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Movement While Singing

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Madeline Petersen

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1. How much body movement is bad? However much is perceived as "bad" by the audience you're singing to. e.g. an opera singer dancing like a pop-star or flailing about like Janis Joplin may be too much for the audience. But then again, if your more ideal fan would enjoy that, even in opera, go for it.

1(b). Movement that makes throws off your singing technique can also be "bad." e.g. hunching over in a way that makes you have to push harder to sing part of a melody because you don't have good breath control anymore.

2. Physical movement is trained through awareness and practice. But again, "excessive" is very subjective. While you can stand perfectly still behind a microphone stand and sing with flawless technique, why would you want to? Romance the music, do what you need to do in order to feel and express your song. Doing so invites the audience to do the same. Singing is as much a full-body, emotional performance as it is a technical one. Once you know what the limit is that your audience can handle, then you have a line to push into and elicit a reaction from them. However, I also suggest purposefully practicing in three ways that have helped many of the bands I've coached over the years:

  1. Stay relaxed and have fun with the song, not caring about mistakes, and being able to laugh at yourself -- this will loosen you up.
  2. Stand perfectly still and emotionless, focused on flawless technique -- this will build fine-tuned technique.
  3. Act like you're giving the performance of a lifetime to a very large audience of your more ideal fans -- this will build endurance for when you do perform.
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22 hours ago, Draven Grey said:

1. How much body movement is bad? However much is perceived as "bad" by the audience you're singing to. e.g. an opera singer dancing like a pop-star or flailing about like Janis Joplin may be too much for the audience. But then again, if your more ideal fan would enjoy that, even in opera, go for it.

1(b). Movement that makes throws off your singing technique can also be "bad." e.g. hunching over in a way that makes you have to push harder to sing part of a melody because you don't have good breath control anymore.

2. Physical movement is trained through awareness and practice. But again, "excessive" is very subjective. While you can stand perfectly still behind a microphone stand and sing with flawless technique, why would you want to? Romance the music, do what you need to do in order to feel and express your song. Doing so invites the audience to do the same. Singing is as much a full-body, emotional performance as it is a technical one. Once you know what the limit is that your audience can handle, then you have a line to push into and elicit a reaction from them. However, I also suggest purposefully practicing in three ways that have helped many of the bands I've coached over the years:

  1. Stay relaxed and have fun with the song, not caring about mistakes, and being able to laugh at yourself -- this will loosen you up.
  2. Stand perfectly still and emotionless, focused on flawless technique -- this will build fine-tuned technique.
  3. Act like you're giving the performance of a lifetime to a very large audience of your more ideal fans -- this will build endurance for when you do perform.

I just want to add and point out that some movements help with support and posture. Even Opera singers with little movement will lift their elbows above  the rib cage and/or bend their knees slightly and drop their center of gravity when more support is needed. These movements help to engage support muscles.

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21 minutes ago, MDEW said:

I just want to add and point out that some movements help with support and posture. Even Opera singers with little movement will lift their elbows above  the rib cage and/or bend their knees slightly and drop their center of gravity when more support is needed. These movements help to engage support muscles.

Yep.I suppose I approached that from the negative side of things with 1(b). But you're right, there is extrinsic and intrinsic anchoring that can greatly help technique. In performance, you have to balance between having flawless technique and expressing emotion in such a way that the audience is drawn in. They're both important.

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