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Communicating is A Singer’s Job

1354 - July 2021

1. WHY DO YOU SAY THAT COMMUNICATING IS A SINGER’S JOB?

When you step out onto a stage to sing, or stand up in front of a choir, or you are recording your voice for an album, or you are rehearsing a song for a performance, your job in all these circumstances is to communicate the stories of the music that you are about to sing. Your job is to tell the story of the lyrics. It is to express the meaning of those lyrics with your voice in such a way as to get a reaction from the listener. You are attempting to express the feelings that come through you from the story you are telling and get a reaction from your audience. That is your job. That’s what the saying “Rhythm and Blues'' means… music and feelings.

You are telling the story of the lyrics of the song and at the same time you are communicating the emotional story and the feelings that they cause that exist behind the obvious story of the lyrics. You are communicating all this through the sound of your voice, through the rhythm and tempo of the music, and through the tonal color you create by singing how you feel about all these words from your heart. You are trying to be the emotional conduit behind the lyrics for the sake of the audience. 

And in this very highly charged emotional exchange of singer and audience, you are the leader. You are leading the audience through the story and the feelings that are encouraged, stimulated and expressed by the song , through your voice, to a place that reminds of their own memories and their own feelings.

2. WHY DO YOU SAY THAT THE SINGER IS THERE TO REMIND THEM OF THEIR OWN FEELINGS?

The interchange between the singer and the audience can be most inspirational. It can be exciting, it can be solemn. The audience wants to be taken on a journey of sorts. They want to be lifted up out of their day to day. They want to be influenced. They want the singer to transport them to their own inner world of feelings and emotions, their memories and thoughts. They want to experience emotions and thoughts, perhaps long forgotten thoughts, energies and vibrations and a rainbow of emotional colors of human experiences so that they can re-experience their own intimacy with themselves.

Some people in the audience will be experiencing these kinds of things for the first time. Many are not even aware that this is what they have come to receive. Some are very aware and know exactly why they are there… they have come to hear you before. And like I said, You are the leader.

3. HOW IS IT THAT THE SINGER IS THE LEADER? WOULD YOU EXPLAIN THAT A LITTLE MORE?

Yes, certainly. Although the audience might be projecting all of the experiences and the feelings that they are having on the person who is performing, they are actually being opened up by the powerful experience of the live energy that is happening…they are being led. People will often come away from a performance of a singer they have gone to hear saying great things about the singer precisely because of how the performance of that singer has led them on a journey where they got opened and lifted and became exhilarated by the intensity or the intimacy that they just heard… They were most likely being led there by a very skilled performer. 

4. WHAT ARE SOME OF THE SKILLS AND TOOLS THAT A SINGER USES TO LEAD AN AUDIENCE?

When you are on stage, you are using the energy of your voice to lead. You are also using the energy of the music to lead the way to an emotional response from your listeners. Everything that is happening on stage is at your disposal and everything is an important part of what helps to give the audience a transformational experience. The rhythms, the tempos, the melodies, the song selections, and the energy for the people in the band contribute to the overall vibe of the performance. If it is an orchestra, the power of the instruments and the ebb and flow of the music all act as background for the experience that is to come. 

You are the channel, the portal if you will, for all of that to come together as if it is all emanating from you. You are the leader, the mood setter. Your physical presence defines the atmosphere on the stage and in the room. You create through the voice and through your physical presence and performance, the atmosphere and the setting through the messages can be presented and through which the magic happens of this is transmitted to the audience through you…the leader of the band!

And, the other thing that is so magical is that the performance is never exactly the same. Each night, the exchange between the audience and the performers is different. It is in constant flux. No two performances are ever exactly the same.

5. EXPLAIN A LITTLE MORE ABOUT HOW THE EXCHANGE OF ENERGY BETWEEN THE AUDIENCE AND THE PERFORMERS IS IN CONSTANT FLUX.

I believe that the constant flux of live performing is simply because of day to day life. Things are never exactly the same from one day to the next. We may feel one way at the beginning of the week and feel a completely different way by the end of the week. And the collective energy of a given audience is extremely different from one day to the next. There are so many multiple factors that come together to cause this. Just think about an audience of people and all the different experiences that may have had just on the day of the performance alone. The weather is another factor. There are so many multiple factors that it would be impossible to calculate all that. And all of this can be felt in the place where the performance is happening. And all of that energy is in constant exchange between the audience and the singer. It is truly amazing!

6. HOW DOES SOMEONE EVEN BEGIN TO LEARN HOW TO COMMUNICATE WITH AN AUDIENCE WHEN THEY ARE SINGING?

Well, first of all, this is a process that can be developed over time and can be learned. There is no ONE single way to begin this journey. There are many ways to approach this and many ways to develop and eventually access these types of skills that you will really need to be a performer. Some people go through institutional learning courses getting degrees and becoming accredited professionals in the Theater. Other people develop on their own with the help of trainers like myself to learn these skills.

One thing that all these approaches have in common however, is that the first step to unpacking all this is to allow yourself to explore music and find out what kind of music really moves you. Spend a lot of time listening to music and listening to many, many different singers and types of music. Sing along and let yourself feel how it feels to sing that kind of music. Some of it will fit and some won’t. At this stage, it is important to find music that you really love. Explore the lyrics and make sure that they are saying a message that speaks to you.Make sure that the lyrics are telling a story that you want to tell. 

You will be able to communicate much more effectively and powerfully if you are singing songs that really speak to your soul and to your heart. You will want to create a group of songs that feel like they are authentic to your sensibilities, even if the songs are written by someone else.