There are so many things to do when preparing
for your next performance.
There are lyrics to remember.
There are notes to know.
You've got to be physically and mentally prepared.
Well, I'm in the middle of preparing
for my next performance, so I thought
I'd take us through a whole range of things
that I do in preparation for my next show.
And I know that some of the tips and tricks
are going to really help you prepare
for your next performance.
So stick around, we're going to get into it right after this.
Sound check.
Check one, check two.
Hi, my name's Dr. Dan.
Welcome to Voice Essentials, where we develop your voice
and improve your sound.
Because here at Voice Essentials,
we believe every voice deserves to be heard.
Well, as I said, I'm preparing for my next show.
And as I was going through and getting ready,
I thought there are some things that I've just
learned to do over the years that I think
you guys will find helpful.
So one of the first things that I usually
think about when I'm preparing is, where do I practice?
Well, in my case, I practice here in my studio.
I've got a set-up dedicated studio that I used to teach in.
And I also use it to practice in.
So the first thing you want to think about
is where you going to practice?
Certainly, a private space is going
to be better than maybe doing it in a living room
where people are constantly walking past.
And you can start to feel a little bit
insecure and vulnerable about the notes and the mistakes
because good practice is all about exploration
and making plenty of mistakes.
The mistakes are there to be made during practice
so that they don't get made during the performance.
The second thing is, how are you practicing?
The show I'm doing next week-- in fact,
by the time this guy's live, I'll
have already done the show.
So anyhoo-- when I'm preparing for this show,
I'm practicing a lot to tracks.
That being said, I'm actually going
to be doing it with a live accompanist.
But the tracks allow me to really practice
my phrasing, my notes, remembering my lyrics.
You might be practicing self-accompanied on a guitar
or even on a keyboard, but sometimes it
is good to step away and just focus in on your voice.
Because when we're playing or-- playing or playing,
what can have happen is you can become really focused
on the chords and what you're doing there,
and you forget about what you're doing with the voice.
And then when you come to performance,
oh dear, I haven't spent enough time working on this.
I've spent most of my time doing this.
The big one I think that most people do forget
is the mental preparation.
A lot of us in our preparation for the next performance,
spend a lot of time actually thinking quite negatively
about it.
The one thing that I think most of us really need to work on
is being mentally prepared correctly.
And so not thinking about, oh, what am I going to do?
I know I'm just going to forget my lyrics.
It's all going to go haywire and go pear shape.
No, you really need to-- if you are putting
in the time, the effort, and you're
being disciplined with regular practice,
there's no reason to think like that.
You'll have put in the time and the effort.
And the one thing that really cultivates nerves
is a lack of preparation.
So make sure that you are readying yourself
with that disciplined practice.
And then mentally you can step on the stage going,
I've got this, baby.
I know exactly what I'm doing.
I've really thought through it.
And that brings me to another thing that I'll often do.
I visualize on a regular basis.
And you can't always visualize exactly where
you're going to be.
Especially if it's a venue you're not used to.
But I often visualize myself in front of the audience,
talking with them, communicating with them.
And that's a really positive thing to do,
because you are placing yourself into the space
with a sense of confidence.
Not a haughty, arrogant, sort of overextension
of your own skills.
But simply, an opportunity for you to be in the space
and see it.
Now, sometimes, you need to sit down and do
that with your eyes closed.
A second thing you could be doing, along those lines,
in that mental, that visualization,
is sometimes in the preparation towards a gig.
Our voices, whether we get sick or whatever,
mean that we don't, or we're not able to actually practice.
And so, what I often encourage my students to do,
and I've done in the past myself, is I will sit down.
I'll play the track.
And I will mentally sing the song in my head,
so I'm running the lyric.
I'm running the notes.
I'm not singing the notes, but I am actually
running the notes in my head.
And at the same time, I am, once again,
visualizing the performance.
I'm visualizing myself in the space,
getting the lyrics right, the lyrics are the big one for me.
Lyrics are right, my notes are right,
and everything is happening in a really positive sense.
The other thing you got to do is be physically prepared.
A lot of young performers, people who haven't not
had a lot of experience in performance,
their nerves get the better of us.
And as we get closer to what is often in our heads,
this D-Day of performance, our anxiety starts to rise.
And that's understandable.
When you're doing it the first time,
our performance anxiety can get a little bit carried away,
a little bit of the better of us.
But what that anxiety can do is it really
eats away into your overall vitamin C levels.
And it deteriorates your immune system.
So in preparation physically, firstly,
up your vitamin C. Secondly, make
sure you're getting plenty of sleep.
Thirdly, make sure you're drinking plenty of water.
Fourthly, try to avoid hanging around with people
who've got the cold.
At the end of the day, whether it be in a week
or in a month's time, you've got to stand up and present
your song.
And you're not going to be able to do that
to best of your ability, if your voice is sick.
Sound check.
Finally, the final thing I want to just show you
is, I often prepare in front of a mirror.
Now what I've got here is my phone.
I'm going to just hopefully be able to take
some footage of this so that you can all
see what I'm talking about.
Now I just want to show you I always-- oh, there's
the mic-- I always perform in front of a mirror.
Or practice in front of a mirror, I should say.
Now the reason for that is I don't
want to find myself doing things in my performance
where I'm doing funny little nuances or little habits that
are going to distract the audience.
I want to see that before my audience does.
So what I do, I do things to really-- I
look at my facial expression.
I look at my physical-- the use of my body.
I look at the way I'm using the microphone and the microphone
stand.
And it's all in order to make sure
that when it comes to performance,
I've already seen the show.
And the reason I've seen it is because I've been
watching myself as I performed.
Now working with a mirror can take quite a bit of practice.
But it's practice that will be invaluable
when it comes to you workshopping and putting
your performance on stage.
Sound check.
I know that there are a range of other things
that you can do in preparation for your performance.
What is it that you do in preparing for your next show?
And there are many people here at Voice Essentials
that have got a bucket-load of performance experience.
And I know all of us here at Voice Essentials
can help each other out by just dropping
a comment in the section below.
And you might also like to give the video a thumbs up.
That's always helpful.
Encourages me that we're all on the right track in the videos
that I'm making.
And if this is your first time here at Voice Essentials,
we would love you to be a part of our Voice Essentials
community where we develop our voices
and we improve our sounds.
Because we believe that every voice deserves to be heard.
But until I'll see you in the next Voice Essentials
video, after you subscribed, of course, my name's Dr. Dan.
Sing well.
[APPLAUSE]