10

Essential Extras for Singers

A VAST WORLD can open up for you when you have full command of chest, middle, and head voice. Like a violinist who’s mastered the scales and technical aspects of the instrument, you’re ready to step into the realm of musicality—making a deep, full connection between the music you’re singing, your audience, and you. At this point your own individual voice, which reflects your personality and your sensibilities as well as the basic equipment you’ve been blessed with, takes center stage.

In this chapter I’d like to add one additional vocal coloration—vibrato—to your repertoire, then focus on the process of laying claim to a singing style that’s all your own. There are whole volumes to be written on developing style as a performer, but I want you to have at least a taste of how I teach my students to transform themselves from Lady Gaga or Chris Martin wanna-bes into strikingly original singers who sound inspiringly like… themselves.

That may sound funny to you, but I’m absolutely serious. My goal, in this book, has been to make possible the kind of genuine expression that comes from connecting great technique to your own quirks and feelings, strengths, and soulfulness. You can’t hope to find satisfaction or success as a pale imitation of someone else’s unique vocal package. I want you to sound like you. It’s the most profound gift you have to offer as a singer—when you learn to unwrap it.

Finally, I’d like to give you some fundamentals of handling yourself onstage. There aren’t a lot of rules, and when you’re familiar with the basics, you’ll be ready to tailor your own presentation to your material and message.

Secrets of Great Vibrato

Once you’ve mastered the art of hitting notes and holding them, it’s natural to want to color them with feeling. One of the most commonly used shadings is vibrato, a wavelike oscillation of the pitch that you’ll often hear when your favorite singers sustain notes. For many a new singer, vibrato is a mystery. People feel as though you’re either born with it or you’ll never have it, and they don’t quite know how to get from the straight, solid sound of notes that are purely held to the more intriguing sound of vibrato’s rich waves. They can sometimes produce the sound with elaborate manipulations, but it feels forced.

Actually, all vibrato involves manipulation, and the secrets of great vibrato lie in knowing how it works, what makes it sound the most pleasing, and how to make it feel more natural and effortless. It’s easy to veer off into strange, and downright funny, sounds when you’re venturing into this technique on your own, but with the simple tricks I’ll show you, you’ll be able to discover the essence of vibrato without the amusing add-ons. Let me show you how it sounds on audio 30 on the website, then I’ll run through a few facts.

How it works. When you speak or sing, your vocal cords normally move at a rate that ranges from a hundred to a thousand vibrations per second. The tension on the cords determines the pitch, and when that tension is perfect—neither stressfully tight nor too loose—a slow secondary vibration begins to develop. This secondary movement causes the sound to move in a wave at the speed of five to six vibrations per second. That’s what we hear as vibrato. You can see the very same kind of vibration if you try this experiment: Pick up a sheet of paper and put one corner in your mouth. Now blow, directing even amounts of air down both the front and the back sides of the paper. If you watch the far corner of the sheet, you’ll see that it’s moving up and down, and if you could measure the movement, you’d find that it’s traveling at the rate of five to six vibrations per second. These very regular up-and-down movements—of the paper and the cords—are created by something physicists call the Bernoulli effect.

Without getting too technical, the Bernoulli effect reflects the way the flow of air or a fluid across a surface changes the pressure above and below the surface. Changes in pressure cause the waves. You might be interested to know that it’s the Bernoulli effect that allows you to roll your rs when you speak a language like Italian or Spanish. The effects of airflow across your tongue enable it, too, to move a lot faster than you can move it in normal speech.

What makes vibrato sound good—and bad. The fascinating thing about vibrato is that it is great for the cords, since it is a product of a perfect amount of tension, and it only sounds right when you’re producing it at the right speed—five or six vibrations per second. Some artists, like Madonna or Stevie Nicks, have a vibrato that’s on the faster side, and both have been hugely successful. But I want you to start learning vibrato at a more natural speed. When you master that, you can go faster, if that’s the sound you want. It’s tricky, though. Vibrato that’s too fast all the time can make a singer sound nervous, or even a little sheeplike. Too slow is just painful. It worked well for Bert Lahr when he played the Cowardly Lion, but mostly we tend to associate it with old people singing off-key in the choir. If you don’t pay attention to your vibrato, it does have the tendency to slow down as you age, and if you use it at half speed you’ll sound old, wobbly, and vocally abused. I’ve had students in their eighties and nineties who sounded as if they were still in their twenties, so I don’t expect voices to implode with age—as long as you use good technique. As you work with vibrato, be sure to keep it up to speed, and don’t let it tag you with a label or an image you don’t want.

Where it fits. Many students think that vibrato belongs in opera or musical theater—period—and they’ve decided that if you’re not Sarah Brightman, or Idina Menzel, you don’t need it. But I believe that vibrato will tastefully fit with every style of music, from rock to country to gospel and yodel. It doesn’t belong everywhere, and it’s a condiment, not the main course—but it’s a flavor you need. Don’t skip it. When you learn to control the sound of vibrato, you are getting a great lesson in how to control the way air leaves the body. When you experience correct vibrato, you’re feeling the correct balance of air and cords in a stable, healthy instrument.

Don’t Shake It—You’ll Break It

If you’ve found your way to vibrato on your own, I’d like to be sure you’re doing it correctly, not producing an approximation that’s going to harm you. A rule of thumb is that you don’t have to shake any part of your body to make vibrato, and if you are, something’s not quite right.

Have you ever seen singers shaking their lower jaws up and down in pursuit of vibrato? Whitney Houston was quite famous for this, and a number of other prominent singers use this technique to get the sound, but it’s not great for the body. It creates a huge amount of tension in the throat, and the constant movement of the jaw makes the powerful jaw muscles tense. Some of them are connected to the larynx, and when they overwork, they can raise the larynx and partially close the back of the throat. Use this technique for long, and you might wind up with not only a sore jaw but an impaired ability to produce the sounds you want. Worse, the vibrato you make this way doesn’t create even waves of sound, and it can end up sounding harsh and shaky.

Don’t beat yourself up if you’ve been doing this. You just imitated the wrong people. When you watch videos of a superstar like Whitney Houston and notice that she was shaking her jaw to the tune of millions of records sold, you figure she must have been doing something right. And indeed she was—she’s just not a great role model for the way you should make vibrato.

Are you shaking your stomach in and out to make this sound? Some people shake low, below the belly button, and others aim higher, from the belly button to the bottom of the ribs. Either way, if you’re doing this, you’re creating a sizable amount of tension around your stomach, and you’re not getting the kind of vibrato you really want. There’s no hope of moving your stomach in and out fast enough to create the six oscillations per second you need for perfect vibrato, so using your stomach as an aid generally produces a slow, labored vibration that adds unwelcome years to the sound of your voice.

Doing It Right

If you just hold a note and think vibrato, believe me—nothing much will happen. It takes a special kind of effort to release the bursts of air that produce the wave effect. So chances are you’ll have to make some big changes in the way you feel and think before you find the right sound. Try the following exercises, which will escort you right to the edge of a vibrant vibrato, and as you play with them, go all the way. Exaggerate everything! In the beginning, you’ll feel a little silly, but let yourself try the over-the-top approach. If you’re feeling self-conscious, now might be the perfect time to find a remote part of the island on which to practice.

Helper Number One: The Handshake Point

Though I’ve said that I’m against shaking anything to make vibrato, when you’re starting out, I bend the rule a little to help you experience how it’s supposed to feel in your body. Ready? Stand up and extend your dominant hand as though you were going to shake hands with someone. Instead of keeping your fingers in a handshake position, close your hand, keeping just your index finger pointing out. Now pretend that you are shaking hands with a huge polar bear who is a thousand times stronger than you are. Move your hand hard and fast. As you make this motion, sing eeeee and try to match the sound of your voice with the motion of your hand. It should come out in little bursts: ee-ee-ee-ee-ee. Let your voice take on a rhythmic pulsing.

Concentrate on the back part of the roof of your mouth as you’re making the sound, especially the place where the top of your mouth comes together with the back of your tongue. This is where you should be feeling bursts of air. Repeat the exercise and see if you can feel the air pulsating there. Forget about sounding funny. Just concentrate on making your voice move up and down like your hand.

After you get used to this, try stopping your hand motion and see if you can still make the vibrato sound. Keep trying. And when you’re using your hand, remember to keep its movement quite fast. You’ll need that speed later, as this manipulation evolves to an effortless vibrato.

Helper Number Two: The Belly Dance

Make a fist and place it at the top of your stomach, where your ribs come together. Cover that fist with your other hand. Now say eeeeeeeeeee, and as you do, push your hands in and out in a rapid pulsing motion to send quick bursts of air to the back of your throat. Once again, you should hear the smooth eeee sound break into a vibrato-like ee-ee-ee-ee. Keep your hands moving in and out rapidly, repeat the sound, and pay attention to where the air is pulsing in your throat: at the juncture where the roof of your mouth meets the back of your tongue.

All I’m trying to do is to help you get acquainted with how big vibrato feels in your throat—it’s not a small thing. It takes a lot of air bursts to create the effect. Remember that as we manipulate the air and sound, it’s tough, at first, to get the proper speed of six oscillations per second, and it may feel as though you’re making phony sounds in completely unnatural ways. But once the body begins to understand how vibrato feels, a miracle happens. The voice begins to feel as though it’s making vibrato on its own.

The main reason vibrato ever feels natural is related to speed. Early on, your vibrato is likely to be too fast or too slow, but as you get used to playing with it, the air and cords find the perfect relationship, and the cords find the perfect tension. At that point, vibrato just happens—and you’ll feel as though you were born with it.

Making It Yours

Once you’ve mastered vibrato, play with it. Six oscillations per second is generally ideal, but if you’re a high-strung person, your vibrato may mirror that energy and be a bit faster than the norm. Conversely, if you’re calm and laid-back, your vibrato may be better a touch slower. Try to get control of this sound, and learn to be in charge of every beat. When you want it fast, speed it up. When slow is the right effect, you know what to do.

Many people think that vibrato shouldn’t come in until the end of a sustained note, and quite often my students start a note straight out and add vibrato halfway in. You can hear the slightly odd effect on audio 31 on the website. Who’s responsible for this strange technique? Frank Sinatra, who would sing “I did it my way,” adding just a touch of vibrato to the end of “way.” You can do this later if you want to, but first learn to make the sound from the beginning of your chosen word all the way to the end, even and strong.

One last habit to avoid is closing your teeth to make vibrato. You can hear what this sounds like on audio 32. I find this sound very unattractive, and I think it’s a good idea to keep your mouth open when you’re trying to reach your audience. It will help your overall sound if you remember not to close your mouth until you’ve finished singing a whole word or phrase.

The Elements of Style:
Putting Your Stamp on the Music

Within a couple of seconds of hearing Shakira, Ed Sheeran, Taylor Swift, or Drake, you know exactly who you’re listening to. They’ve got style—their voices have a personal character that sets them apart. Style is perhaps the single most important factor in determining whether a professional singer succeeds or fails, and it’s the element that often feels the most elusive, even to the most proficient performers. It’s easy to say “Be original,” but many singers have set out on the road to uniqueness only to get caught in a limiting copycat sound. That doesn’t mean they did anything wrong—only that they stopped too soon.

Imitation is actually the key to developing your own style. The best way to shape a personal sound, strange as it may be, is to be able to sound exactly like someone else. There’s really no such thing as something that’s never been heard before. The masters in every realm of the music world all began by imitating their idols, and so should you. If you follow the program I’ve developed for my students over the years, I promise that you’ll come out on the other side with a sound all your own.

Stage one. Start with your favorite singer, a vocalist you love for the range and positive qualities of his or her voice. Study this voice intensely. In fact, immerse yourself in it as though you were trying to learn another language. Listen to it until you’re familiar with every nuance, every habit, every flourish and breath. Then sing along, imitating as closely as you can. Your goal is to be your dream singer. Use a recorder to help you impartially evaluate how close you’re coming to the mark—it will give you an entirely new perspective and allow you to hear with the ears of an outsider who’s listening in. This process may take you weeks, but stay with it until you’ve got that voice down cold.

This is what I call stage one imitation, and it’s something every aspiring singer does intuitively. Like a lot of female students in the summer of 2014, my student Emily was taken with Taylor Swift and her hit “Shake It Off,” which seemed to be playing every time you turned on the radio. Emily was crazy for the sound and studied all of Taylor’s albums. Soon she was a walking, talking Taylor wanna-be, and no matter what she sang, it came out in a semi-Swift rendition. While she was in this phase, I encouraged her to sing all her material as Taylor would. And when she’d gotten as far as she could, I asked her to pick another artist and do the same thing.

Stage two. Mastering the sounds of a series of artists is the key to successfully developing your own style. You may be a passionate fan of Rihanna or The Weeknd, but when you’ve got either mastered, drop them and move on. That’s stage two imitation: broadening your repertoire. Your voice may be very different from the one you’re trying to capture, but as you memorize the notes and words, you are subconsciously storing the specific sounds of that singer’s voice. And as you move from artist to artist, giving each one your full energy and attention, what you’re really doing is building a library of vocal sounds that are varied and distinct.

At stage two, I want you to cover some stylistic ground. Copy an R&B artist. Copy Carrie Underwood or Keith Urban. Copy Elvis or Aretha Franklin. Choose your favorites, but hit a range of genres. And with each one, do the same thing. Listen, soak up the sounds, and imitate until you can mimic them. No matter how much time and energy you spend impersonating each of the artists you choose, you’ll never sound exactly like any one of them. Because you have a different instrument, the closest you’ll ever come is to pick up the flavor, the nuances, the overall resonance and character of your models. But those are great raw materials. Be diligent about collecting them.

Stage three. You’ve stocked your library with impersonations of many of your favorite singers, and you can, at will, sing like Jessie J, move right into Beyoncé, then Miley Cyrus and Carrie Underwood. When you sing, however, people are most certainly aware that you are trying to imitate a particular person. They hear you move from one recognizable singer’s sound to another. No, they’re not thinking of you as an original stylist at this point, because you’re coming across as more of a vocal impersonator. And that’s OK for right now.

In stage three imitation, all we want to do is become proficient at moving from one artist’s sound to another. Practice doing this by taking a song you love and splitting it up, so you sing the first verse as one singer, the chorus as another singer, and each subsequent verse as yet another singer until you reach the end. Yes, it’s odd, but it’s a pivotal skill you’re developing. And it is the doorway to stage four, where real originality takes place.

Stage four. Let’s say you’ve made it through the first three stages of imitation. You easily impersonate the artists you like. You sing uptempo R&B like Jessie J, country like Miranda Lambert, ballads like Lana Del Rey, and so on. But it seems pointless. You still seem to have no style or originality, and you can’t see how this hodgepodge you now possess makes any difference.

That’s where my student Annika found herself one frustrating summer. Annika had worked her way through all the homework I’ve given you, and she had become incredibly proficient at copying other singers. But every time she recorded her voice in the studio, she hated what she heard. One session she sounded like a bad imitation of Madonna, and the next she was a cartoon version of Iggy Azalea. She just couldn’t find the voice that was all hers, and her producer didn’t know what to suggest—all he could tell her was that the magic was missing.

So one day she just gave up. “Forget it,” she told herself. “I simply accept that I have no style at all. There is nothing in my voice that sets me apart as one of a kind. I accept that. In the studio today, I’m just going to sing it straight ahead. I’m not going to put anything into it. They’ll all laugh, and I’ll just take the ridicule.”

And that’s what she did. She sang her song as her genuine self—just plain, no embellishments—stopped, and waited for the chuckling to begin. She was astonished when the people listening to her went crazy. Everyone said she had just given her best performance ever, and they asked why she had never sung that way before. Somehow, when she least expected it to happen, she found the style she had been looking for.

Stage four of the imitation process is where everything you’ve done comes together. Like Annika, if you do the hard work of imitating your heroes, your brain and your talent will process all the information you’ve provided them and create a new whole that’s much greater than the sum of the individual parts. The real Annika was a blend of everything she had learned about vocal technique, everything she had absorbed by copying, and everything she was. And she sounded great.

Annika’s story is far from unusual. Over the past twenty-five years I’ve heard it thousands of times. Each time, the singer has worked hard at copying voices, then seemed to get stuck in a frustrating place where nothing sounded original. Then, after much struggle and effort, the person has given up the hope of finding even a molecule of originality in his or her voice and dropped any attempt to dress it up. Each time, style has appeared suddenly, surprisingly—wonderfully.

Can you skip the work and the struggle and cut straight to style? Nope. It just doesn’t happen that way. You need to lay the best foundation you can. We never know when or where all the work we’ve done will fall into place, but I assure you it does, and the results are magical. I highly recommend the path of imitation if you’re searching for your true style. If you’re exceptionally good at imitating, your journey will be shorter and less frustrating. And if not, don’t worry. Keep practicing, keep listening, and keep imitating anyway. Nothing you take in will be wasted.

Phrasing: Singing It Like You Mean It

As you work to make the music your own, I’d like you to think about the way people really use words to communicate with each other. We pause, we stress certain words for emphasis, and we smooth the edges off words so that a question like “Would you like to go to the movies” actually comes out of our mouths sounding like “Would ya like t’ go t’ the movies.” All these factors make us sound like people, instead of robots, and they make us sound believable.

But when we sing, a lot of the believability that naturally comes with speech is lost. A certain stiltedness creeps in, and to make things worse, the audience is skeptical. The moment they hear singing, their brains on some level think, “This isn’t real—it’s just a song,” and they get ready to tune out the message. The challenge for a singer is to bridge the gap between the believable realm of speaking and the more artificial world of the song.

As I’ve mentioned, the master of this art was Frank Sinatra. When you listen to Frank sing, he makes you think he’s telling you stories about his life, and that all of them are true. With every note, you feel the emotion. When he hurts, you hurt. When he’s happy, you can’t help but smile. He can reach right into your heart and communicate with you on any level he chooses. That’s the goal, whether you’re a rocker or a folk singer–songwriter. The key is to sing as though you were speaking.

Many developing singers move through songs in baby steps, note to note and word to word, and the result is, at best, mechanical. I’d like you to think in phrases and shape the song into the same patterns you use in normal, everyday speech.

Let me give you a simple exercise to help with this: Look at a piece of sheet music you’re familiar with. Go ahead and speak the first lines of the song. You don’t have to be Shakespeare; simply speak the words in a relaxed, conversational way. If you can, make a recording of yourself—you’ll be able to use it for reference later.

Now go back and try to sing the words in the same way you spoke them. Go up and down with the melody, but try to make a connection between singing and speaking. If you need to, play back the recording of yourself reading the song and make pencil markings on your sheet music to remind you of how you said every word. When did you get louder or softer for emphasis? Which consonants did you punch up? Which were gentle? When did you stretch out a word and when did you clip it off? Try to put all these sounds into the song.

It’s not always easy to do. The melody of the song seems to push you into a particular pattern that feels hard to break out of. But remember that all great singers use a song the way an adventurer uses a map. Most of the time they stay on the main road, but they leave themselves open to the smaller paths that could lead to someplace wonderful. You can do that too. Usually a great song suggests a particular phrasing, and the words are crafted so that they roll easily off the tongue. But there’s always room for interpretation—you’re not locked into anything. Experiment a bit and invite inspiration.

If you work with songs this way, recording yourself as you read the lyrics and making notations to remind you how you want to sing them back, you’ll open the door to phrasing that’s all your own and to sounds that communicate as intimately and naturally as speech.

Riffs: Bringing Out the Ornaments

As you move out from the note-at-a-time, word-by-word school of singing, you may find yourself wanting to add extra touches to the music itself. Some singers like to use the written note as a starting point and create little clusters of complementary notes around it. This grouping of notes is called a run or a riff. All you have to do is listen to ten seconds of Stevie Wonder or Aretha Franklin or Mariah Carey or Jessie J to know what I’m talking about—they embellish and embroider almost everything they sing.

When beginning singers come face-to-face with these acrobatic movements, they often shudder in terror. The masters move through riffs like race cars, and when you try to imitate them at full speed, the early results are bound to be messy and inaccurate. Too much speed too soon only leads you to the crash-and-burn school of voice. If you want to try riffing, start out with someone like Drake or Demi Lovato. I’ve noticed that they make riffs a bit more slowly than other performers, and that slightly reduced speed will help you out early on.

To start, listen repeatedly to the riff or run you’re trying to learn. Then try to plunk out the notes with one finger on the keyboard. Go slowly, taking the time to figure out every single note in the pattern. Over and over, more and more slowly. When you feel that you have the pattern down on the keyboard, sing along with what you play, one note at a time. Don’t be in a rush—keep the pace slow enough to be accurate. When you’ve learned the notes, stop playing the piano and begin to sing the riff over and over, making it a tiny bit faster each time. If you start to get sloppy, slow it back down.

If you can’t play the notes on the piano, you can still use the same idea to learn. First listen, then imitate at a drastically reduced speed. Think of it as the slo-mo style of riffs and runs. Stay at that speed for a long while (maybe even as long as a few days), then start to increase the tempo.

Luther Vandross once said that some singers do riffs as if they’re being paid by the note and need to cram in everything and the kitchen sink. It can reach the point of absurdity. I remember the first few times I heard the duet Mariah Carey did with Boyz II Men on “One Sweet Day.” It was like listening to dueling riffs, and I don’t think it was possible to discern the actual melody line.

But if you keep it sane, maintaining a basic number of simple riffs is important for the advanced singing student. Riffing is so much a part of gospel and R&B music that you have to do it if you want to legitimately sing that style. The skill is less important if you’re in opera, musical theater, or country, or even if you’re singing classic rock ’n’ roll, but whatever you sing, give it a try—with a light touch, so you don’t get frustrated. And when inspiration tells you that what your song needs is a riff, you’ll have the skill at your disposal. The greatest little piece of advice I can give you on this subject is to slow down. Rushing won’t get you there.

The Hunt for Great Material

No matter how much skill and style you have, you need great material if you want to showcase your talent. What does that mean? Let me state the obvious: It’s a lot easier to sound original when you have original music. If you work on previously recorded songs, you’re walled in by what the original artist did, and unless you’re an accomplished arranger or have a great musical imagination, it’s likely that your cover will sound like a partial imitation of the original. But the whole picture changes when an artist decides to work with music that’s new. Ears perk up, especially in the music industry, which bases itself on the new songs played on the radio and streamed. That’s why, if you want to succeed in the business, it’s almost essential either to write or to cowrite your material or to find terrific new songs.

Acquiring potential hit songs is the most important “business” part of the music biz, and it’s where the money is—the songwriter generally makes more profit on a record than the singer. So it’s worth it to dip your toe into writing and see what happens.

I know that you’re probably thinking, “Great. I’m just trying to learn how to sing right now, and the idea of becoming a hit songwriter is a bit more than I can bite off at this stage.” That’s fine. I want you to concentrate on your voice right now. But in chapter 13, I’ll go into detail about how you can create your own material—or collaborate with others to do it.

As you’re learning, remember that you can always seek original songs, too. Get out there and find a young writer who loves your voice and wants to be the gas for your engine. You’ll be working with virgin songs that are just waiting for the imprint of your original style.

If you can’t work with original songs, I want to suggest a tactic that’s the flip side of imitation: reinvent a song. There are a couple of ways to do this. First, you can learn a song you’ve never heard before from the sheet music alone. Don’t listen to another singer perform it, just plunk out the notes on a keyboard, or ask a friend who plays to help you. I know that learning a song takes a lot more time this way, but the rewards can be phenomenal.

You can also learn a song the usual way—by singing along with an artist—and then turn it inside out. Make a slow song fast or take a fast one down in speed. Change the melody or some of the words. The goal here is to shake things up. Once you’ve made major changes, you cut your ties to the standard rendition and put yourself in a place where you might feel more creatively open.

Give yourself as many opportunities as you can to imagine new sounds and to find them if you can. The song you develop with a buddy, or your country blues–cabaret rendition of a funk classic, might spark a vision of the way you want to sound and push you into a truly original space. Inspired? I’ve got more in chapter 11 on finding the sounds that will make you stand out.

Where Originality Counts—and Doesn’t

Keep in mind that originality is embraced and expected in some realms of the music world and it’s just not appreciated in others. If you’re in opera or musical theater, the goal is not to sing differently from the norm but to copy it. In fact, voices with distinct character are most often weeded out rather than pushed up the ladder. In this kind of technique singing, everyone makes vibrato, each note is held to the maximum, and the focus is on the voice as structural instrument, not as a staging ground for vocal experiments.

Pop music opens up the territory and welcomes original sounds, but there, too, what’s expected depends on what you’re singing. Ballads—slow-tempo songs—are generally classically based: they’re musically related to the straight-ahead tunes you hear in musical theater. That leads listeners to expect a certain easy, smooth, and peaceful sound. They want to get the words on first listening and to be soothed, not jarred by experimentation. Up-tempo songs, whatever the genre, give you more room to move away from sounds that are technically pristine and into those based on energetic emotion.

I hope you’ll all want to develop a style of your own, but please tailor your expectations about originality and style to your chosen genre. It’ll make things easier.

Of Course, It’s Not Entirely about Singing

People ask me all the time what it takes to be a successful singer, by which they mean “a singer who’s making loads of money.” Though my specialty is vocal technique, and I stress the idea that great technique can lead you to a standout voice with an original sound, I have to admit that in reality the voice is simply one component of success.

At the beginning of my career a record company executive called me and asked me to work with a new artist he was developing. He told me that the guy was incredible and destined to be a huge star.

“Can he sing well?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“Does he write the music or the lyrics?”

No.

“Does he play any instruments?”

Not one.

“What’s his name?”

“Billy Idol,” came the reply.

The record company was not that interested in Idol’s natural musical talents. They realized that he had the right look, the right vibe for the time. And they were betting heavily that the young record-buying public would pick up on his animal magnetism and charisma. It was a bet that paid off handsomely. Billy Idol went on to sell millions of records worldwide.

Am I saying that music doesn’t count? Of course not. Am I saying that style and charisma win out over talent? No. I just want to point out that there’s a world beyond music that factors into stardom. Stagecraft and performance are arts all their own. If you’re just starting out, I’d like to give you the briefest of introductions to those arts.

As you turn your attention to putting your talents out in the world, just remember that, Billy Idol aside, you’re best poised to succeed in the music business if you’ve got the goods vocally. I’ve seen many singers build great, long-lasting careers on the confidence that comes from hard work and talent. That kind of confidence is resilient enough to keep you going through all the bumps, curves, and fads that the business inevitably throws in your path.

Stage Movement 101: A Primer

All stage movement can be reduced to a simple pattern, and when you know how to use it, you can simply and effectively maneuver in front of any audience anywhere. This basic format can be adapted to the biggest stage in town or the smallest coffee house in the world. Walk through the accompanying diagram with me and you’ll have a reusable map that will guide you easily through any performance.

STAGE MOVEMENT

Point one. The beginning position, near the center of the stage, gives the audience its first chance to see and hear you. The moment you step up to the mike, it’s important to establish a strong presence and command of the energy in the room. How do you do that? First, stand still. Many performers move around so much at the beginning of a song that the audience feels as though they’re trying to catch a glimpse of a UFO and get a look at the alien inside. Even if you’re singing an up-tempo dance tune, you can still remain relatively stationary, with your feet in one area, while you move the rest of your body to the music. The goal here is to let the crowd make a few cognitive assessments. They deserve a moment or two to get a sense of who you are, what you’re wearing, and what you look like. They also want to be able to figure out whether they know and like the song you’re singing, how they feel about your voice and you, and whether they want to give you their attention. Ultimately they want to know: Can this performer and performance make me happy?

As you’re looking down from the stage, if you’ve got an audience that’s small enough for eye contact, direct your gaze just above their heads. You’ll give the illusion of contact without the discomfort. Keep in mind that many songs are intense and emotionally charged, and an audience member may feel uncomfortable if you stare into his or her eyes and profess undying love. You’re trying to wrap people in the song’s emotion without intimidating or embarrassing them, so use direct eye contact sparingly as you move to each of your positions on the stage.

At point one on the stage, you’re saying to the audience: “This is me. Give me a few minutes of your time and I know I can make you smile, or cry, or laugh, or feel what I feel.”

When you’ve established yourself, the music will tell you when it’s time to move to change position.

Point two. Every song has a story to tell. It offers a series of moments that unfurl like scenery out the window of a train, and as you listen, you’ll notice that as it progresses, it moves in and out of a number of places and emotions. When you detect the first mood shift in the song—it may be the change from the intro to the verse, or verse to chorus, or it may simply be a new emotion bubbling up—it’s time to move toward point two. (I’ve chosen to move to stage right on the diagram, but you can move toward either side of the stage.) As the music and lyrics make that first slight change, walk toward the right and focus your attention on the audience sitting on that side. You will be turning your body only slightly, so people sitting in the center and left will still see a part of your face and won’t feel excluded.

Point three. As the song makes its next significant shift, change direction and walk toward the left side of the stage. Again, make sure that everyone in the room can still see a part of your face.

Point four. With the next shift, move back to center stage. You’re now directly aligned with point one, but you’re closer to the audience. They know you a bit better now and are ready to have you come closer, with no feeling of discomfort or threat. At this juncture, the song is probably near its conclusion.

Point five. Most songs will end at the fifth position, directly in line with points one and four but still closer to the crowd. This is the power position. You own the stage. You’ve conquered the back, the left, the right, and the front, and you’ve connected fully with the audience. Congratulations.

Points six through eight. Some songs are simply longer than others and require more movement. If you’ve covered the stage once and you still have more song to go, proceed to point six, a slight move to the right. From there, point seven once more addresses the left side. And point eight brings you back to center for a conclusion.

Does this seem too simple? Good! It’s supposed to be, and the surprising thing is that all stage movements are loosely based on these directions. When you go to a huge rock concert and see Bruce Springsteen run to one side of the stage and jump up on a mammoth speaker to play and sing, he is at point two. As the music swells and he runs to the other side of the stage and throws himself out into the audience, he is simply at point three.

This plan will still work even if there is limited or no space at all to move. If you are performing in a space the size of a shoe box and you can hardly take a single step, you can still go through all of the points listed by moving your head in the correct directions or shifting your body toward the desired marks.

Because it’s not always easy to figure out how to time your moves, let me take you through a simple song to illustrate how this timing works. Please sing along with me and walk through the steps on the diagram.

JINGLE BELLS

Point 1: The song starts and we remain quite still to let the audience get to know us as we sing:

Jingle bells! Jingle bells! Jingle all the way!

Oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh.

Oh! Jingle bells! Jingle bells! Jingle all the way!

Oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh.

Point 2: The song changes now to a different melody and feel, so we acknowledge that by moving:

Dashing through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh,

O’er the fields we go, laughing all the way;

Point 3: The melody stays the same, so we decide to move a little to keep it interesting:

Bells on bob-tail ring, making spirits bright;

What fun it is to ride and sing a sleighing song tonight!

Point 4: The melody returns to the place it started, so we move again:

Jingle bells! Jingle bells! Jingle all the way!

Oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh.

Point 5: As the song concludes, we move to our last position:

Oh! Jingle bells! Jingle bells! Jingle all the way!

Oh what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh.

I didn’t invent those changes in the music. They’re built into the structure of the song, and you can hear distinctive shifts in any piece of music. All you need to do is pay attention to the natural points where the melody and lyrics move from place to place. Try singing any of your favorite tunes and mentally walk through the five or eight steps I’ve described. There are really no horribly wrong places to move. Just have fun and play with the pattern until you get the hang of it.

The Applause Is Not Just for You

When you perform or speak in front of a crowd, your singing or speaking is the gift you bring to the audience. At the end of the song or the performance or the speech, the audience’s applause is its gift to you. So don’t waste that moment or make your audience feel like you won’t receive its gratitude. Many times, as soon as a singer finishes a song, and the last syllable of the last word comes out, he breaks out of character and disconnects from the audience by losing eye contact and moving offstage fast. Please don’t do that. After you perform, stand still, look at the audience, and take in its applause. Some of you might be uncomfortable with this, but you must get over it. It insults your listeners when you won’t accept their thanks.

Who Me, on a Stage?

It’s one thing to sing in your room or map out your Temptations choreography in the garage, but I’m sure that more than a few of you felt a little chill every time I used the words onstage or your audience to help you imagine how to move while performing. It’s scary for most of us to get up in front of people, lay our talent on the line, and hope that someone likes it. In fact, stage fright dogs even the most seasoned performers.

Most of my students are surprised to learn that I’ve never looked at stage fright as a negative. I see it as a natural part of performing—even a necessity. When you’re afraid, your autonomic nervous systems flips a switch that sends a burst of turbo energy to your body to help you cope with the danger you feel. Yes, your heart pounds and your palms sweat. But the shot of adrenaline boosts your energy, and if you let it, it’ll carry you to new levels of creative expression.

Many top performers have wrestled publicly with stage fright. Bruce Springsteen says he still feels nauseated before going on. Most performers have the same feelings you do about stepping into the spotlight, but where some have at times turned their fears into a debilitating negative, Bruce has embraced the positive. As far as he’s concerned, until he’s sweating, sick to his stomach, and nervous as hell, he’s not ready to go out and give a true superstar performance. He sees his stage fright as preparing him for possible greatness.

Worry if you don’t have it, and if you do, try to walk through it and let it take you higher than you imagined you could go.

One technique that may help, if positive thinking doesn’t, is a breathing exercise I’ve developed. It will not only calm you, it will ground you in the diaphragmatic breathing that will make your singing fly.

Color Breathing

Sit comfortably and close your eyes. Rest your hands on your stomach, between your ribs and your belly button, and inhale deeply. Fill up your lungs while keeping your shoulders down and relaxed and your chest quiet. As you exhale, listen to the sound of the breath leaving your body. Concentrate on that sound and allow yourself to imagine that the air you’re breathing out has a color. You might want to make it red, the color of fear. Keep inhaling deeply and exhaling fully, and every time you exhale, as you listen to the sound of your breath, imagine a red cloud of fear and tension and anxiety leaving your body. Do this for a minute or two, until you begin to feel calm. As you begin to relax, imagine that the red of fear is gradually turning blue, and continue to breathe in and out, listening to your breath, until you can imagine that every breath you exhale has become a deep, rich blue. When there’s no red left, open your eyes. You’re ready to go on. Blue is the color of peace. Take it with you when you step onstage.

Happy Trails

What’s your dream? Is it to sing the lead in a musical? Front a band? Knock ’em out in the church choir? I can’t promise that you’ll hit the jackpot or stumble onto the elusive combination of traits and talents that make people into recording stars. But if you build on the basics I’ve taught you, it’s almost certain that you will connect with the richest, most powerful sounds you’re capable of making and that you will find yourself delivering your music in a way that is truly your own. Whatever your goal, keep going for a style that expresses who you are and what you feel. It’s your unique contribution to the world, and I know it will bring you joy.