Category: Vocal Confidence and Performance

Today I want to talk about open strings and the voice… but first, I want to ask you…

Have you ever heard country music?

A vast swathe of country music – both vintage and modern – is guitar driven. And a lot of the great players (Brad Paisley, Brent Mason, etc) define the sound of guitar. If you’ve never heard some of these guys, go check em out.

Why Country Music?
Well, within country music there are a number of idiosyncratic riffs and sounds (i.e. signature sounds) that we recognise as being distinctly “country” sounding. One of the things that is responsible for this is the use of the “open strings” of a guitar.

What are open strings?
Open strings are strings that are just plucked by the player without them pressing the string down on any one fret, i.e. the strings are essentially just plucked and left to vibrate. This allows country players to do quite complicated sounding riffs that are essentially switching quickly from a fretted note (i.e, pressing the string) to an open note (i.e. not pressing the string). Good players use this to create flurries of notes that sound impossible… but are actually relatively straight-forward because of the way the instrument is tuned and built…

NOTE: The reason the above bits are in bold is because this is EXTREMELY relevant to the rest of this article

Here’s the rub…
While I’ve just said what sounds impossible is relatively straightforward to do, this is really only true within the keys that just happen to share those open strings… As such, if you try and pull off that complicated sounding riff in ANOTHER key that DOESN’T use those open strings… my oh my you are in for a world of pain. Essentially what once sounded impossible but is in fact easy, then ACTUALLY becomes impossible/near-impossible, because you are no longer able to switch easily from a fretted note to an unfretted note… you’re having to fret EVERYTHING…

Trust me when I say that clever utilisation of open strings is a feature of guitars that makes certain kinds of riffs only really possible in certain keys for given instruments, because of the way it’s tuned and how it uses certain strings.

Why do I bring this up?

Because the voice is verrry similar.

Certain melodies, riffs and musical ideas will seem very easy in some keys (relative to your bridges, i.e. the way your voice is built), and seem impossible in other keys… and the intervals and the melody itself hasn’t changed (other than key).

And still further, just changing the key by one semitone will close down some opportunities, and open up other avenues of possibility for the melody/riffing, etc. It’s a constant balancing act.

Why is this?

Well, it’s very similar to the guitar analogy.

If you choose to work WITH the instrument, i.e. take advantage of it’s little idiosyncrasies, taking care to understand and go WITH those qualities rather than work against them, then you will find things a LOT easier… and seemingly impossible sounds become easy enough to pull off. That’s not to say “effortless”, but more natural and co-ordinated (certainly with training).

BUT!! If you INSIST on forcing the voice to do what you intellectually think SHOULD be fine and doable (like insisting that open string guitar riffs should be playable in any key), rather than noticing how things feel and what your voice is telling you will work, then you will find yourself extremely frustrated. This is very much the amateur/non-singer approach, who just tries to wrangle the voice into submission, rather than recognising it’s an instrument in it’s own right… I can say this with a tinge of embarrassment because I definitely USED to be one of those singers.

There’s a lot above to take in, so here’s the take-home message.

“Work WITH your voice, not against it”

Remember that keys matter, and your voice is an instrument that needs to be respected and understood in the way you must learn and understand any other instrument. Above all, don’t force things to happen when you can clearly hear they aren’t.

Have an experiment, and have a ponder! I hope you’ll find something new and useful come out of this, and that you’ll start to hear the quality in your voice increase as a result.

Do you want to conquer stage fright when singing or performing generally?

So, I was having a chat with a fab student of mine on Friday night about how to conquer stage fright. Despite having a sickeningly good voice, and performing regularly, they still find the nerves knock them off balance whenever they perform – so, how to conquer stage fright is the question to answer! I have also been chatting over Twitter with one or two people who find then same problem. Sometimes it’s mild nerves, sometimes it outright destroys performances.

While chatting with my student in their lesson about this, I explained my approach to being on stage and dealing with stagefright.

Most people, when they speak to amateur performers or people who do public speaking a reasonable amount, about how to get over stage fright, they often tell them ‘look over their heads’, or ‘imagine them naked’, or ‘pretend they’re not there’… but I think that approach is flawed. In my opinion, the whole issue of stage fright stems from an overawareness of one-self. It stems from being way too aware of how one looks and sounds on stage. And by doing all of the above it reflects an inward acceptance that you look stupid on stage (which isn’t true!), and only buys into that mindset even further. This approach doesn’t dissolve the issue of stage-fright, it actually makes it MORE concrete, but tries to ‘deal with it’ by placing this imaginary stage-fright demon character on the sideline.

Instead, I advocate changing the focus. I advocate changing the focus not AWAY from the audience, but specifically focusing ON the audience. Yep, you read that right.

Focus ON the audience to conquer stage fright.

Follow me if you will.

When people go to watch a performance, they think they are there to watch the performer – i.e. this places the performer as the ‘subject’ of this situation. They will watch the performer sing, dance, jump around on stage, and they will watch eagerly for the stuff you do, and the audience will think that’s what they are there to do… and the performer thinks that is what the audience is there to do. The audience has specifically turned up to scrutinise your every move and observe every mistake you make *cue hyperventilation*

Well let me tell you, this is 100%…

WRONG

This sounds petrifying! Til you realise this is WRONG and is not what’s really going on.

Yes, the audience is watching you, but it is not what the true situation is. The watching of you stems from what the true situation is. The audience watches you, because THEY are the ones who are there to be entertained. They are not there just to watch someone, they are there to be entertained and ultimately ENGAGED by you.

Wait a minute…

…if they are there to be engaged by you, then that means THE AUDIENCE is the subject in this situation. They are the stars of the show! They have turned up wanting to be charmed, won over, entertained, brought up and brought down. It is not their job to watch you, it is YOUR job to entertain them.

How do you entertain someone? Well, unless you are a hermit, you’ve all had conversations with people, and you can probably remember some great conversations you’ve had with friends and family members.

Whenever you have a chat with someone, you naturally try to talk about topics you have in common, and you exchange lines of conversation with them. When you are in a group, you organically take turns to speak, you make eye contact, your tone rises and falls, topics change and the people you look at change depending on the conversation at hand. These are simple social tools you can use and weave into the way you perform songs in order to focus on and engage with an audience. Treat them like they are the participants in a musical conversation. Of course, you are doing most of the talking, but you know in any conversation when someone is bored and when you need to change your tone or topic of conversation.

How much do you hate it when people can’t look you in the eye when they talk to you? Or when you are talking to them and they keep checking their phone? Or when people zone out because they don’t understand what you’re saying. Don’t let the audience do these things, and certainly don’t do these things yourself when performing. These are the goals to focus on, because when you’re doing all these things, you don’t have the TIME to focus on yourself.

Simple tips:
1) Make eye contact with the audience – your goal is to hold their gaze
2) Address whole sentences and thoughts in the lyrics to specific audience sections – your goal is to make them understand what you’re saying
3) Treat it like you are telling a story in front of a group – your goal is to hold their attention

THIS is observing the rules for enjoyable social interaction nature when it comes to human nature, and you can capitalise on this when on stage.

Remember, although they are watching you, they are the real stars of show. If you focus on the audience in the same way as you would when holding a conversation with someone, focus ON them and make sure they are looking at you, then your focus CANNOT be on yourself. When you make your objective to hold people’s attention, the focus on yourself very quickly abates. By changing the focus, you completely castrate and neuter the power that stage fright stems from. By focusing on the audience, they focus on you, without ‘you’ having to focus on ‘you’!

The audience is the subject, and they are the star of the show. By focusing on the audience and being so tunnel-visioned on engaging them, you don’t worry about yourself. In doing so, you make them focus on you, and engage with you, which makes your performance all the more compelling.

So, when it comes to the psychology of singing, we have the emotionally over-sensitive camp, and the emotionally insensitive camp.

I’ve already highlighted that we need a balance, so where does the balance lie?

Here’s my take:

The problem with the over-sensitive camp is that it takes responsibility away from the singer, and stuff doesn’t get done – right?

And the problem with the insensitive camp is that it’s not respectful of how emotions affect our voices – right?

So here’s my advice and where I think the balance lies:

Be respectful of the fact that your emotions affect your voice… and sing anyway.

If you fall prey to the whole ‘my emotions hold the key, so I gotta solve them’ camp mentality, then you will go round and round and round in circles trying to fix an issue that may not even have an answer! And all the while you’re not actually singing, let alone enjoy singing and getting better at it.

If you fall prey to the whole ‘my emotions are my weakness, gotta ignore them’ you’ll end up just as frustrated… or worse, not even ENJOY singing because you’ve taken the joy out of it! Don’t do either of these things.

Respect and appreciate your emotions are always going to be a part of your voice… AND SING ANYWAY!

How do you do this?

Simple – set aside 20 minutes every other day or even just once a week just to sing through your favourite songs in their entirety.

Don’t second guess yourself while you’re doing it, don’t stop yourself, just keep going. Don’t try to work out whether you sound awful, or better or worse than last time, just do it, and enjoy it.

What?! Why should I do this? Why do you think I should ignore trying to figure out the ‘why’ behind my emotional state?

Because I don’t think worrying about the why will ACTUALLY benefit you in the long wrong (plenty of studies out there on the misapplication of worry). Like my blog article on the Quickest Route to Your Goal, I think there is a far quicker and more practically applied route to enjoying singing and unlocking the clamp that your emotions have on your voice. And I’ve got science to back me up! (that’s right! actual science!).

Scientific studies are plastered all over our newspaper and news sites week after week about the physical benefits of singing on our minds, how it releases endorphins that make us feel good (the same way exercise does), how it reinforces new neural pathways in our brains and can even rewire the brain. This stuff happens whether you want it to or not – it’s a biological response to the act of singing (in particular singing in groups).

So if you’re feeling down, and you start singing, you’ll release endorphins and feel better. If you do this regularly you’ll start to reinforce this behaviour in your mind and body and associate singing with feeling good. Speaking from my own experience, this can really alter your whole outlook on life and result in you being mentally empowered to actually change the circumstances that you earlier believed were holding you back from singing.

Just. Sing.

The take-home message I want you to absorb is this: just sing.

Stop over-analysing why the mess you find yourself in today is affecting your ability to hit that particular high note with power and clarity. Stop second guessing yourself or thinking that you’ve got to fix your life to fix your voice. It’s a tension we all have to live with. If we want to be better singers we need to take control of our voices, and simultaneously have fun with them.

Respect the fact that your emotions affect your voice… and sing anyway.

RETURN TO PART 1