(To go straight to the exercise, click here.)

The Value of Pausing in Music

It’s past time I talked about Lorna Cooke deVaron.

“Cookie,” as everyone called her (though not to her face :-)) was head of the New England Conservatory of Music’s choral department from 1947 to 1988. And when I attended NEC in the late 70s, every singer at the school had to “serve” two years in her famed Chorus.

I’m using the verb “serve” because it really was a kind of boot camp. Cookie was a brilliant, passionate, and precise musician who—because women couldn’t dream of orchestral conducting in her day—spent her long career whipping endless rounds of young, arrogant or insecure, classical or jazz singers into shape.

It was basic training of the best kind. When you were “under her baton,” you focused. You delivered. And you learned how to tell the exact difference between ending your note on the second beat or ending it 1/16th of a beat later.

In my case, you also learned the value of pausing.

Pausing When You Speak

In a recent newsletter (and if you haven’t signed up for my newsletter yet, here’s how), I listed a sample of things you can accomplish by pausing during a speech (or during remarks in a meeting, or a 1-on-1 conversation). Pausing, for starters:

• Provides a mental break (for you and the audience);
• Gives your listeners time to absorb what you just said;
• Lets you change your speaking style, tone, pacing, or level of intensity;
• Builds anticipation, curiosity or tension;
• Makes your next point bigger.

In fact, there’s no limit to the value of pausing because it connects you to your audience and yourself like nothing else can.

And best of all, pausing is an easy habit to develop.

Here’s how: