Are we focusing too much time on singing technique and not enough on the Art of singing?

Many issues arise from this unbalanced focus. When you're performing, recording your music, or simply singing artistically you need to be able to get out of your head. We must learn to sing more from the subconscious part of our mind and away from singing from an analytical place. We are NOT SINGING ROBOTS!

 

The art of singing is an emotional experience. The goal of having solid technique should be to get you in the shape necessary so that you don't need to worry about "hitting the notes" and other technical issues when it's time to REALLY SiNG!

 

The way we sing mechanically is a balance of Breath, Vocal Cord Closure and Resonance. The challenge is that we need to be so free with our singing instrument technically that whatever we feel can be easily transmitted to the listener without limitation. If what we do is think about controlling the singing process directly there will always be something lacking in the sound (even with highly trained voices.)

We need to almost trick ourselves into allowing the emotions of everyday life to direct the singing process - lack of technique is a limitation to doing this.

That said, I've worked with many singers and especially for the analytical ones, combining emotion with a technical exercise can often have amazing results. I believe it's because the more we directly try to control the voice from a conscious stand point the more of a mess we make of things. The exercises I use are designed to automatically do the work for you if you do them correctly, without need for us to try to improve things.

 

The listener wants to be taken on a journey. Our job is to tell a story and paint pictures with our emotions. HOW we sing the words with feeling and our ability to "tell stories on pitch" is what's most important. It's next to impossible for most singers to multitask by directly controlling vocal technique AND telling a story with real emotion. If we are stuck in our head trying to be technically prefect when we sing, it will miss the mark and fall short of touching the heart.

 

I'll be offering tips on how to develop these skills in future blogs. As always have fun singing and try not to fall down the vocal technique rabbit hole! :)