Suggestions for Achieving Your Best Performance

 

(These tips were distilled from Tom Carter's work with us. To order his book, Choral Charisma: Singing with Expression, go to sbmp.com. To contact him about the workshop, go to choralcoaching.com.)

1. What is the music about?

   Is there a scenario into which you could insert yourself that would support your singing this music the way you believe the composer, lyricist and conductor have intended?

2. How can you see yourself in the music?

   Who are you specifically (yourself or a character you create), and how do you think and feel about everything you sing?

3. Be Here Now...

   How can you make it compelling and vital that you sing these words, and sing them now?

4. Make it Personal

   Does it work to sing to "another person, animal, object, or deity," trying to get them to think, do or feel something?

5. Visuals

   Are there specific images you are creating in your imagination that will support the text and music?

6. Feeling the Message

   Are you making your "heart connection" to the subject matter as specific and powerful as possible? (If the composer is communicating their hate for war, what specifically do you hate about war? If the composer loves sunsets, what specifically do you love about sunsets?)

7. The Whole Package

   Are you singing the music with attention to all its changes in pitch, dynamics, rate and quality?

8. Always Turned On

   When you are not singing (during an introduction, instrumental interlude or rests) are you still connected to the message communicated in the text and music?

9. Think Ahead

   Are you preparing for the next song as soon as you have smiled (communicating "Thank You! I am so glad you liked it.") during applause?

10. Just Do It

    If you notice that you are not powerfully engaged, have you "jump started" your connection by smiling, raising your eyebrows, or otherwise engaging your facial expression? How about your toes?