Taking Those Voice Lessons to the Stage

I have performed with vocalists who sound connected, relaxed, and open during pre-gig vocal warmups, but then sound squeaky, shouty, or forced once they sing on stage. 

And I completely understand!  I used to be one of those vocalists myself.  I could nail my warmups perfectly, but I knew I was forcing it on stage.  What to do?

Vocal exercises are just that... exercises.

Well, first you have to realize that singing vocal exercises on vowels is NOT the same as singing a song with real words. The changes in shape that your mouth and tongue need to make when handling different vowels and consonants mean that your instrument is literally changing while you use it. Imagine if a guitar or a trumpet constantly shifted shape while you played it!  Vocal exercises are an important way to learn new things, but they're only the first step to being able to sing a song with that new technique.

OK, now you can sing songs perfectly in practice.  What goes wrong on stage?

You've learned good technique, and you've learned to sing a song that way.  So why do you keep falling back on bad habits once you're on stage? Why do you get caught in a chesty voice that won't transition up to head, or caught in a head voice with no bottom to it?

Taking a song to stage is a whole different exercise in itself. The excitement and adrenalin you feel on stage can cause tension throughout your whole body, which changes your sound. (Again, imagine if the tension on violin strings changed between practice and performance. How hard would it be to play the same way!?) Not to mention that in some live performance situations, you may not even be able to hear yourself well, which makes you feel like you need to yell.

Get in-ear monitors... if you can afford them

Jessica Rowand, Mojomama's lead vocalist, who is a great voice coach and also a friend of mine, told me  the single best thing to do for this problem was to get in-ear monitors.  Then you can hear yourself during gigs as well as you can hear yourself during practice.  And I will definitely get them... eventually.  Problem is, they're a bit pricey:  a four-digit price tag for decent ones.

That's not an option.  What to do?

Four things.

1) Practice, practice, practice good vocal technique. Over time, with repetition, you can train your muscles to behave correctly by default - just like in sports.

2) Get control of your nerves. Use the adrenalin not to tense up your body, but to feed your performance energy. You may even need to learn how to "separate" yourself so that the energy and excitement you feel in your body can express itself in every way physically, EXCEPT through your voice. You may have an animated face, you may be running around stage, but your voice and supporting muscles need to stay calm.

3) Learn to sing without being able to hear yourself well... or at all.  Sometimes, the monitoring just isn't good and there's not a whole lot you can do about it.  You need to be prepared for that by knowing what it feels like in your body to sing correctly.  How do you do this?  Read on...

4) Practice with your backing tracks turned way up!  Now, I'm not suggesting damaging your hearing, but depending on your genre, some gigs can be really... really... loud.  Turn your backing tracks up to your typical gig volume - if that's a safe volume! - and practice singing along to them without pushing or yelling.