The High Performance Singer

Do you ever feel on stage like you have no idea what to do with your hands and arms? Do you revert to holding the microphone with both hands, putting a hand in your pocket, or tugging on the edge of your shirt? If so, this one's for you. ... When you're nervous on stage, it can feel like you're enclosed in an imaginary box or cage, where it feels uncomfortable and risky to make any gestures that extend boldly outside its confines. You know you want to stop standing there u

Singers who can hear the fine nuances of other singers' voices can usually sing better themselves. If you don't feel like you know what to look for, or you don't feel like you have a good ear, don't worry. You can learn to listen better. Then you can use other singers' examples to make yourself a better singer. Here's how. First, here's a list of elements to listen for in other singers' voices. (This is not an exhaustive list; if you have other ideas, please comment!) Mel

"Secret" is such an abused marketing term that I hesitate to even use it. But it's accurate, because until you figure out how to use your voice easily and correctly, it may seem impossible to sing the way you want to sing. It's like there's an obstacle in front of you with no way past it. Then finally one day, you look back and you realize that you have scaled what seemed like an impossible wall. And, looking back, the wall was really not that big. You have figured out t

I've been sick, moving from one house to another, and gigging a lot lately. I apologize for letting last week week go by without a newsletter. This past Saturday, I completely lost my voice at a gig. I have rehearsal on Wednesday and another gig on Friday, so I need to get my voice back ASAP! So this week: How do you get your voice back when you've lost it due to overuse? (Not injury - that's a whole different topic I'm not qualified to deal with.) First of all, let me

I just returned last week from a trip to Spain, the UK and Germany to meet up with some musical collaborators (ok, and I admit, also to go to the beach and get some sun). Here are some tips that occurred to share with you while I was traveling, to help you take advantage of your travel to benefit your music. 1) Network before you go and while you're there. I recently went to Barcelona. A couple weeks before going, I looked on Spain's equivalent of Craigslist, loquo.es, in t

This week: Seven tips for practicing for a gig - especially for the first gig with a new band. 1. Dress in actual gig clothing. If you are planning on wearing anything other than street clothes (or clothes you haven't worn at a gig before), run through your set wearing the clothes and shoes you will be wearing on stage. You don't want to find that the heels are too high, you can't breathe well, you feel overexposed or overdressed, you are too hot, or your arm movement is

What if you could take the leap from good to great? Rather than toiling along the road slowly, hoping that some day, eventually, you'll be great? Well, I believe the only way to get from good to great IS a leap, rather than a one-step-at-a-time process. It's a decision. A realization, rather than an accretion of techniques over time. One of my students did this: She participated in a singing competition last April, singing in front of 500 people at a nightclub. It was he

This week's newsletter was written by Panos Kolias. I have seen this question written in several forums. I have been asked this question several times, and had to ask the question of myself too. If you are asking that question, you have probably already decided that you want to change your life and follow a music career, and it's only a matter of correct timing. Well, here's the bad news:There is no correct timing. Sorry. Here's the good news, though: There is no correct timi

Many open mic nights, jam sessions, and karaoke opportunities take place in bars, where students under 21 can't usually enter (in the US, anyway). Consequently, several of my students were wondering how to get stage experience when they are too young to enter establishments where they could perform. The idea of coffee-shop style open mic nights came up, but since these students also don't accompany themselves, there was the complication of finding musicians to play for them

One of my students, singer-songwriter Jaden Carlson, is playing at the Desert Rocks Music Festival this weekend. She's very comfortable on stage whether talking or singing, but she wanted her song introductions to connect with her audience more powerfully. So in our last couple of lessons we worked on her song introductions. The things we worked on are helpful for anyone who introduces their songs with comments or stories, and they're easy concepts to understand. They are

When you sing any given pitch, you are producing sound not just on that pitch, but also different overtones as well. That's one reason why your voice sounds like a voice, not a pure computer-beep sine wave. Think about what happens if you change the EQ settings on your mixer or your stereo. Even though the notes sung reside within a relatively narrow EQ band, dropping just that band does not remove the voice from the track entirely. You can still hear something like an "ec

I've had to learn about 40 songs recently for a cover band I just joined. But most of them are still not anywhere near done. There's learning how a song goes, and then there's owning a song. You're a much better performer when you get to the point of owning your songs. The Six Stages of Learning a Song 1) Learning lyrics, melody, phrasing, and structure. This means just knowing "when to sing" and "what to sing" to get through the song start to finish successfully, even if

Most singers come to me saying they want to be better singers. Before we do any exercises or singing, though, I ask more questions. Better... for what? Original music? Singer/songwriter stuff, or hard rock band? Karaoke competitions? Musical theatre? Recording only? Live performance only? Casual singing with friends? What makes a great singer depends on the opportunity you're going after. Here are some qualities you need for different opportunities: Corporate / weddi

On the one hand, you may hear about front placement: "Sing through your mask. Sing as if your voice is right in front of your face. Feel your voice hit the back of your front teeth." On the other, you may hear about creating space in the back of the mouth: "Open the back of your mouth. Lift the soft palate. Pretend there is an egg in your mouth, with the big end toward the back. Let your tongue relax and flatten in the back of your mouth." Do these two concepts seem to be

Have you ever done any high-intensity sports? I ran track and cross country in high school. When we would warm up for the afternoon workout, we'd start with an easy jog. Not a 100-meter sprint; not even a half-mile run. We would start with an easy jog around the football field. Why? You know why. The muscles have to warm up, get blood moving, and release and relax into movement. Have you ever skipped your warmup, like running too fast too soon? Say if you only have 3

Do you find that you can sing well in practice, but when you get on stage, you blow it? You can't hit a high note except in falsetto, or your mind goes completely blank, or your throat is so tight you can barely sing? I was a nationally competitive waterskier for many years, and found the same thing: when I first started "performing" in tournaments at about age 16, there was a big difference between what I could do in practice and what I could do under pressure at a tournam

Ready for a little basic vocal technique today? One of my favorite exercises, which functions as a warmup, troubleshooting, training, AND recovery exercise, is simply humming. But not just any kind of humming. It has to be done the right way. Here are two ways to think about humming: 1) Go "Hmmmm..." as if you are perplexed, trying to figure out the answer to a tough question. Bring the pitch up higher as if someone has just shed some new light on the subject and you are ex

Do you feel musically alone? Last week I visited college friends in California's San Francisco Bay Area. The theme of the week was intrapersonal musical influences and connections. I used to feel very alone in my search for a music career as little as five years ago, but how rich, abundant, and connected the landscape seems now! The funny thing is that these connections were always there to be discovered or recognized. But I didn't see the connections and support I already

I got a call at 2pm last Friday from That 80s Band. Their lead singer had just come down with the flu. They had a gig at 9pm that night and needed a vocalist. Was I available? Although I had to cancel some plans, my answer was YES! I performed with this band a couple years ago, and I knew their gigs were fun and the band members are cool people. I had about three hours to prepare ten songs. Five were songs I already perform often, but I had never performed the other five

Improvisation: singing without prior preparation and planning; choosing what to sing in the moment in response to circumstances or inner feelings. Improvisation is very hard to practice, especially at first. You are likely to sing a lot of notes that don't sound good. And if you don't play an instrument, it's even harder practicing something so vulnerable in front of an accompanist or your teacher! It's also hard to practice improvisation over tracks that already have a l