The High Performance Singer

I received an email a couple days ago from a drummer in the UK. He had emailed because he watched a video I made a few years ago about how to get over stage fright. He wanted to buy my Zen of the Stage DVDs but was having trouble with the purchase process. "I just watched a clip of you talking about stage fright on YouTube. I have been struggling for some time now and your YouTube clip really spoke to me. I have tried counselling and hypnotherapy and although they were bo

By this point I've had lessons with several hundred students. And I have noticed something odd: hardly anyone has an accurate self-image when it comes to their singing abilities. At least 3/4 of my students underestimate themselves. A much smaller fraction - maybe 5% - overestimate themselves, believing they are great singers when they have, say, significant range, tone, or pitch issues. Only a small percentage of people seem to have the kind of self-critical yet confiden

This past weekend was a big gig for a lot of singers: it was a reunion gig of Guitar Villians Live Band Karaoke, with 31 singers vying for $800 in cash prizes. Each singer got to sing only one song. Can you imagine the pressure? Understandably, a lot of them were nervous. Some came to me for advice to chill out and calm down. There are a lot of quick-fix techniques in this mini e-book, which you might already have. But I've learned another couple of tricks recently. Fir

In high school, my best friend and I planned the most exciting trip we could imagine: we were going to drive the six hours from Phoenix, where we lived, to Los Angeles to see our favorite artist play a concert. We had recently turned 16, so we could drive, and we felt free and excited. This was one of the first "dreams" I can remember getting really excited about. Well, of course our parents didn't go for the idea. Maybe it was just a concert and a trip, but it was the fir

This is the second of several articles dealing with what to do on a bad gig night. The first article, Gb-Db-Ab-SQUIRREL!, gave some ideas for what to do when you just can't focus, and your mind is like a dog that gets distracted by a squirrel. This article is about what to do when your energy level isn't high enough, or you can't keep up the energy level. What do you do when your energy level isn't up to task for your gig? When you manage to get your energy up for one song,

I know at least one of you watches the Daily Show because of the squirrel reference. Kevin asked what to do if you are having a bad night. One of the types of bad nights he describes feels like this: "You're feeling disconnected -- like you are just not able to... SQUIRREL!! ... focus. Like your head is in a cloud." (The "squirrel" Daily Show reference is about how a dog's attention span to his master is undivided... only as long as there is no squirrel to chase. The show

On the way to Saturday's gig, my car suddenly stalled on the freeway. In the second-to-left lane. In what was already bumper-to-bumper downtown traffic, before my stall caused several miles of stopped traffic behind me. And... I had the mixing board and cables we were going to use! Even with a call to 911, the police took about 45 minutes to reach me and tow me off the freeway. And it took my poor bandmate the same amount of time to slog through traffic to pick up the PA

Last week, I took my first waterski set of the season. (Yeah, late start!) I started at a really easy speed because it's been seven years since I competed, and I haven't been training much. I completed two beautiful, easy passes through the course at that speed. So I increased to the next speed and ran a couple more passes. They were easy too. So I increased the speed again, now at the maximum speed for women (34mph), and those passes were still so simple, smooth, and c

Imagine you're back in your first apartment. (Or, just look around, if that's where you're living now.) Do you ever dust? Are there holes in the couch? Empty pizza boxes? Unmade bed? Have you done anything at all to decorate? What if your dream date called you and wanted to swing by in a half hour to pick you up for a night out? Would you have time to make the place look presentable? Or would you wish that you had kept it looking at least decent all this time? You c

I've always believed that singing even just a little bit each day is better than singing only a couple times a week for a long time. This certainly felt true when I was learning to play drums and guitar: if I practiced even 15 or 20 minutes in a day, I could feel an improvement the next day. This is because of how the brain turns short-term experiences into long-term memory overnight. Recently, though, I have changed my mind about the benefits of singing for just 15-20 min

I went for a run/walk along Boulder Creek yesterday. First springlike day I've seen around here this year. People were out playing chess in the grass, feeding ducks, tossing sticks into the creek for their Retrievers to... retrieve. Up just past the kayak course on the west end of town, I saw something strange: cairn-like piles of rocks within the creek. Tons of them. 30 or more precariously balanced piles of four, five, six, or more rocks. Some of them looked impossibl

A few years ago, I founded a band with another singer. As our first gig approached, we wanted to make a huge splash with a great show. We planned stage decor, learned far more songs than we needed, got matching outfits including knee-high boots with very high heels, and even worked up choreography for several songs! (Yeah, in high-heel boots. Brilliant.) What expectations we had! The night of the gig there was so much for us to plan, do, and think about, that it was compl

You know how animals can smell fear? Well, we humans may not have canine noses, but we have very sharp eyes and excellent mental capacity for reading faces. Especially eyes! So, having the right kind of eye contact can make you seem more confident on stage. And even better than that, it can make you BE more confident. When you boil it down, there are only two kinds of eye contact: Fearful eye contact, and Confident eye contact. Fearful eye contact comes from those sing

I wish but one thing for you for 2010: That you know without a doubt what you most deeply desire out of life. It's easy to know what we should want. It's easy to set achievement-oriented goals that look good on paper. It's easy to set goals for "shoulds" because we feel like we "should" achieve this number or that status or that goal. But more important is that you KNOW YOUR DEEPEST DESIRES. Once you know what that is, everything else will become easier. Decisions will

You'd think a studio microphone was a live grenade, for the amount of fear it strikes in some singers. Especially in the recording studio. You're thinking about the wasted time and money of multiple takes. You're focused on the fact that the recording HAS to be your best, because it'll be captured forever. You're worried what the studio engineer thinks of your voice, because surely s/he's heard much better singers than you. You're worried that you'll be able to sing well i

Do you ever feel like you're never going to be a great singer? Do you find yourself wondering, "Who would ever pay to listen to that?" Do you ever feel like your voice... well... it sucks? Yep. So do I, sometimes. It's totally normal. Here's what to do. Think of a spiral, like a Slinky or a DNA helix. A spiral goes around in a circle, right? But instead of returning to the same point, it returns to the same point at a higher level. This is the way many things in natur

The first time I played drums at a live gig, I was so nervous that I dropped beats several times throughout the song, and forgot where the transitions between sections were. The first time for anything can be scary. Your first time singing in public? Your first audition? Your first time as lead singer? Your first time in front of a crowd of over 50 people? Your first time with a new band? Your first time improvising on stage? Or even just the first time singing a song y

You know left brain vs. right brain, right? Left brain: organized, analytical, judgemental, ego-driven, individual, critical, mathematic, language center, logical, aware of time, tends to rush, tends to live in the past and future, tends to get caught in cycles of thought, likes to classify, sense of personal identity, aware of details, multitasker, tells stories to make sense of our life. Right brain: creative, holistic, aware of body language and tone of voice, naturally j

I went on a mountain bike ride yesterday with a friend. It's been a long time, and I was rusty and out of shape. I knew it was going to be sketchy. I knew I couldn't ride the hard stuff. I ended up walking some rocky sections, even going off the trail a couple of times. I had no confidence. Whenever I saw a rocky patch coming up, I freaked out, slowed down, and saw nothing but the difficulties ahead. I focused on the obstacles. After the first loop, my friend and I ta

The ability to reset your mental state using an anchor is a great way to handle performance anxiety... if you've learned to anchor. But sometimes you just need a quick fix! Maybe you're tired. Maybe you didn't get enough sleep. Maybe you are dealing with some strong emotions. Maybe you feel unprepared. Maybe you simply haven't had time to learn how to anchor well! Whatever the reason, there are a lot of ways to reduce performance anxiety without doing weeks of mental t