HOW TO CONNECT TO YOUR AUDIENCE
The number one difference between a good singer and a great singer who leaves an impact on someone’s life is singing with true feeling and emotion. To really connect with the audience, a singer must dig deep and connect with their own true emotions. Connecting with your own emotions will take your performance to the next level. The same goes for a pianist, the difference between a good pianist and a great pianist is the feeing and emotion that comes across as they play the piano.
People connect with music emotionally. A good singer will employ good technique, whereas a great singer will dig deep and connect to their own feelings and emotions, transporting the audience into an emotional experience. As a singer or pianist, find out what the song means to you; find your personal truth and meaning in the song. Since rock, pop, blues and country can be so raw and vulnerable, it will not come across that way if you don’t add feeling to the song, such as happiness, sadness, excitement, fear, anger, relief, betrayal and much more. Songs can cover themes of lust, heartbreak, love, anger and everything in-between. The audience will be entertained as they listen to you sing or play a song, but adding the raw emotions will be an emotional journey that will leave a lasting impression.
A pianist will use the shaping of phrases (groups of notes) with crescendos and decrescendos (which is getting louder and softer), staccatos, legato and other techniques that really bring out the emotional story of the song. It’s important to build a song to the climate. How you approach playing notes with technique like staccatos and accents will make a difference. To put emotion into your singing or playing piano, you must feel the emotion yourself and know the meaning of the song. The song must touch you in a personal way, in order for the audience to feel what you are feeling. That is why great artists are very emotional creatures, because they feel things deeply. If someone tells you a story and they seem to be just telling facts with a monotone voice with unchanging pitch, lack of intonation and expressiveness they will not keep an audience’s attention nor make an impact. Using Intonation which creates the rise and fall movement of your voice (or playing piano), places of punctuation like commas or question marks will change the delivery and make your performance a memorable one. Listen to Natalie Rodriguez singing “Earth Song” you can hear and feel the emotion in her singing.
JOKE FOR THE DAY:
How can a drummer and a conductor avoid rhythm conflicts? Work separate concert halls.