The High Performance Vocalist is a blog for singers of contemporary music such as pop, rock, R&B, country, jazz, and soul. Learn about vocal technique, the singer’s life, stage fright, performance skills, gear for vocalists, and more.
How to Become a Great Singer when Auditory Learning is Not Your Style
(How to Become the Best Backup Singer Ever) My name is Kristin, and I am addicted to harmony. As a singer, I intend for this statement to be interpreted musically. But as I find daily, as I go in Music, so I go in Life. So, let’s start, as is my wont, with a […]
Do NOT hold the mic like the guy above, if you want to avoid feedback. by Justin Leighton Long Feedback can be a nightmare for singers. That piercing scream and everyone covering their ears can be embarrassing to say the least. The subject is actually pretty complicated, but let’s keep it simple. Feedback is caused […]
On any given morning, I may be in my yoga class at the Y, awkwardly arranging myself into some nice, juicy, seated asana in celebration of having arduously completed my standing poses. With a sense of relief, I close my eyes to settle in. Without fail, my wonderfully aware teacher immediately hollers out, “Eyes open! […]
This is a bad year for the flu – and I’m sure that’s not news to you. As a vocalist, you need to be extra careful with preventive care – you can’t cancel a gig just because you’re sick. I’ve had to perform long gigs while sick more times than I wish. It’s not […]
Singing Emergency? The A Cappella Prescription Three weeks ago, I was sitting in a hotel room in Florida, languidly lounging with a cup of coffee and some well-earned Facebook time before needing to rouse myself to get ready for my friend’s wedding at 11 am. At 9:17, I received a text from the bride. “Soundman […]
Question: What do Florence Foster Jenkins, Virtue Epistemology, and a Major League Baseball game have in common? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And yet…? These three completely unrelated items came together this week in a meaningful way in the dark and murky corners of my hypomanic mind, as I was considering a question that nags at some […]
Well, that’s got to be a typo. Kristin is clearly on the hooch. She obviously intended to write an article on Breathing for Singing, but she got the title of her own blog wrong. Did I? Oh, did I? One day, I had a first lesson with a new student. I was having him vocalize […]
One evening recently, I received a text from one of my students. It went along the lines of, “There’s something that’s been really upsetting me lately. Could we spend some time at my lesson discussing it?” Being a Philadelphian by birth and temperament, my mind instantly conjured up the worst possible scenarios that could involve […]
One day this past summer, I was sitting in a recording studio, there to consult on vocal technique for my student Jacob as he laid down tracks for his new EP. I was honored to be included in these sessions by his producer Cory, who brings some serious musical chops and pedigree to the table, […]
by Kristin Henry I was recently engaged in the annual joyful task of preparing my band’s tax forms – whoever decided to hand the financial responsibilities over to me was clearly a lunatic – and as I proudly penned a whopping “$1,000.00” on line 7 (Nonemployee compensation) of my own 1099-MISC, the person I was […]
I received an email a couple days ago from a drummer in the UK. He had emailed because he watched a video I made a few years ago about how to get over stage fright. He wanted to buy my Zen of the Stage DVDs but was having trouble with the purchase process. “I just watched a clip of […]
EVERYBODY KNOWS 1. Most tweets go unread. Just because you tweet, don’t expect your followers to see it. Few view their feed comprehensively. They check in and check out. Catching only bits and pieces. Even forgetting your fake and dormant followers, which are voluminous, far fewer than fifty percent of your followers see one of […]
Here are notes from Ronan Chris Murphy’s seminar “Production Tricks for Maximum Impact.” These are quick and dirty, maybe I’ll expand and clean them up a bit later. But just wanted to get them out. First, credit where credit’s due – Here are two links to learn more about him, and contact him if you […]
OK. Yes. It’s been FOREVER since my last newsletter. First reason: I asked a question in the last newsletter that I had to ponder myself a lot over the last few weeks. It took me a while to be able to answer my own question, even though honestly, I’ve been thinking about it for years. […]
Hello Friends, My name is Christian Sanders. I am the newest addition to the team at Performance High. I would consider myself an opera singer, and I love to incorporate classical techniques used by opera singers to help inform popular music, jazz, and musical theatre singers. I think every singer, no matter what music they […]
Do you think you have an accent? Probably not. You are so used to the way you and the people around you speak, that you don’t think you do. It’s people from the Midwest / the East Coast / Spain / Brazil / Africa / you name it that have the accent. Check out this […]
Wondering about differences in technique between classical and popular singing? Here’s a specific real-life example. I’m a pop singer by nature. Yes, I still take voice lessons. In fact, among others, I take lessons from some of the other teachers at Performance High, Kristin Henry She is a more classically oriented teacher than I am […]
Sometimes people get confused about the difference between nasal resonance and singing with a nasal tone. You DO want some nasal resonance. Your sinuses are some of your vocal resonators. But you DON’T want to sound like you’re singing through your nose. Here’s a very quick tip to tell if you’re singing through your nose: […]
I worked all last month with an artist preparing for an industry showcase in L.A. At the end of the month, we did a dress rehearsal on a large stage, running the whole set straight through a few times. There were still some “mistakes” which kind of freaked him out at first, because he was […]
