You are in the spot light, wearing a gorgeous dress or fashionable suit accompanied by a forced smile and a single bead of sweat dripping from your cheek to the floor. To you at least, the next 15 seconds of song/aria feels like years and has at least 300 notes crammed into what seems like just half a measure. There are 38 high C's a few low R's and you are required to croak like a frog, laugh like a hen, all while doing cartwheels, spitting fire, and styling your hair. How in the world are you going to make it through?!
You won't because that scenario is actually impossible, there is no such thing as a low R, but I digress; The feelings associated with the previous paragraph are very real and occur nightly to the performing singer. How do you prevent them? or at least, how can you manage them?
If you have a difficult passage, or hard cadenza, then incorporate it into your warm ups. Turn the crazy run, into a vocalise and transpose it throughout your range. Do this starting at least a few months before your performance. By the time the performance comes, it will be so ingrained into your muscle memory that you should have no problem. Good warm ups ARE practice. When you are warming up you should be focused entirely on technique, not just throwing your voice around and hoping it's well lubricated afterwards. You have to train yourself only to phonate using efficient coordination. If you have successfully completed the run 500- 1000 (and this is a low number) times then you'll have the confidence to know you can do it again, even while juggling several others things at once.
From a neurological standpoint, in moments of high adrenaline, you will do what you have always done. This is the principle behind most martial arts. The martial artist trains himself to react to things in a certain way so then when a fight actually does occur his reaction speed is faster than his opponents. Train yourself to sing it well, repeat it like crazy and then when you get to performance, it will be there. I promise.
Keep at it
Larz the Larynx
You won't because that scenario is actually impossible, there is no such thing as a low R, but I digress; The feelings associated with the previous paragraph are very real and occur nightly to the performing singer. How do you prevent them? or at least, how can you manage them?
If you have a difficult passage, or hard cadenza, then incorporate it into your warm ups. Turn the crazy run, into a vocalise and transpose it throughout your range. Do this starting at least a few months before your performance. By the time the performance comes, it will be so ingrained into your muscle memory that you should have no problem. Good warm ups ARE practice. When you are warming up you should be focused entirely on technique, not just throwing your voice around and hoping it's well lubricated afterwards. You have to train yourself only to phonate using efficient coordination. If you have successfully completed the run 500- 1000 (and this is a low number) times then you'll have the confidence to know you can do it again, even while juggling several others things at once.
From a neurological standpoint, in moments of high adrenaline, you will do what you have always done. This is the principle behind most martial arts. The martial artist trains himself to react to things in a certain way so then when a fight actually does occur his reaction speed is faster than his opponents. Train yourself to sing it well, repeat it like crazy and then when you get to performance, it will be there. I promise.
Keep at it
Larz the Larynx
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