Choosing the right pitches and rhythms is the most crucial skill for a beginning singer. While pitch and rhythm accuracy is important, however, it isn’t the only thing that makes a compelling performance. The listener also craves expression, phrasing, and a sense that what the singer is saying has meaning. Even if all the pitches and rhythms are right, a song can still feel blank if there is no expression behind the notes. Good technique is not in itself expression, but it can facilitate it.
If you’re singing a song, getting to know the lyrics is an important step to learning how to express it. Within every phrase are clues for dynamics, tempo, and emotion based on the lyrics, the pitches, and the chord progression. Once you grasp the lyrics, you can start to feel how the dynamics and tempo should fluctuate. Sometimes that means singing a section softly, sometimes waiting a little longer before singing a note, and sometimes letting a phrase get longer. These expressive decisions involve creativity as much as they involve vocal technique, and you need to use your imagination to understand the emotion of the piece.
One way to add expression to a song is with tone color. The same pitch can feel warm, bright, strained, and intimate depending on how you sing it. Developing your ability to manipulate these characteristics of your tone can help you achieve the contrasts of emotion that you want in a song. For example, sometimes you want to sound vulnerable and decide to sing with a lighter tone, and sometimes you want to sound resolute and sing with a fuller tone. You can make these kinds of contrasts within a single song to help convey the emotion of the lyrics and melody.
Another way to achieve expression is to use your breath. One of the reasons why good singing sounds so different from bad is that good singers tend to sing in phrases, rather than note-by-note, and use their breath to help create long phrases. When you listen to someone speaking, you don’t hear each word as a separate event, but rather as part of the full thought of a sentence or paragraph. When you support your singing with your breath and sing in phrases, the listener can feel your intention and the emotion of what you’re singing. Expression requires your breath and imagination, as well as beautiful tone.
Perhaps the most important thing about expression, however, is that it is not about showing off. In fact, when a singer’s goal is to show off, the result can be the opposite; the singer ends up sounding strained or foolish instead of impressive. A good performance is about giving something to the listener, not taking. When you focus on what you want to convey, and practice your technique so you can achieve your expressive goals, you develop the ability to take risks in performance and be spontaneous. Every performance is a unique event, and a good performer is always growing and changing. Expression is what separates a technically good performance from a compelling one.
