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Hi everybody!
My name is Justin Stoney and I'm the founder of
New York Vocal Coaching here in New York City.
Welcome to episode 11 of Voice Lessons To The World.
The show where we want to help you guys as singers
by answering your questions from all around the world.
And I'll give you a chance to ask questions later,
but for now our question for the week comes from
Peter E. in Appleton, Wisconsin and Peter says, "Dear Justin,
"I've got a pretty good voice but I'm always so nervous to sing in public."
"Do you have any advice?"
Well Peter, thank you so much for bringing that up
because I know a lot of people are wondering about this.
What can we do as singers to reduce our nerves and
increase our confidence when we're on stage?
I'm going to give you some tips today.
The first couple might sound a little obvious,
but I think they go overlooked a lot.
And so I think it'd be good to talk about these.
The first of them is technique, your vocal technique.
A lot of people neglect their technique
and then when they get out on stage
they don't have something reliable.
If you're doing your vocal technique exercises pretty much every day,
if you're working with a voice teacher who can help you to do that,
or if you're working on your own, it doesn't matter,
you need to have a routine to train your vocal muscles
so that they know what to do when you get out on stage.
If you sound pretty good most of the time
and then you get in a nervous situation
you may not be able to rely on those muscles.
But if you've been doing your technique
and you have something that you can count on
that right there is going to decrease the nerves big-time
because your voice and those muscles are very reliable.
The second one is also obvious but good to talk about is preparation.
A lot of people say, "Oh yeah it's pretty good."
"I've got my performance down pretty well."
And then they go out onstage and they really don't.
You need to make sure that whatever song you're singing
you know the notes inside and out,
there's no chance you're going to miss a note,
there's no chance you're going to forget a word,
you've got that thing down.
Make sure that you've prepared so well that
there's literally no chance that you could forget something.
That also is going to calm you down,
so you don't have to be thinking, "What's coming next?!" when you're onstage.
The third one's a little less obvious- breathing.
Now we all know to breathe.
But how do we breathe to calm ourselves down?
Everybody would think well if I need to breathe
I'm going to take some deep breaths before I go out onstage.
So we do, and we're sort of huffing and puffing backstage
to try to make sure that we reduce our nerves.
But one of the great secrets about breathing is that the
exhalation is the body's relaxation function.
So I need to do a long exhale...
[Demonstrates steady long exhale]
That will calm me down.
Not this...
[Demonstrates excessive deep breathing]
Those deep breaths that we think, "Oh I've got to do that to reduce my nerves"
those are actually going to increase our anxiety.
You need to do a long slow exhale if you're going to
calm yourself down before you sing.
Now the cool thing is singing itself is done on a long exhalation.
So singing is done on the bodies relaxation function.
So, if you want to reduce your nerves make sure that you're
practicing what you're about to do before you go out on stage.
Not what you're not about to do which is this...
[Demonstrates excessive deep breathing]
So, the next thing is acting while you sing.
It doesn't matter if you're a musical theater singer
or an opera singer, pop, rock, every style of music
you need to be somewhat of an actor when you sing.
Every style needs to communicate a message, to communicate the lyric,
and if you can focus on that you're going to be a lot less nervous.
If you focus on your sound, you're constantly judging,
you're constantly trying to make it sound right,
you're constantly hoping for your best possible sounds
and your ear is too active.
When you perform you want to be communicating the message.
You want to be conveying perhaps an emotion, depending on the situation.
But you want to focus on communicating the lyric
and not thinking about how you sound.
So, become an actor when you sing if you
want to reduce the nerves and not be focused on your voice so much.
And then one more thing about changing your mindset.
Don't go to impress.
Nobody in the audience wants you to try to impress them.
When you go to see a show you don't sit in the audience thinking,
"Well, boy, I really hope somebody really impresses me."
You're there to have a good time.
If you see a concert, same thing.
You don't say, "Oh I want them to impress."
You say, "I want to see my favorite band,"
"I want to see my favorite singer,"
"I want to see them up there having a good time and I want to have a good time too."
There's rarely an instance where everybody's there to
see whether you're going to impress them or not.
Yet when we go out onstage usually we think,
"Oh everybody's wanting me to impress them."
So we've got the whole wrong mindset.
We're trying to be good enough for our audience when the
audience themselves are not really thinking that way.
So if you can think, "My audience wants me to have a good time."
"I want to show my audience a good time," then you've got the right mindset.
You're not going in there with judgmental thinking,
you're going in there with an entertainment mindset
which is going to be much more helpful in reducing your nerves.
So, you want to work out your technique.
You want to have something solid that you can rely on.
You want to make sure your music, your words, your melody,
everything you're going to do has been totally prepared.
You want to make sure that before the performance you can
get in touch with your long slow exhale.
Let it be long, let it be easy. Don't huff and puff.
Then you want to make sure you communicate those lyrics.
You want to make sure that you're an actor.
And then don't impress anybody, get the focus off of that.
And I bet you Peter and everybody else if you can follow those things
you're going to be way less nervous
when you have to perform in public.
So I hope that's been helpful for you guys today as singers.
If you've got questions that you want to see us answer on the show,
you can send an email to
Questions@VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com [♪]
So we just encourage you guys not to lose the joy, [♪]
don't lose the passion. [♪]
Never let anybody tell you that you can't sing [♪]
because you know that's not true. [♪]
And if you're nervous just go ahead and push through those nerves anyway. [♪]
Because it's the only way. [♪]
You've got to just get out there and don't let those nerves stop you. [♪]
We encourage you to get with a great voice teacher in your area. [♪]
If you're in New York City you can check out [♪]
www. NewYorkVocalCoaching.com [♪]
If you like these videos you can visit [♪]
www.VoiceLessonsToTheWorld.com [♪]
I'm Justin Stoney, we'll see you next time. [♪]
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