I'm saying this, but here we are, because of my insecurities, because I felt like an imposter in this situation. 

And even after I left grad school and I moved back to North Carolina and I've been in a lot of different teaching environments from starting a middle school program to taking over an “art school” to moving on to a bigger high school that had a 22 year history with a huge reputable director in the area to even being a church choir director. There were so many times in these instances where I was like, someone is going to realize I have no idea what I'm doing. 

And as I was researching how to better talk about this syndrome on the podcast, I was listening to someone give a TED talk on different insecurities that plague us that are a part of this imposter syndrome. And they were saying the four things of anxiety, perfectionism, a fear of failure, and self doubt and how those four emotions are also at the core of this imposter syndrome. And I know that I'm not alone in this and I know that if I am not careful when I see what challenging music so and so is posting about on Instagram, when I hear other people's choirs, when I see the amazing lesson plans that other people are doing, when I see the amazing bulletin boards-- y'all I am not a bulletin board person. When I see the amazing bulletin boards, like @stingraychorus took over for Choir Baton and did this amazing world bulletin board, it was a map of the world and then had all of their songs and where they originated from within the world. That was up on her walls in her classroom. It was amazing.

But I know that there are so many times when I'm looking at choir stuff, and it honestly doesn't have to be choir, it can be exercise, it can be eating, it can be food. Maybe it's spending time with your kids. It's definitely, you see people that are in a relationship or married and we can begin to have these feelings of insecurity when we see other people's posts on social media and namely on Instagram. But circling back to choir here, it's tempting to see other people's posts and to think, ugh, I have no idea what I'm doing. When is someone gonna find out that I'm just over here playing music? I don't really have-- I'm not the best within this or I could be doing so much better. 

And again, like I was saying, this applies to other aspects of our life outside of choir, inside of choir it doesn't just pertain to the choir director. It can pertain-- I know it pertains to the choir singer. I have felt that so many times as a singer in an ensemble sitting next to someone and being like, they're not missing a note and I am struggling over here, or I keep mispronouncing this German wrong in the German Requiem or I keep missing these intervals and again began to feel like I don't belong in an ensemble because I am not good enough. 

And so I really wanted to talk about this and share these personal experiences to let you know that if you find yourself feeling this way, if you find yourself thinking this way, when you see other choirs post on Facebook, post on social media, or post on Instagram, post on Twitter, etc. First and foremost, know that you're not alone in thinking that and then secondly, know that this is a mentality that you have to begin to let go of, because it will not serve you, it will not benefit you. There is always going to be someone doing something way better than you. And just because they're doing it way better than you does not mean that you are not doing it well either.

So that's just really something that I have to be conscious of as I am consuming this art that I love so much in this way. And if you're listening to this and going, oh my goodness, I thought I was the only one. Or maybe you were thinking this way but didn't even realize that you were having these thoughts when you were just looking at stuff on social media about choir, I really want to challenge you. And I kind of just mentioned this, but I want to be direct with it, is to one: recognize when you find your mind is going that way and you're beginning to have these thoughts and negative thoughts to yourself of not being good enough, of being an imposter, of being a fraud. So you've got to recognize when that's occurring. And then secondly, you really have to tell yourself it's just not true. It's just not true. 

I believe in competition, but this is an example of unhealthy competition because at the end of the day, you are allowing yourself to compete in an arena in a way that is not a competition, right? If you're seeing things on social media and you are feeling less than, that's wrong, you cannot allow yourself to feel that way. And so finally, I encourage you to change the narrative to, instead of thinking what you're not doing, being so inspired by what you're seeing, and know does that fall within your wheelhouse? Is that something that you could maybe lean in towards a bit more? Or is that something that works for them and is awesome and realizing that just because you're not going to make this beautiful map of the world with song titles up on it does not make you any less of a choir director than the amazing Stingray chorus presentation that she has on her soundproofing panels in her room. And you have to just be grateful that those students are experimenting or experiencing that and seeing that and just be glad that it's happening. So I just want to really challenge you to consider, is imposter syndrome something that you may be struggling with in social media, maybe not even in social media, maybe in your daily life, and then consider ways in which you can begin to recognize that mindset and then combat it. 

And the second thing I want to talk to you about in regards to how we consume social media as choral musicians is this mindset of abundance versus scarcity. And if this is a new kind of topic for you as it has been for me within the last several months, I want to tell you a little bit more about it, in that it's this concept that there is plenty out there and there is enough to spare for everyone. It's kind of like that old parable, and I cannot believe I'm even making a religious reference here, this is not a sermon, but of the loaves and the fishes there-- and I just said fishes-- but of the loaves and the fish that they prayed over and there was enough food to feed everyone. And honestly, that is what social media is like for all of us. If you begin to see other people's posts and think, I don't need to be sharing another warm-up, or, I don't need to be another person sharing my rehearsals or my performances or pictures of this, pictures of that, because there's just-- so and so's choir’s already doing that or so and so's already doing that themselves. That is a scarcity mindset, that is thinking that you're not important and that there's not enough for all of us to go around. 

I mean, think of it within this context, if you are in a big city, and there's only one community choir and let's say that community choir has 200 people in it. And you say, well, there's already a community choir, there's no need for me to start a community choir as well, there's already one, you are basically limiting your city to the amount of singers that you could be engaging with. Perhaps you can start a choir that engages with a younger subset of singers. Maybe you engage with totally different genres of music. Maybe you engage in the exact same type of choral music making as the other choir. But just because you're doing it makes it different and people will gravitate towards that. And you never know the new singers that you could gain. 

Now I realized that's an example that falls outside of social media, but again, I wanted to give you an example of ways that you could look at this and think, oh, it's already been done, someone's already doing it and not show up yourself. It's a way also of not realizing how special each of us are and how unique each of our takes on choir is that we can bring something new to the table that anyone and everyone can learn from. To be perfectly honest, I have always loved podcasts, and several years ago even began listening to different choir podcasts and thought, there doesn't really need to be another one. How am I going to do this differently? What is it going to say? And I ultimately regret not starting this sooner, because once I started this podcast, it has just lit my soul on fire for the conversations that I've made with people through it and the connections that I've made. 

So that's a perfect example of how even about podcasting with choir, I had this scarcity mindset. There's already a couple out there. I don't necessarily want to add to it. And yes, there were a lot of other things tied in with those emotions of it being more vulnerable than I could have ever imagined, but despite the fact that yes, this whole experience has been more vulnerable than expected, it has also been some of the most fun that I've had, and the connections that I've made have just continued to inspire me personally, much less when I see other people connect through these things and grow from it as well. It's just really, really, really cool. 

So y'all, if there can be like 3.5 thousand billion food bloggers or like 2.5 million trillion fitness bloggers, and when I say bloggers I also mean Instagram accounts because we're just riddled with them. And I'm not saying I don't like them. But the beautiful thing about that is, I might find one fitness blogger who I am so inspired by that has 4000 people following them. And then there's another fitness blogger that has 40,000 people following them that I might not connect with as much. And that does not mean that one is greater than the other and can you imagine-- I can't imagine how much it would have sucked to have not been able to connect with that fitness blogger with who-- and I hate bringing it down to numbers but I'm just using this as an example, if she had looked at that other person's and said, well, they have more followers, they don't need another fitness blogger, I'm not gonna show up. That would have been such a bummer to me because I didn't connect with that other person. 

So similarly, y'all if there is room for that many people talking about food and fitness and all the things, there is totally room for 100,000 choir accounts on Instagram or Facebook or even podcasts about this. Because ultimately the more people talking about choir is truly beneficial to all of us. 

So those two main thoughts on imposter syndrome and a scarcity versus abundance mindset are things that I just really felt the need to share with you because choir is growing, especially on Instagram. And if we're not careful, we can let that affect us negatively and we cannot have that happen. Ultimately I just want to encourage you to engage with social media and in an authentic way. And first and foremost, it's not your place to judge what other people are posting, whether you think that they're posting good stuff or bad stuff, whether you think they're being authentic or inauthentic. It's ultimately their space and you don't have to define that for them. You have your own space that you can begin to tell your story and begin to tell your narrative and make connections with other people on and I really, really encourage you to do that and think through that. 

And if you find that you are struggling with these emotions, these negative emotions as you are following people on Instagram, don't follow them. Put the phone away, put the phone down. If it is not ultimately serving you and encouraging you and filling your heart with gratitude, then stop. No one says that you have to do this as well. But I will tell you that if you can find it in your heart and mind to steer yourself in a direction to look at all of these different things that people are posting about choir with happiness and excitement, that there are people singing the same warm up as you across the country or maybe even across the world, or seeing other choirs from across the world make music. What an amazing way for us to be able to connect with each other in ways we never really expected. 

I sometimes like to think-- sometimes people will discuss, well, is it really best for us to use part tracks? And I'm not saying that we shouldn't teach literacy. Hear me hear me hear me. I'm not saying we shouldn't teach literacy. But people can get really particular about how we're utilizing technology in ways that we're teaching students and in rehearsal and things like that. And I am here to tell you that when I hear conversations like that, so often, I think, WWBD. What would Bach do? I mean, what would Bach’s Instagram be like? If Instagram was around when Bach was alive? What would Gabrieli do? What would Palestrina do? What would good old Hildegard be posting up on here? Or would Debussy be showing Insta stories of his latest work that he's doing? 

And when I begin to think of it within that context, it excites me in this weird way that I do think that a lot of these different composers or conductors-- I mean, you cannot tell me that Leonard Bernstein, if Instagram stories were around when he was, that dude would be the Gary V. I'm just throwing this out here. Leonard Bernstein would be the Gary V for social media and music education. I'm just throwing it out there. And if you don't know who Gary Vaynerchuk is, and you are not offended by profanity, then go check him out. If you are offended by profanity this is your warning. 

But I just think that we have got to use this as a gift and we've got to look at using social media as a gift to share with others about why you love choir and what it's like. Because we can provide people really cool insights into what we do every day. Or if you don't sing every day, every Wednesday, or every Sunday or whenever you choir-music-make.

I just want to say thanks so much for listening to-- it's kind of like a mini TED Talk maybe about my thoughts on social media and encouragement that if you are finding yourself going down these rabbit holes of comparing yourself to other people, comparing yourself and struggling to even start to post things, to remember that you have so much to bring to this conversation because no one else has had the experiences like you do and you do not know how what you have to share will reach someone else and will ultimately connect with someone else. 

All right, so I'm going to close today with a pitch for you all. And that pitch is to sign up-- sign up to do a Choir Baton baton takeover, sign up to host Choir Baton for the day. And if you're unsure or nervous about doing it within your own classroom, then consider doing it for a state event or a regional event or a local event, someplace where you can showcase what's going on within your area of the world. It's super, super easy to do so. All you do is think about what day of the week or what time of the year might be best for you. And then shoot me an email [email protected] or send me a DM through Instagram. Now I will say when you send me a DM don't do it through the Choir Baton account because that's often where baton holders are communicating with people through there-- send it to my personal account @baphilemon on Instagram, pop me a DM there and let me know what date would work for you to join us within this conversation. 

I cannot wait to host your next takeover and I hope that you know that Choir Baton does not exist without you. Choir Baton at its core is all about collaboration and we grow so much stronger, so much better and ultimately have so much more fun when we can engage with each other through this. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Choir Baton podcast. And again, I can't wait to see you on Choir Baton.