Oftentimes, the difference between a good singer and a great singer is the singer’s ability to stop judging their sound and be vulnerable in front of an audience. A great singer is able to let go of the outcome of their sound and trust their technique because they have become willing to make a bad sound. The most important word here is “willing.” When you become wiling to make a bad sound, you free yourself from the pressure and fear that if you don’t control your sound then you won’t sound good. The irony is, that very control is the main thing holding you back from finding an ultimately true and great sound you can count on.
It all comes down to fear and what we do as performers in response. For a singer, the fear of not sounding good causes us to manipulate, force, darken, or in other ways control our sound in detrimental ways. Our voice ends up sounding great in our head, but not so great to the outside listener. (We all know that what we hear inside our head does not sound the same outside our bodies. Anyone who’s heard their voice on an answering machine can attest to that.) In my work with singers over the years, I’ve witnessed many times that the moment a singer gives herself permission to sound bad, all the fear and attachment to the outcome of the sound falls away, and all the bad habits attached to that fear fall away as well, leaving the singer with their true, vibrant, organic, powerful and supported sound. So, be willing to make a bad sound! That willingness translates to vulnerability, and when a performer is comfortable putting their ego aside, trusting their technique and being totally vulnerable in that way, an audience can’t get enough.
Here are three tips to foster the willingness to make a bad sound:
1. Create a “safe space” in which to practice. This should be a space where you can truly let go and experiment with the willingness to make a bad sound because it is a space where you are not concerned about who may hear you singing. Practice in a space where you won’t feel judged in any way.
2. Give yourself permission to not care what you sound like. Herein lies the willingness to make a bad sound. Find a phrase that resonates with you. It could be, “I am willing to make a bad sound” or, “I can experiment; nothing bad will happen”—any phrase that takes the pressure off will work. Give yourself permission to fail and know you are safe. Before you sing, close your eyes and say this phrase out loud to yourself. Then sing and see what happens.
3. Stop listening to yourself as you sing. Instead, record yourself when you practice. Smart phones make it very easy to do this nowadays. If you record your practice, you do not have to rely on what you hear inside your head to tell you what sounds good. Rather, give yourself the ability to truly let go while singing and then go back to listen to what it sounds like outside of yourself when you do. You will learn to trust that letting go yields a good sounding result.
The bottom line is, singing is as much a mental game as it is a physical endeavor. Learn to trust your technique and turn off the committee in your head that judges every single sound you make while you are making it, and you will be a far better singer for it.
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