People don’t come to a concert to hear songs.  Yes, you heard me right. Then why do they come if not to hear songs? I’m glad you asked.  They come to experience an emotional connection with you, the singer.

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Music is emotion.  Music with no lyric is the pure expression of the emotional river running through the musician.  Sing a song on an “Ah” vowel and each person listening will still have a subjective emotional response to the music.  Their individual feelings and pictures will be triggered by what they hear.

Lyrics are intellect.  That is not to say words are not emotional; quite the contrary in fact.  But add lyrics to that same piece of music and suddenly, we are all on the same page.  An audience instantly becomes a community sharing a common experience as the river’s emotion is given a specific context. We all understand what is being said and the music now serves to illuminate the text.

The singer’s job is to understand precisely what their personal relationship to the lyric is, to express that meaning through the river of music in their own unique way and share that moment with their audience.  That moment is what resonates with an audience.  The emotional connection they feel to the singer is what they respond to.  The singer creates moments that gives an audience chills, make them laugh, cry or want to dance.  That is what they will remember and why they will come back. An audience wants to feel and experience an emotional connection with the singer.

This realization impacts every part of preparing for singing in concert:  what you want to say through your songs, how you relate to your audience and the other musicians you’re performing with, song selection, program order, what you say between songs, what you wear, how you move onstage, where you are on the stage when you sing each song, etc. Musical perfection in performance is not the ultimate goal. That’s a noble aspiration and that’s what recordings are for.  But a great live performance is more than great musicianship.

If you’d like me to help you explore how to make your next live performance an experience people will remember, give me a shout and we’ll make it happen. Until then, keep making music!

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All my best,

Philip

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Philip Hernandez is a respected acting teacher and singing coach in NYC. He is also the only actor in Broadway history to play both Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert in Les Miserables. He created principal roles in Broadway’s Kiss of the Spiderwoman and Paul Simon’s The Capeman. You may also know him from his many television appearances: The Blacklist, Gotham, Blue Bloods, The Path, Bull, Nurse Jackie, Elementary, Person of Interest, Law and Order, Hostages and Damages to name a few. For information about acting lessons CLICK HERE or singing lessons CLICK HERE. 

Follow him on twitter @philip24601, on Instagram @philip24601 and on Facebook at @philip24601.