Lesson 5: Advanced Transition Techniques Anyone Can Do

Lesson 5 Intro – Transition between songs

Greetings all and Happy Holidays!

Hope you get your fill of Turkey or Tofurkey – whatever you desire!  This intro will be removed later, but for now in case you run across this – enjoy our holiday spirit!

Last week I saw a concert of professional musicians – they were excellent musicians!

BUT, there kept missing the mark on one important area.

They were not connected to the audience. Now some of the clues for this are when you hear things like “we love you Portland”. Okay, that’s not “bad” and not a sure sign, but just a clue. Let’s get to the meat of the issue.

Their 3rd song was a great upbeat syncopated number that had everyone starting to move in their seats and a few folks even started standing up to dance (in a mostly ‘sit down’ venue). Then they went to this amazing slow deep song. The one that makes you look inside, remember, and… Then abruptly shifted to another upbeat tune with a reggae feel. WHAT?

The bigger PROBLEM here is that these highly skilled touring recording artist performers do not understand Transition. This is really a make or break it skill anyone can learn but no one talks about or teaches… until NOW.

First, let’s talk about the simple part – choosing the song order. There are a lot of factors here and we’ll dive deeper later, but for now we’ll be quick and say, you want to create a “contour” of “energy” that is easy for the audience to follow and flow with. I know there will be lots of questions on this but this is really the easier part that is covered in a lot of places, so I’m moving on to focus on the next part and we’ll cover this element in a later section.

Next, and what I feel is most important, is understanding how to take the audience from one song to the next.

NOT FOR PROFESSIONALS ONLY!

Does this topic sound exciting? Boring? It’s subtle…

Think about this. WHO DO YOU LOVE?

So with this image present we continue… this is not just for professionals. It’s actually more for every day singers. A lot of professionals eventually learn or figure it out, but most of us are casual to semi-pro singers and it makes such a difference.

Mastering this area can empower a mediocre skilled performer to outshine the superstars. Have you ever seen a band that was “so so” musically, but they had a “lead” who had such a rapport that everyone in the room was having a good time?

That’s part of it.

There’s another BIG part.

The skills learned to master transitions spill over to ever area of life.

You might be singing in a lineup of 10 other singers where you have no control over what happens before your song. You’ll see how to work with this.

You may be wanting to sing a sweet love song to your sweetheart while driving in the car – there are simple things that can empower your song to pull the best out of you and have your audience in the space to best receive the ‘gift’ of your voice and the music.

You might be proposing marriage or negotiating a business deal. The same skills apply.

This is a big intro for a link to a lesson… so, I’ll wrap it up here and continue on the website.

Note 1: this lesson requires feedback! I will answer questions! And I will ask questions of you.

Note 2: Update: you may know that I’ve been working on restructuring the websites for months and running into a lot of obstacles. It’s still a work in progress, so “don’t mind the dust” it’s fully functional, just not quite as pretty and organized as it will be soon.

All the Best to you!

Stephen

—————————————–

LESSON 5 Starts Here

Based on the introduction and your life experience, tell me your thoughts on Transitions between Songs?

What have you seen that works?

What didn’t work?

How might you use this in your life? (yes, I know we haven’t covered the ‘how’ yet)

I’ll be here adding more all weekend responding and giving your the next pieces of this lesson as we interact….

Next… segment

Today we’re going to talk about one of the biggest challenges for Advanced singers, but it’s also a technique that can help singers at any level… so, I offer it to everyone.

The Problem:
How to transition from the current song/situation, to the one you are about to sing. This might sound simple, but consider these examples. Let’s say that you song is deep, emotional, moving… one of those tear jerker songs that reaches the soul of every listener – IF you sing it well.

• The song preceding yours is sung by someone else and their song is high energy, stand up, tap your foot, dancing in the isles. You get the picture… now you have to help shift the energy of the audience to a place where they can receive the message of your song.

• You’re at a gathering and asked to sing a song. You don’t know where everyone will be… maybe folks are scattered around the room talking in small groups… maybe a comedian just left the stage. Maybe it’s in the middle of a series of boring, or enlightening talks.

• You’re singing to your sweetheart. Maybe you want to pop out the song at a special moment, while walking in the forest or along the waterfront… or while driving in the car.

As you can see the types of transition situations are endless… some might be easy and some are quite challenging (at first glance)… but, some people have the ‘secret’ ability to pull this off time and time again.

That’s what I’m going to teach you.

The question and answers are not trivial and go pretty deep. In fact, I’m creating an entire course just on this topic… but, I’m going to give you the core of it here. You might have paid $97 for this course, or received it as a free bonus for

Please follow this as it might be the biggest insight to singing, and doing almost anything in life that you have run across.

You won’t find it in any singing text book and unlikely you’ll see it mentioned at a master class for advanced singers (though I heard one master singer ‘hint’ at these ideas).

But, a few elite singers use this practice regularly. And, I expect most successful singers are using the technique whether they realize it or not.

Step 1: Find a good model to watch to open the door for understanding…

Assignment 1: write about what you are seeing/understanding about Transition in our blog section below.

Assignment 2: Find a good model to watch. Here are examples.

• the Dali Llama
• A good Preacher (not so much the firey, but the ones that set the tone so you’re ready to hear)
• A top performer with charisma

An example of someone to watch… someone who projects a sense of Calm and Peace and perhaps Love.  Note that we will move to the qualities, but these will help us build the foundation of understanding what we are looking for.

I’ll give you specific video clips in a few days to check out on youtube.  I’m waiting because I want you to have the experience on your own rather than just taking what I hand over.  So, do this on your own.  You might go a different direction and that’s great!  You might blaze a new trail and bring fresh insight to our discussion.

For those curious about the plan…  Here’s an Outline of Lesson 5:

• Watch people with great transition qualities
• Discuss one aspect of what these people do –
• Identify the main components/steps of Transition
• Becoming masterful at each Step in Transitions
• Tying it all together. Extending this technique to broader applications, such as entire performances, other areas of life, public speaking, promotions.

And if you’re getting to this lesson late we’ll have a break here so you can do your research before you go to the next sections.

FYI – this lesson will be interactive/live for about a week (through Dec 4). After that, I’ll still respond to comments, but those who are ‘on the ball’ will get the real time experience 🙂

Enjoy your discoveries!

Stephen