What if you could take the leap from good to great? Rather than toiling along the road slowly, hoping that some day, eventually, you’ll be great? Well, I believe the only way to get from good to great IS a leap, rather than a one-step-at-a-time process. It’s a decision. A realization, rather than an accretion […]
This week’s newsletter was written by Panos Kolias. I have seen this question written in several forums. I have been asked this question several times, and had to ask the question of myself too. If you are asking that question, you have probably already decided that you want to change your life and follow a […]
On the one hand, you may hear about front placement: “Sing through your mask. Sing as if your voice is right in front of your face. Feel your voice hit the back of your front teeth.” On the other, you may hear about creating space in the back of the mouth: “Open the back of your […]
Do you find that you can sing well in practice, but when you get on stage, you blow it? You can’t hit a high note except in falsetto, or your mind goes completely blank, or your throat is so tight you can barely sing? I was a nationally competitive waterskier for many years, and found […]
I got a call at 2pm last Friday from That 80s Band. Their lead singer had just come down with the flu. They had a gig at 9pm that night and needed a vocalist. Was I available? Although I had to cancel some plans, my answer was YES! I performed with this band a couple […]
Improvisation: singing without prior preparation and planning; choosing what to sing in the moment in response to circumstances or inner feelings. Improvisation is very hard to practice, especially at first. You are likely to sing a lot of notes that don’t sound good. And if you don’t play an instrument, it’s even harder practicing something […]
A couple weeks ago I recorded some vocals for someone I recently began working with. The trackbed had some very slight misalignments between the drums and the rhythm guitar, because of some kind of side effect of a filter he had used during mixing. But I recorded the vocals anyway. I probably spent a total […]
Melisma, in music, is the singing of a single syllable of text while moving between several different notes in succession. Music sung in this style is referred to as melismatic, as opposed to syllabic, where each syllable of text is matched to a single note. [ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melisma ] In current music, we hear a lot of […]
In last week’s newsletter, I asked what YOU would like me to write about. A songwriter/producer in LA observed that in the studio, most singers tend to have more technical accuracy but less feel, and wanted to know how to retain the emotion of a song in the studio. Good question. I […]
First, train your voice. Second, forget the training. Then, repeat the cycle… again and again. Why? Because if all you do is focus on technique, you won’t ever connect with the art! If you’re thinking about how to place and shape your vowels, how to breathe, your intonation, or […]
