Singing With Emotion

Some of my advertising says, "Learn to sing with emotion." Some people respond to that ad by saying that if you have to learn to sing with emotion, then you're faking it. This misunderstanding could have a lot of factors, one of which might be the phrasing. I changed the phrasing on my website to "Learn to emote with your voice." That's probably a better description of what I teach. This post explains how vocal lessons help you express your true emotions.

Learning to sing with emotion does not mean jamming fake emotions into a sterile processor. (That's what techno is for—just joking). It means learning how to express your honest emotions so they sound good on the microphone.

Feeling emotions and expressing emotions are two separate things.

Sometimes, when a person sings, you can hear they're on pitch, but the performance seems flat for some reason. Other times, you'll listen to performances where the singing moves you like it hijacked your nervous system. The difference comes from how the vocalist transforms emotion into sound. By improving vocal technique, singers can relate more emotion to the audience in ways that let them feel it. 

Your emotions are real.

Everyone has emotions. Some people can express them easily, some need a little help. But, just because someone struggles to express their emotions doesn't mean they don't have them and feel them strongly. You already feel—no need to fake that. 

Your emotions are yours.

I have a growth mindset. People can learn to do almost anything with enough time and focus. However, I'm not sure you can teach adults what emotions to feel. You can teach lots of ways to pretend you feel a certain way. That's basically acting. But, at your core, you will always have deep-rooted emotions that play a part in driving who you are. That's what the audience wants to connect to.

How you naturally express yourself may not relay the sound for maximum impact.

Most people learn to express emotions as children. Genetics and environment impact how we learn to express our emotions, including speaking, shouting, and screaming. Some fortunate people also learn singing as an emotional expression.

Most people don't get to choose their own upbringing. We enter adulthood with whatever speech and emotional patterns we developed growing up. That means we have different accents and different sounds we make when we feel a specific emotion.

Some of those sound better than others in a musical context. But, since a big part of those sounds came from mimicking people around you, you can expand your ability to express yourself by doing the same thing with singers who sound a way you like.

Some people naturally sing with more resonance.

Singing with emotion requires resonance. Some languages and accents emphasize sounds that resonate well, and others don't. Areas where such languages or accents are common tend to produce more singers. But people of all different backgrounds can sing. Some may just find they have more work to do than others.

Resonance carries emotion through the sound.

Singing with resonance makes the difference between the audience hearing you and the audience feeling you. A voice with more resonance will bring more vibration. That vibration delivers a richer and clearer sound to the audience, especially through a microphone. The audience can also feel the sound vibrations. The more resonance you can create before the sound leaves your body, the better you can express your emotions and relay them to the audience.

Resonance is different from volume.

Resonance does not mean volume. You can achieve a lot of volume by screaming and shouting, but those don't necessarily resonate well. You can also get a lot of resonance in a quiet sound.

Resonance happens when the sound waves coming from your vocal cords reverberate through your body as you sing. That reverberation essentially packs more vibration into the sound, enriching it. If you think of volume as the reach of the sound, resonance is more like the density of the sound.

Learning good vocal technique can help you maximize your resonance.

Vocal resonance is the key to singing with emotion. Getting good vocal resonance gives a full, rich, and clear sound. Most of my vocal teaching comes down to giving people the knowledge and guidance to develop the mechanics of getting and maintaining good vocal resonance across an endless range of pitches, phonetics, and tones.

Learning to sing with emotion means developing the ability to use resonance to connect your real emotions to the audience.

When you sing with emotion, it starts with the emotion. Try to hone in on what a song makes you feel and what compels you to sing it. Those feelings should lead you to the sounds you need to make to express those feelings.

Using learnable vocal techniques, you can ensure those sounds have the resonance needed to make an impact on the audience. You can make them feel what you feel through the sound waves. That's when singers really connect with the crowd.

Old singing habits take work to overcome, especially when induced with emotion.

Whether you realize it or not, you already vocalize your emotions. Some of those neural pathways develop when we're infants. That means you have a default setting for what sounds will happen when you feel a certain way. Some of those default sounds may have good vocal resonance, while others might not.

As you develop your singing technique through vocal training, you'll be able to get more and more of your sounds to resonate. We will work a lot on mechanics, ensuring you can make the movements that let the sound do what it needs to do. Check out my previous post, Singing Is Exercise, for more on this.

Once you have good mechanics, we start mapping your voice so you know your instrument. This process includes rerouting all emotional expression through the new mechanics to the resonance chamber, where the sound waves reverberate and gain density. This rerouting takes a lot of repetitive practice to ensure the emotion follows the correct route on demand.

For example, you've made the same sound all of your life to express the feeling of sadness. Now we need to change that sound to a different place so it resonates. It will take some time before the new route feels right physically. And, even after it does, those old habits of expression can creep back in from time to time as you focus on other parts of development. The stronger the emotion, the stronger the pull to the old habits.

This process can make some people feel vulnerable as they get that deep into their own processes. Eventually, the new routes will feel like the defaults, but the original routes will still always feel a little comfortable. This makes keeping your vocal technique tuned up imperative. Also, part of the reason vocalists warm-up is to get a good feel for all those routes before they take the stage.

Accessing Real Emotions in Uninspiring Songs

In some cases, singers must sing songs they don't connect to. I used to perform in a band that played at weddings. I had to sing so many boring or cheesy songs people requested. But I was paid to show up and do the job, so I had to bring it. Besides, when you perform regularly, you quickly realize that you still want to sound as good as possible, even if you don't dig the song.

If you find yourself in this position, don't just try to fake it. Take a little time to find a way to connect to the song. If you don't like the lyrics, look for something in the music that moves you. If you hate the beat, try to relate to the lyrics. You might even come up with your own interpretation of what the lyrics mean and connect to that.

You can also recontextualize your relationship to the song. Try singing it while thinking about different people, pets, or places. You may find new emotional connections to the song.

If all else fails, turn it into a song that gives the band a feeling of camaraderie as you all play it together with joyous spite.

Develop the emotional expression in your voice through vocal lessons.

Take your vocals to the next level with vocal lessons and training. I can help you develop your ability to impact the audience with your voice. The first consultation is free, and I'm happy to answer any of your questions. Schedule a free consultation!

Thanks for reading. If you liked this, please check out my previous posts. Also, please follow, like, and subscribe, and all that social media sauce. That way, you won't miss my next post about how tone comes last and how you usually have to get a little worse to get a lot better.

Thanks again.