How your emotions affect your singing
How your emotions affect your singing
Did you know that your voice is intimately linked to your emotions? you probably know this, however people tend to forget it at the moment of singing.
Our body and voice react to every emotion and feeling. You can notice it just by observing how the voice of someone changes any time they are sad, happy, angry, fearful, etc.
I’ve found that we can actually use our emotions to serve our singing voice. No matter how you are feeling at the time, don’t try to strongly block your emotions when you sing. Even during the warm-ups, let the voice fully express itself and you will feel a much more profound release. This is why it is so important to make sure you train your voice in a safe space where you can feel safe.
Sometimes (well, most of the time) we resist or react to our emotions instead of just feeling them as they are (basically they are vibrations in the body – sometimes uncomfortable ones). When doing that, you subconsciously do things like blocking the breathing in the lower part of your lungs (have you ever found yourself tensing your abs and didn’t know why?), tensing the jaw, and changing your posture. Sometimes you can even feel pain in your throat because of this!
So from now on, start observing yourself by being more aware of your body and see for yourself what you find.
Next time you sing something, do this exercise: identify the main emotion you are in that particular moment and sing from that point. Check your posture, allow your breathing to be deep, and sing without tensing your abs in. Open your mouth and see what happens! See what your voice has to tell you. Allow your emotions to come up without judging them.
Singing can be a very powerful tool for healing. Allow your voice to heal you and to show you where you are in life. Listen to your voice and hear yourself through it! By doing this, you will start finding the real way to interpret a song, because you will truly be aware of yourself, and when you are genuine and truthful with your voice then people can really get the message clearly. That’s why you can relate to some singers even if you don’t know the language of the songs!
How emotions directly affect your singing
Emotions are also the answer to the common question: “why can I sing nicely at home but not anymore when someone is listening”. If your emotions change your voice then if you feel nervous singing in front of someone, or if you are more focused on your nervousness than in connecting with what the song message is, then your voice will express nervousness.
But if you take your time to connect with the song and with the emotions that it evokes in you, you are going to find singing much easier. Of course, always from a place of safety and personal power. We don’t want to get sad ourselves just because we are singing a sad song! But that doesn’t mean you can’t connect with the message. It takes practice to connect too, but you will get better at it from performance to performance.
Learning to feel and connect with your emotions is a powerful tool for expression and interpretation. It will make you a better singer technically and also expressively, but most importantly it will serve you as a tool for true self expression which will improve many areas of your life.
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