Jennifer Hudson’s Tribute to Whitney Houston

I wanted to comment on the what a wonderful job Jennifer Hudson did singing “I will always love you” in tribute to Whitney Houston at the Grammys this year. It’s always difficult to sing under very emotional circumstances and for Jennifer Hudson singing this song in tribute to her idol must have been tremendously difficult. I thought she did it right and I wanted to talk about those things here in case you are even in a situation where you have to sing under emotional circumstances.

First: Keep it Simple: Don’t try to do every run or lick in the book. Just sing from the heart and try getting out some long tones from the very beginning. Nerves and especially emotions always affect you ability to breath fully and correctly. If you can breath and hold some long tones right up front it will help get the breathing rhythm to slow down and get back to where it should be.

Second: Pause when you need to: Take a moment if you need it. Collect your focus and go on with your song. Don’t feel like you have to rush. It was a great call to let her sing the first part by herself so she could get into a performance zone and rhythm. Then once she had taken the time she needed to get comfortable out there with what she was doing, they brought the piano player in.

Third: Keep your gesturing to a minimum: She just sang the song and let the emotion hit everyone. She didn’t try to put on a big diva show. She let the moment really be about Whitney Houston.

Fourth: Don’t try to copy the way the artist sang the song: This would have been very tempting on a huge song and moment like this, but she sang it the way she felt it. Never once appearing to try to out Whitney, Whitney. Sing the song the way you feel it in that moment and please, please, please sound like yourself, not like you are trying to copy the artist’s version of the song.

And

Fifth: Give a respectful and collected shout out to the person and those on stage with you: Please don’t fall apart at this moment. Keep it short and simple, if it is very emotional for you, you will be close to needing to let it out, but find it within yourself to keep a possible impending breakdown from happen on stage. You are there to honor someone else. Don’t make your audience suddenly have to focus on you. This is difficult, but if you have found the strength to make it through the song, you can make it off stage. Remember you were picked because you are professional. Not always an easy task, but you can handle difficulty and stress.

Sing Because You Love It!!

Here’s what matters…

You should sing because you love to sing; you should sing because you’re happy when you do it; you should sing because you can’t imagine your life without singing; you should sing because when you sing the stress and worries of your day disappear; you should sing because when you sing you are completely present in the moment, enjoying life and energy; you should sing because singing makes you feel alive and you should sing because singing connects you to something bigger than yourself!

Here’s what doesn’t matter…

What other people say about your singing. You and the people who work with you on your voice know all the technical things you are working on. Outside of yourself, they are they only ones who truly know and can critique your improvements and your challenges and how you are meeting or exceeding them. Don’t take gratuitous and uninvited criticism to heart. If there is truth in it… you will know.

More that doesn’t matter…

If you get the part or not… You can never be inside of someone else’s mind to know what they are looking at for a particular role. Nor can you know what other motivations a person might be dealing with when casting. Do what you do best, do it authentically and always, always, always do your personal best. It is not a competition with anyone else, but a personal dialog with your self. There is little you can do to change anyone’s mind, opinion, or what they think of you. If you interact with 50 people in a day you will have 50 different reputations that day… quit trying to control what everyone thinks of you… you can’t do it… do your best and stay focused on what you want to accomplish and your purpose. Let everything else go!!!

Here’s one more thing that is not the end of the world…

A bad audition or show… mistakes, flubs and blunder happen… EVERYBODY MAKES MISTAKES!! Look at them as challenges, learn from them and see mistakes as an opportunity for growth. Challenge your self to become better; please don’t let it drag you down into a self-imposed panic. That will not serve you in any way!

I want to leave you with something I read in a book called “Flow” written by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (please never ask me to pronounce that!) He ’s interviewed thousands of people about what happens to them when they are in the flow. I thought it was particularly relevant to singing as well as rock climbing and poetry.

He says that, “ The mystique of rock climbing is climbing; you get to the top of a rock glad it’s over but really wish it would go on forever. The justification of climbing is climbing, like the justification of poetry is the writing; you don’t conquer anything except things in yourself… the act of writing justifies poetry. Climbing is the same: recognizing that you are a flow. The purpose of the flow is to keep on flowing, not looking for a peak or utopia but staying in the flow. It is not a moving up but a continuous flowing; you move up to keep the flow going. There is no possible reason for climbing except the climbing itself; it is a self-communication.”

This is how I look at singing…. The only justification for singing is singing itself. Not what things you might get because you … if you are singing to reach a goal, get a part, achieve perfection you will be disappointed by others along your journey. If you sing to sing and it is a self-communication, you may still disappoint your self, but that is the one thing you have control of and can do something about.

Now I know that we live in a western, goal oriented and materialistic culture. I’m not suggesting you float around aimlessly just being happy and spinning in circles all day. Goals can be a great thing if you set them; but when you let those goals, or what other say about your goals become your master…. It might be time to reevaluate…

Your Perfect Performance is Already Here!

Well…. I’m going to start with page one of Dr. Wayne W. Dyer’s book “Everyday Wisdom” and give you a quote and then tell you how that real life wisdom also applies to singing. Since most of these things come up in lessons with my students at one point or another, I thought I’d share some of my interpretations here with you as well!

The first quote I’m using is this, “All the abundance you want is already here. You just have to tune it in.” (Dr. Wayne W. Dyer)

Okay… singers are always trying to add more, do more, sing louder, sing more emotional and generally make a song better. Your perfect performance is already here!! By being or have more abundance in your vocal chops, you knowledge of music, you vocal strength, etc… singers think they can make a perfect performance! If you quit looking for the things to add, for the abundance to add to a song and tune it to the perfection that each of us are, we will effortlessly add the right notes, the right nuances, the right feel to any song, at any time… What you want for the song is already with in you… you just have to be in touch with it and everything that you want to do.... can happen!

But singers, as are people, are always on some quest to make everything perfect. And by perfect they usually mean they need more stuff, they think they are lacking something they need get in order to reap the abundance, weather material or vocal. They chase abundance in search of perfection.

Everything you want and need is already here, you don’t need to go looking for it. My job as a vocal coach is really to help students shed the layers of conditioning that keep them from the perfection that is already there. It’s to show students how to reach and tap into that perfection by eliminating what has become normal, and replacing it with what is natural to them. Reminding or re-teaching singers what they already know how to do… thereby allowing every abundance to magically manifest itself automatically! The big secret is that it was really there all the time, we just forget how to tap into it and use it.

Neither perfection, nor abundance are concepts that are external to us. They are both within each of us and are available to us every moment of every day. We just, as Dr. Dyer says, “have to tune it in”… or dare I say get connected to that perfection that is already there. If you want more abundance in your singing, get tuned into the perfection that is inside and get out of its way. Stop hindering what was intended for you, and start singing the way you were meant to sing!

WHAT!!! And the lost are of listening…

Okay, I’ve wanted to write about this for a while now… It seems that more and more students come to me with an awesome ability to memorize and learn particular songs… (I don’t doubt that that memorization is useful in the right applications, but in learning to find your own voice and to actually sing… it is unfavorable at best) the problem comes in when something is different, a different chord, a different tempo or groove etc., young singers are getting so used to singing something one way that they actually believe that is the only way to sing the song… and taking it a step further that if they can’t copy the song exactly as it sounds they are doing it wrong… well in my humble opinion… that is a load of “…… “ (Please insert favorite expression here!) Singers are losing the ability to listen to music and really follow it no matter where it leads…

Most often today what you (the listener) are hearing isn’t even how the artist (and for mainstream pop music, I’m using the term artist very loosely) sang it. You’re really hearing how the producer or engineer has put those tracks together and how they have manipulated the vocal track through all sorts of tools, like auto tuning programs, to enhance and “help” the track sound like music. It’s become like believing the picture on the cover of a fashion magazine is actually how the model naturally looks… but young singers are buying into this as how the song must be done….

Artistry is about flow. It’s a give and take, a push and pull. Like a tide, it should be in constant motion, going somewhere, and that somewhere is always someplace different. You can’t ask a wave to roll in and out in the same way, in fact, there aren’t ever two waves that happen the same way to start with… life and music are the same way. Trying to make music fit into a cookie cutter form, isn’t music, it isn’t singing, it’s creating a product. And that is definitely a part of western culture, but that’s not what we’re talking about here!

Music and singing should be about being in the moment and letting what you feel come through…. It’s about authenticity, truth, honesty, and being genuine and real. Music is a conversation between the musicians, the singers and the audience… if every time I try to have a conversation with you, you repeat back to me (like a parrot learns words to repeat) what you have memorized, I will not believe you are actually engaged in the conversation; it will feel dishonest and fraudulent.

Learn your instrument so when you learn to start listening to the music around you and letting it lead you down different vocal, emotional paths you can vocally do what you feel like doing. Then and only then is when you will, as a singer, really be able to transform the human spirit!

I'm Back....

Well as I start my blogging again I’m gonna try and do things a little differently this time. Instead of just singing advise (I’ll probably do that in the form of video blogs this time anyway) I’m going to do a variety of things…. Reviews of concerts, new CD’s, singers and performances… i.e. like last years halftime Superbowl show… lets hope this years show is … well … better! I’m also going to start taking quotes from some of my favorite authors and relating them to singing. Put some of my philosophy classes to good use! Anyway… I hope everyone will enjoy this blog again and as always, please leave me comments and lets talk about life and singing… or maybe life is a song and the discussion will really be one and the same… Always remember to sing it your own way! Jilla

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