How to Sing With Emotion

Most musicians will agree that singing is the most vulnerable way of making music. At the same time, that vulnerability makes vocals a great vehicle for expressing and evoking emotion. When it comes to singing with emotion effectively, there’s one thing that’s absolutely essential: connection.

Feeling at Ease

“To be able to sing with heartfelt emotion, you first need to feel at ease,” says singer and vocal coach Sabine Brachthauser. “In fact, feeling safe and comfortable is a precondition for your vocal cords to function properly — for several reasons. Firstly, feeling anxious or uneasy leads to shallow, upper chest breathing and the urge to swallow. This tightens the throat and pushes the larynx up, making singing much more difficult.” Besides the physical side of things, there’s also the mental aspect: “In order to sing freely, you need to enjoy what you do, which will only happen if you’re feeling comfortable,” Sabine says. When you’re having fun, your body relaxes and your throat opens up, which eases singing. Sabine: “There’s an exercise related to this that works as follows: start by laughing, then stop laughing audibly, so you keep laughing but silently. If you do it correctly, you’ll feel your false vocal cords open up.”

The Right Mindset

To sum up the above, you need the right mindset to be able to sing well. “Singing when there’s no one else around is different from singing in the company of a vocal coach,” says Sabine. “That’s why making their clients feel at ease is one of things that every vocal coach should be concerned with. The next step is singing for family and friends, while the third and ultimate step is to get on stage and sing in front of a live audience.” The latter can come with stage fright. Fortunately, Sabine believes there are ways to counter that feared phenomenon. “I feel like mindfulness has a lot to offer here. There’s nothing vague about training yourself to be in the here and now and accepting situations as they come — it’s a scientifically proven method to reduce stress levels. Signing up for a course is never a bad idea if you’re dealing with stage fright. I use mindfulness a lot, both in my work as a singer and my job as a vocal coach. Among other things, your breathing steers your heart rate, blood pressure and stress levels, so well-regulated breathing sits at the core of solid vocals. This ties right in with mindfulness, where the focus is on breathing. When one of my students comes in distressed, I always start with a mindfulness exercise, no matter if they’re young or old. It always works. You can really see them shift their focus to their inner state. Singing is just like mindfulness, it’s all about being in the moment.”

Pure

“Singing will be the smoothest when you’re able to remain really close to yourself. When you can’t, you’re just covering, which makes it harder to convey heartfelt emotion,” Sabine explains. So how do you actually convey emotion? According to Sabine, it’s wise to reverse the roles first and think about what sets a good singer apart from a bad singer. “Do you remember any moments when you were really touched by a performance? If so, try to figure out what happened there. Usually, emotion will have the biggest impact when both the singer and the listener feels it. In other words, the singer needs to convey emotion in a pure and authentic way for the feelings to really hit home.” Of course, you may also think a singer is great because they sing really well from a technical standpoint, but conveying emotion is really a different kettle of fish.

Getting Started

Once you feel ready to get in front of an audience and sing freely, you’re ready for the next step: conveying emotion. Sabine explains where you should start: “Say you’re working with a new song. To really feel it, you’ll want to carefully read the lyrics before you start singing. While engaging with the story isn’t always super exciting, it is essential. When I do it, I create a reel of mental images, kind of like a short film that plays in my head. This is my way to connect with the narrative that the lyrics describe. You might have a similar method or do something completely different — whatever works for you. In any case, it’s important that you’re connected to what you sing.” What if the lyrics feel really remote to you and describe things far removed from your reality? Sabine: “There’s always some starting point. This can even be something that’s the exact opposite of what goes on in your life. Finding something to work with is a fun little challenge. Once you’ve established a link between the story of the song and yourself, you’re ready for the next step.”

The Melody

The third step is studying the melody. “You’ll want to do this without involving the lyrics,” Sabine suggests. “If you have a notated version of the melody, then start with that. You could also play the melody on an instrument, or maybe there’s an instrumental version of the song that you can use. You can go for any of these options to make the melody your own without singing the actual lyrics. You can sing da-da-da, di-di-di, la-la-la or whatever you want here.” At this point, you’re still analysing the song, so you’re not tapping into any emotions just yet. Sabine continues: “In addition to diving deeper into the melody, it’s worth seeing if any specific instrumental parts strike a chord with you. Maybe there’s a sudden change in the rhythm, a special chord that stands out, or a melodic leap that hits home.”

Connection

Okay, quick recap. Working on a song requires patience and self-restraint. Start by focussing on just the lyrics, then analyse the melody, then any harmonies. If you skip these steps, you’ll miss out on a lot, according to Sabine. “You have to realise that a lot of thought went into the notes and words, so appreciate the effort that the songwriter and composer put into them so that the song evokes emotion. As soon as you realise that the notes and the lyrics depend on one another, you’re well on your way to singing with emotion, which is essentially all about establishing a symbiotic relationship between yourself and the song.” You’re now past the analytical phase and ready to bring everything together. “Connecting is everything,” Sabine stresses once more. “Moving my audience with a musical narrative, that’s my passion as a singer. Connecting with a song and imparting how I experience it to people.”

Good to Know

Throw Out Those Lyrics Papers

Singing from a lyric sheet or iPad is a faux-pas if you ask Sabine. “If you can’t sing the lyrics from memory, you won’t be able to effectively convey the emotion behind them either. When you read, you use the analytical half of your brain at the expense of the other half, which handles creativity and emotion. The hemisphere that’s fired up when you’re singing lyrics you’ve memorised, allows you to tap into your emotions more easily and makes it easier to enjoy what you’re doing.” Sabine sees this a lot in her line of work. “The performance of students singing from a piece of paper can get a bit dull. Throwing that paper out literally opens up a world of feelings, boosting credibility. It’s simply a matter of courage. And drilling those lyrics, of course.”

Laughing and Crying

When you’re nervous before a show and afraid that your throat might close off, there’s a simple trick that you can use to alleviate your anxiety. Try to laugh internally, like you’re literally making an in-joke. This will widen your throat and brighten your mood. If you’re struggling to inject more feeling into your singing, you could try the crying technique. This is a technique that can be learned and makes your vocals sound a little fuller and sweeter. There are plenty of singers who cry on their notes. It’s not real emotion either — just a way to ‘get you going’.

Managing Your Own Emotions

It’s not impossible to get overwhelmed by emotion when you’re up on stage. In fact, this happens to almost every singer at one point or another, which makes sense since a lot of songs are about love and heartbreak. It can also happen because of who you’re singing for and where you’re singing. Conveying emotion and controlling your feelings at the same time can be tricky, which brings us back to mindfulness. Sabine: “Mindfulness is an excellent tool for learning to deal with situations in which you just have to accept your emotions. They’ll get less decisive with time when you practise mindfulness.” Singers can also get emotional when they accomplish something they had been working on for a long time, or do something they never thought they could. “I’ve seen it happen during lessons,” says Sabine. “Want it or not, singing can be confronting. When you’re deluged with emotion, it’s best to just let it happen, keep singing and, if you can, inject those feelings right into your performance.”

The Most Vulnerable Musician in the Band

You have to acknowledge that the singer is the most vulnerable musician in the band. “Singing puts you in a vulnerable position, there’s no way around it,” Sabine knows. “When you sing, you’re using your whole body, so if you’ve had a bad day, it’ll always show. Sure, the guitarist may have had a bad day too, but their instrument never will, unlike a singer’s vocal cords.”