on the title of this post and go online to hear.
Singing without feeling is like coloring without crayons. Your performance is similarly invisible. The response, if any, to your performance could best be described as
…meh.
Now, the first step to changing anything is to become aware… of what you’re doing, what you want to change, and how to change it. So first lets…
Assess the level of emotional authenticity in your voice
You want feeling in your sound. Is it there? You can listen to playback of a recording, or ask someone whose opinion you value. Don’t ask someone who doesn’t like your style of music, or that wouldn’t know or wouldn’t want to hurt your feelings with the truth. Ask a listener that you think should like your type of song, someone who normally would respond to your music if you are delivering emotion. Or ask an expert you trust… a good musician, your studio producer or vocal coach. If you find your voice lacking in color don’t worry. There are ways to help bring a numb, lifeless, flat, thin, more or less dead vocal to emotionally authentic life!
Here are 13 suggestions to sing with more feeling:
2. Use the right style for the material.
- If you hold all the ends of your lines out as you would for choir or musical theater, it will sound inauthentic in more pop styles.
- If you scoop, slide and slur around as is normal for r&b, jazz or country on a pop or EDM song, you may turn off listeners in the crisper, more linear musical genre.
- To sound authentic within the style, don’t sing bluegrass with vibrato.
- On the other hand, don’t sing traditional country, jazz or r&b without bending something.
3. Don’t over-emote.
4. Don’t sing a sad song happily.
5. Don’t sing a song you can’t relate to.
8. Go into character in the movie scene of of the song as the intro plays.
- What words or syll-ables would you emphasize if you were talking the line?
- Re-pull those words or syllables to emphasize them when singing and you’ll instantly have more feeling in your voice! Get a lyric sheet and mark the money words. Try singing with emphasis on those words. Record it with your phone if you can, to check out the results.
11. Finish the ends of your lines as if the last word is the most important.
13. Be be brave.
…real singing is not for the squeamish.
You must abandon yourself, your care for what people think, your fear of making odd facial gestures your voice may need, your reticence to share the message in the song fully. You can do all that after you leave the stage or vocal booth… but great courage is required for great performance.
Side effects from singing with more feeling:
- You have richer vocal resonance because your voice operates more fully.
- You’ll get great response not only from the heart your lyric is directed to (which is your prime directive), you’ll have the ‘gravy’ of capturing the audience that’s listening to you do it.
- You’ll no doubt experience less vocal fatigue! Not bad side effects.
- However you’ll also probably notice that you’re hungry after you perform, because singing with feeling takes more mental, vocal AND physical energy!
Ron Calabrese says
Great advice, Judy. We hot blooded Italians seldom have problems with too little emotion. As I get older and watch my grandchildren, tearing up has become a habit! Too much of that can play havoc with your vocal technique. Understanding the song and every aspect of its meaning is all important. Life experiences allow one to empathize with the author's meaning. Singers like Sinatra and Tony Bennett are prime examples of artists who not only sang beautiful notes, but delivered poetic communication of a songs meaning. Who else could deliver "It was a very good year," better than Sinatra. Having a beautiful instrument will allow a successful career, i.e. Vic Damone, but communication skills are needed for greatness.
Judy Rodman says
Such important insight, Ron! Thank you… glad this post resonated with you. There are different ways in different genres to articulate passion, but without it, there is no real greatness… no real mastery of the art of singing.
Anonymous says
The first suggestion was:
'1. Don't strain for vocal range.
… Make sure the key is right for you.'
Do you have any tips for determining what is the 'right' key for my range? I'm spending a lot of time on this at the moment, but it seems pretty hit or miss. I would like to find a reliable approach to selecting suitable keys.