Emotionally Connected Performance

[KudisanKai]

There is a lot of information on vocal technique, mixing registers, expanding ranges, vocal health, etc.. However, not much is mentioned regarding how to achieve emotional connection, knowledge of styles, which is equally important. Sometimes your audience will opt out on preferring the singer who really connects with them, rather than who has the vocal prowess. Can we discuss this? What are your feelings? Is there a pedagogy?

[KillerKu]

I think tastes are simply too divergent to get all that far into the discussion. If I sing mostly emotionally, it's not as accessible as if I kind of 'Kenny G' the performance. Safe, bland, same tone throughout the whole thing, smooth, predictable, meeting expectations, and all that.

 

There are genres where more urgency has been popular, like some kinds of roots rock, some types of soul, punk rock, some forms of Jazz (Billie Holiday is a great example). Nina Simone is maybe the greatest master of emotional singing to my ears, her timbre changes according to every line of every song, subtly shading the story of the song with unique emotions in her voice. I've heard almost every emotion I'm aware of shaded into her voice and I can dissect passages of her songs and get an idea of the emotion she was trying to express.

 

In the current market, there may be an underground scene for more unhinged performances that aren't overly calculated, and it a time may come again where a shift in the market could allow this to take place, but the mainstream industry has moved towards the point where a lot of music is auto tuned, even live. Everything is calculated, there are no rough edges, voices have become robotic, not just with technique, but with computers.  

 

Regardless, I have made a choice to sing like Nina Simone, David Bowie, John Lennon, Little Richard, Joe Strummer, and many other artists who defied expectations and sang from the heart for the rest of my life. I pretty much despise the modern music industry, the conformity, the blandness, all of it. People follow enough orders without being told 'appropriate' ways to sing. I'll just keep singing from the heart, and if no one on the entire planet liked it, I still believe it has more value than conforming to this industry and not be an automaton going through the expected motions. I'd rather stop singing for the rest of my life, as silence has more value to me as an artist than conformity.

[MDEW]

      Emotional connection has as much to do with Timing, inflection and Phrasing as "Distortion", "Timbre" and "Style" .It is not  just about how high or low you can sing or how good your pitch matching. Sometimes being before the beat or after the beat will add to the emotional effect.

     When I say phrasing I do not mean musical phrasing, I mean grammatical phrasing. Take a simple sentence put the emphasis on different words and the sentence takes on a new meaning. Also group different words together or let one word raise or lower in pitch and see what happens to the meaning.  When you do not put emphasis or stress on any of the words, it is dry and meaningless.

     Singing is like acting, even more like voice acting or someone who provides the voices for animated films.  It may not make as much of a difference for some of the Dance music but without this voice acting integration, a song like "A whole New World" would not have made as much of an impact.

[ronws]

To kind of quote Martin, if I may be so bold, emotion is also a performance. 

 

Punk was seen as emotionally honest but it was still 3 major chords and song structure. 

 

Same with grunge. Nirvana used the same chords as everyone else. structured like a pop song, amazingly tight drummer (Dave Grohl, who has also toured as drummer for Queens of the Stone Age, yes, my head is full of useless trivia,) breaks and bridges. The main difference, fuzzy tones on everything and a singer bound and determined to sound like he is gargling with pea gravel. 

 

Oh, but it was so honest because he didn't spray his hair and wear spandex. Oh, he was so honest because he wore loose fit jeans, Doc Martens, and a flannel shirt. Oh, he was so honest because you could hear the rattle of his heart in his voice.

 

I agree that it is important to feel the song and it have some meaning for you. But it also involves being able to produce the sound that it means to you. I am not exactly sure where it crosses the line between feeling and technique.

 

Some time ago, we were sharing our covers of "Gethsemane" from Jesus Christ, Superstar. And Steven Fraser had noted that my performance had the sub-text of an impudent child. Which was awesome because that was exactly the feeling and intent I was going for. A case of where the emotional intent transmitted to the listener.

 

But I also think technique is good to have, though, aside from technical aspects of pitch accuracy and relevant volume, it should serve the intention of the song. That technique is not the end goal, but a step or tool to reach the goal.

[KillerKu]

To me this quote sums up singing emotionally in a lot of ways:

 

"I would say that the most emotional moment was her listening to the playback of "I'm a Fool to Want You." There were tears in her eyes ... After we finished the album I went into the control room and listened to all the takes. I must admit I was unhappy with her performance, but I was just listening musically instead of emotionally. It wasn't until I heard the final mix a few weeks later that I realized how great her performance really was."

 

 

Anyway, human beings have natural physiological responses in their vocal tract when feeling emotions, there is a word for it:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_prosody

 

It's like if someone is speaking to you, a lot of times you can pick up their mood from the timbre. When the singing voice matches the mood, it is 'emotionally honest.' It often makes singing harder, because if you are crying your vocal tract is already being used up, but if I cry during a singing performance I'd be more inclined to keep it, even if the technique suffered.

 

Another thing that can happen, is when people are in different moods, is if someone is very excited they will likely talk fast. This can translate into rushing the beat in music. If someone is sad, they might feel more inclined to drag their words. When emotional prosody occurs, it's a lot more divisive than say a violin playing the correct note. But it's also the biggest thing that separates the human voice from other instruments. We have pretty advanced speech and even digital singing voices are emerging, one day we'll be able to reproduce most of the human voice's timbre, and what will separate us from the machines is the emotional prosody that only we can feel.

 

It's very possible at that point, most people will prefer the sound of a machine that 'simulates' emotional prosody at the exact right time in the song, similar to how we have machines to simulate the right pitch, timbre and timing synthesis may be possible.

 

 

We're still a distance away from this, but I think it is very possible an engineer might be able to trick human beings into sensing emotional prosody more effectively than a human can communicate it while singing.

[KudisanKai]

Thank you KillerKu for your reply. So good to hear the choice of true artistry. Although, I think that singing emotionally still makes you accessible. I think if you really want to be heard and understood, and not just be background music for a loud party, then emotional connection is key. If it's true, it will be felt.

[KudisanKai]

Trust me ronws, I think learning technique is necessary. However, I think equally important, is knowing who you are and what you are singing about. I taught this in my performance labs at Berklee College and I found it to be simply amazing to see and hear the results of students who really accepted their personal experiences and used them in their performances. You can't forsake one thing for the other.

[KudisanKai]

You make a valid point mdew. It reminded me that Danes music was created for that very reason, to dance. I believe that means it was not created to be felt or contemplated. It's a different type of artist/singer.

[Sexy Beast]

 

It reminded me that Danes music was created for that very reason, to dance.

 

I thought Danes music was for Danish people...

[KillerKu]

My friend who is a beginning singer misinterpreted this emotional singing thing. So just in case people are singing emotionally and not getting good results at first, I'd like to make sure they understand the process.

 

It's a lot like a piano, where if you are just starting on piano, you have no 'mental map' of the piano, and won't be able to intuitively hit the keys. Of course everyone has intuition in moving their hands and fingers. We do it all the time, but playing that instrument requires some training. 

 

Voice is more intuitive, since we have it since birth, but there are still a lot of things, where you may not have the coordinations to channel an emotion onto a pitch without choking yourself and straining to death.

 

So training and learning the instrument, to where you can intuitively use it is still very important even in emotional singing. But how people train, and the end result of how they get to the point of throwing those pitches out emotionally isn't always the same.

 

But I listened to my frustrated friend, and I could pick out what she was feeling in various places. So even if your performance isn't perfect and you aren't able to channel this exactly how you want, a lot more will come through than you might think.

 

So anyway, I'm not saying 'don't train your voice' or don't practice, or whatever. But it's a lot like bridging into head voice. You try to bridge whatever intuitive map you've built up on your instrument with the sincere emotion into a sound that hits the right pitch. Sometimes bridging is tough.

[ronws]

I think you expressed it best, Killer. Technique and whatever you learn of it in whatever quantity, is to better express the emotion that you want.

[MDEW]

Trust me ronws, I think learning technique is necessary. However, I think equally important, is knowing who you are and what you are singing about. I taught this in my performance labs at Berklee College and I found it to be simply amazing to see and hear the results of students who really accepted their personal experiences and used them in their performances. You can't forsake one thing for the other.

       This hits the nail on the head. Know what the song Is about and how YOU, or your character if in a play, feels about it or what emotion it brings out or is Supposed to express. Add a little of the way you yourself would react in that situation.  Singing is like acting with your voice,

       If you watch a movie with bad actors you may find yourself thinking about either how bad the actor is or thinking to yourself " This could never happen in real life"

But watch a movie with a good actor and even if the movie has an impossible theme you may find yourself telling that actor to "get away from the door, you idiot. The aliens are out there"  and never even thinking that it is not real. They are reacting the way a  real person would in that situation.

      I was watching a Classical singing Master class. The student sounded awesome vocally but the director/teacher stopped her any way. She told the student to Think about the line, put herself in that situation and SAY the line as if in that moment.  She had been attacking a certain word soft that would have been stressed if actually in that situation. After that the line made sense in a real time and emotional context.

     Technique helps you reign in the chaos.....subtle shifts in intensity, timing, inflection even pitch itself can add to or take away from a performance.

     Pitch and Tone are only part of the equation. A big part and necessary part but expression is just as important.

[KudisanKai]

Yes ronws, KillerKu, and mdew, technique gives you the foundation to prepare your voice, IN PRACTICE ONLY to develop the muscle memory so that in performance you have the complete freedom to express your truth/emotional connection with ease. You can sing whatever emotionally comes to heart. You don't forsak one thing ng for another. I don't understand why more teachers don't develop a pedagogy for this. I am amazed at how so many in the education industry thinks it's sufficient to be one sided and teach only from the head, excluding the heart. Generally, I think many people think the heart/emotion is a bad word.

[KillerKu]

Yes ronws, KillerKu, and mdew, technique gives you the foundation to prepare your voice, IN PRACTICE ONLY to develop the muscle memory so that in performance you have the complete freedom to express your truth/emotional connection with ease. You can sing whatever emotionally comes to heart. You don't forsak one thing ng for another. I don't understand why more teachers don't develop a pedagogy for this. I am amazed at how so many in the education industry thinks it's sufficient to be one sided and teach only from the head, excluding the heart. Generally, I think many people think the heart/emotion is a bad word.

 

For having to teach and sing so near Hollywood, you've got a lot of heart. I like that. If you ever get a chance to slip a Nina Simone type character into the business or become one yourself, I'd be thrilled.

 

It's too late for me to have much artistic impact as a singer given my life circumstances, but I would love to hear a really heartfelt artist on national or international radio that transcends basically any box you could put them and refuses to be controlled in any way. Heart, warts and all.

 

I think it's almost a dirty word for many reasons. It's uncontrollable, unpredictable, and unsafe from a profit standpoint. The current music industry would likely veto such an artist, as they don't have control over how to manipulate the artist's image, which affects their bottom line. There is also the affect of shows like American idol have been mocking singers with 'heart' as being unable to sing no matter how hard they try for an entire lifetime, while celebrating 'safe' singers for quite a few years now. I honestly believe this is very unhealthy for singing as an artform. Just because a passionate singer isn't particularly listenable right now, doesn't mean that is guaranteed for their future. Publicly shaming and mocking can help a very sincere singer stop singing, while a sociopath would be in heaven in the modern scenario, pulling all the right strings. Technique is probably a lot easier for a sociopath to imitate, as they are abnormally good at faking things like emotion.

 

Something I've been thinking about, is rather than what many expected, which was the internet bolstering and strengthen underground artists.I think it might have ultimately weakened off beat artists in some ways. In the modern world, a modern Nina Simone might have a soundclick somewhere that I'd likely never find even if I searched for many hours, buried in a sea of so much content it's virtually impossible to find her. People turn to the radio for manufactured perfection through extensive multi million dollar productions, which is something independent artists can never compete with, and music listeners have millions of choices of cheaply manufactured off beat music to choose from on the internet. The end result is few artists can have cultural impact in any significant way as the mainstream art is diluted for consumption, and the sincere, offbeat, but but previously commercial art is diluted by its method of delivery, never reaching the masses at all.

 

If circumstances were different, I would have wanted to try to call out with the most sincere emotion and personal truth to as many as I could in a live scenario. Historically a lot of musical heroes were hypocritical and imperfect human beings, but they wore their hearts on their sleeves in song in many ways and above all did not like being controlled. Can that still spread like wild fire? Or has the world changed so much we need everything glossed to a perfect sheen?

[ronws]

Yes ronws, KillerKu, and mdew, technique gives you the foundation to prepare your voice, IN PRACTICE ONLY to develop the muscle memory so that in performance you have the complete freedom to express your truth/emotional connection with ease. You can sing whatever emotionally comes to heart. You don't forsak one thing ng for another. I don't understand why more teachers don't develop a pedagogy for this. I am amazed at how so many in the education industry thinks it's sufficient to be one sided and teach only from the head, excluding the heart. Generally, I think many people think the heart/emotion is a bad word.

I am probably going to seem foolish, which has never stopped me before. 

 

But I am not sure how a pedagogy for teaching emotion works. And some just seem to have it. I read the memoirs of Scott Weiland. He thinks in terms of poetry. And ennui. and it shows in his writing and singing. Regardless of technique or lack thereof, you hear his heart in anything he does.

 

Also, I am not aware of people who take up singing for the pure technical exercise of it. People I know who sing started out with the desire to sing and share a feeling they had from a song. I am not saying there are not such people in existence, I just don't know them. A "spock" trying to learn how to sing, could make a comedy short.

 

Some famous singers did not start out the desire to become "the singer." Ronnie James Dio and Bruce Dickinson started out playing other instruments and kind of fell into singing because it turned out they were better at it than their band mates. Or had a more definable voice.

 

But there are some performances that seem a bit wooden to me, like the singer is doing a job and is functioning enough to do the job, like being the car wash attendant who signals how to line up your front wheels into the guides. The last few awards show performances of Miranda Lambert, I get the feeling she is doing a job and I just don't "feel" the song from her.

 

But I am not sure how you would teach emotion. 

 

Others have emotion but their voice just doesn't cut through the fog to you. Duff McKagan sings well. But he is known more for playing bass guitar, though he plays several instruments. Even when singing in his own band, you notice the other stuff more than his singing, but he has great emotion and is a really good songwriter.

[KillerKu]

It's not necessarily that people are Spock. So much as they might sing with emotions of wanting fame, social approval, to conform and be accepted, money, social status, all that stuff. In order to conform to a social standard, most people have to sacrifice something within themselves.

 

A lot of the artists I admire, sang with other human emotions in a vulnerable way that can often result in complete failure. By doing so, they put themselves on the line. It's about communicating on a different level, rather than going through socially acknowledged motions of 'achieving success' (this is the popular singing technique, do this one!, these are the proper emotions you should convey in this song, these are the proper subjects) they shared a personal slice of their humanity by violating social norms.

 

And it can result in complete and total failure to succeed in any way. Nina Simone could have gotten a boob job, maybe some cosmetic surgery, stop singing about civil rights, displaying vulnerability, fragility, anger, and just tow the line like a 'good girl does.' Today she'd have a better chance of success singing the things your society tells you that you shouldn't. Stay in line. Sing perfectly in tune, and if you don't, have the robots fix it. Sing with socially acceptable vocal technique. Stay within a certain genre. Follow the rules. Don't offend people. Be safe. That's exactly what she didn't do, and that's why she's one of the best. She'd sing anything she believed in and scold the audience. Lou Reed was a lot like that, John Lennon did this with Plastic Ono Band although he was already pushing a lot of boundaries in the Beatles as far as acceptable topics to sing about. Bowie refused to let anyone ever lock him into any genre, or vocal style. The one time he did, was in the 80s when the public ate him up. There are certain artists that just refused to be boxed in cause they felt had something more important to say than seeking approval of others. You could take them, or leave them. I don't think there is much room for them to reach the same heights they used to.

 

Everything is a boob job, give the audience what they want. There are definitely 'polite' ways to share socially acceptable music. Doesn't look like a super model? Through her in the trash, get someone with DDs. Fake plastic phonies. I wanted to do exactly the opposite, and just fail if that's how people respond. If I miraculously solved my nerve pain, more than enough people are polite and give people what they want. There's no way in hell this would be released today:

 

 

But when I hear it sounds like an ode to people like Nina. Celebrating their individuality and autonomy. And no one would give Patti Smith a recording contract today on a major label, cause she isn't a super model and doesn't 'sing proper' either.

 

This is a great example of the modern industry:

 

 

 

 

In 2015 they still feel compelled to put a conventionally attractive actress in black face to convey Nina Simone in her own biopic. They can't even display Nina Simone without loads of fake prosthetic. That's how transgressive she was as an artist, fiercely independent, and conformed to no standards. Such realness can't even be conveyed now without prosthetic. A lot of successful artists use similar prosthetic 'help' in their careers, like Nikki Minaj's backside. As voices become more artificial as well, as it only makes sense that this is yet another body part to conform to a standard. If you're a great actress who looks like Nina, you're out out of luck. If you're a great singer, that looks like a super model and sounds like her... Prepare for some vocal modification and instructions on 'proper' subject matter. If you look like her, and sound like her. Well... How much plastic surgery can you afford? Maybe Zoe can be in your music videos.

[Jeremy Mohler]

I'd say it's all about imagination.  What is the story the lyrics of your song describe?  Can you see where you are at?  Do you hear the sounds the person in this song would hear?  Can you truly feel the presence of the world this tune creates?  If you can hear, see, smell, and live the world of the song while you perform than we (the audience) will too.  Of course, you have to have worked hard on your vocal technique up to that point so the singing point comes naturally.  I truly believe that once you are up there though (or in any situation you'd like to have a gripping performance) that the real work is to lose yourself in the portrait the song creates so that through your voice and presence, the audience can join you.  

[KillerKu]

I'd say it's all about imagination.  What is the story the lyrics of your song describe?  Can you see where you are at?  Do you hear the sounds the person in this song would hear?  Can you truly feel the presence of the world this tune creates?  If you can hear, see, smell, and live the world of the song while you perform than we (the audience) will too.  Of course, you have to have worked hard on your vocal technique up to that point so the singing point comes naturally.  I truly believe that once you are up there though (or in any situation you'd like to have a gripping performance) that the real work is to lose yourself in the portrait the song creates so that through your voice and presence, the audience can join you.  

 

This is incredibly useful. But I've found some singers can scat sing, improvise random words and still sing emotionally. I can't always do it, but I've found myself increasingly capable of doing it as my musicianship increases, playing the voice more like an instrument than a word maker.

 

She is definitely singing with emotion here imo:

 

 

The exit scat here sounds like the emotional climax:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5Y11hwjMNs

 

Likewise the intro hum in this song sounds just as passionate as the rest of the song:

 

 

So words as a story and a visual are definitely a big part of it, and as a beginner I couldn't sing at all without words to help me, but if you learn to improvise with your voice and are no longer 'locked' a song structure, the voice can be used emotionally without words to express any emotion you are feeling. Lots of jazz and soul singers can do melissma or 'alter' the melody of a song with words, and I've found as a singer I've found a lot of these alterations appear to be more intuitive and emotional than a rational calculation.