Singers are telling some kind of story with their words and melody. You might be singing about heartache, loss, betrayal, new beginnings, devastation, rebuilding, or redemption just to name a few. In order to connect with your audience, they have to feel something, more than just a good voice and technique. This is where an artist has to dig deeper and make the song real to themselves first and foremost. (trying to fake it or act it out just won’t cut through the noise and be as powerful).
If you haven’t personally gone through what your song is about, then pretend for a moment and imagine a circumstance where you would experience that. What emotions does it draw up in you? Maybe it’s feeling sadness, scared, tired, busy, insecure, or weakness. Tap into that emotion and then sing from that place.
If you’re performing a show and the audience’s attention is solely on you as a singer, you have a lot more vocal freedom to use dynamics and really get into the character and depth of emotion with your songs. However, if you’re singing ambient music in the background and you’re not the main attraction, your songs will need to be more light hearted and fun in order to keep the crowd entertained.
Knowing what you’re singing about and the emotion you’re trying to convey which I will refer to to as “checking the musical temperature”, is really important when choosing songs for various settings. “Checking the temperature” will keep your audience happy and engaged with the musical setting you’re creating.
How will you prepare for your next gig knowing you have the power to set the temperature?
XO,
