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
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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
hi, my name is Jose, I am a biggener, and I am very interested in learning how to sing, I would love to become one of those solo singer playing the guitar, but I think I have a very bad singing voice, I am 50 years old,but I feel I can still do something. I had an accident about 7 years ago, which left me with a bad back, so for that reason I find it very difficult to find a job, and depending only on my disability check it not very pretty if you know what I mean, I have been taking your free singing classes, and I have noticed that there is a voice I can work with, thank you very much for your kindness of giving me the opportunity to learn how to sing, I look forward in continuing the classes and see what happens in the future. enjoy your holydays:)
Hi Jose,
Thank you for your kind words.
I’m glad to hear you found your voice! It’s never too late!
Stephen
Seeing the comments are not threading and replying beneath the original… will look into that and hopefully get it fixed soon. Will make it a lot easy to follow the conversation!
What an extorinary lesson you taught all of us. What do you have in store for us next huh?
Hi Patrick,
Great to hear from you. Thanks for the kind words.
Next? Already? We barely started on this one!
Actually this topic has the making to unfold into it’s own mini course.
I have so many topics in mind – far more than this lifetime will allow. Lately I’ve enjoyed being more spontaneous and figuring out the next step in the moment. So, my response to questions today hint at several BIG new topic areas.
But – Basics!
Definitely want to come back to core vocal exercises. This discussion is vitally important, from my perspective, but we also need that core ‘work out’… so, expect a lot more vocal exercises in the next couple of months.
Thanks for chiming in with the good vibes!
Stephen
Hi Stephen,
Great tips!!! I’ve been singing in a choir, I’m a tenor, and I would like to know how to apply Transitions in a choir? Or is it just for the master teacher? Another thing is that I’ve heard that if you worry so much about what the audience think of you, you might fail in your vocal technique, as I’ve seen it in some singers.What can we do to fix that? Many thanks.
Hi Gabriel,
GREAT QUESTION!
You stumped me! I’ll have to really think about this. I generally think of this topic when being solo singer, or in a small group where we are all inter-playing and leading the program.
But, what about being a choir member?
My first thoughts are this… (maybe I’m not stumped)
The choir director is also directing the Transition. Your ‘job’ as a choir member is just like your ‘job’ as a musician in a group. You support the leader – whoever that is at the time.
In a band, often a single person is the ‘lead’ for a song, maybe the entire program with the band backing, but it might shift from player to player. But, in Jazz for example, who ever has the lead at the moment is who you support… and, then in Jazz it really becomes a flowing dance between musicians, or it can when they play well together.
So to quickly wrap up this point – pay attention to the choir direction. As best you can, ‘feel’ what he is feeling, follow his or her inspiration. Now there are times that a director doesn’t know where they are going and your role might change, but that’s another discussion of technniques.
Worry about the Audience – CORRECT. DON’T THIS! 😉
the point is not to WORRY but to simply attempt to
a) understand where the audience is
b) attempt to speak (sing) to the audience in terms they can understand
If you’re singing and you can tell people are not “getting it” then you might change something… on the other hand you might [think] people are getting it and let yourself cut loose and leave the audience behind.
Attempt to be aware.
And an important reminder – we never really, for sure, know where anyone else is. We can guess… educated guess… and we might get better and better at this skill, but we never really know for sure. It can be helpful to accept this Humbling position – we do our best. Often we’ll hit the mark, sometimes knock the ball out of the park… and sometimes we strike out 😉
(gotta get a good baseball metaphor in there from time to time 🙂
Thanks for the great question! (I’m curious to talk with my choir director friends about an experiment to work with their choir members on this topic)
Stephen
I think that transitioning between songs is like tying a whole performance together. I like emotional connections, like an introduction to a song that means something to the group or to recall days that everyone in the audience could relate to with the upcoming song. Also, when there is a song that is very popular, usually an audience is very hyped up so it is good to continue the trend for a bit before changing rhythm. I even think that the banter helps to change the rhythm between songs and I have seen some singers actually allow audience members to sing with them making a memory for the person picked and entertaining the audience anyway.
Hi Eliza,
What brilliant insight!
I’m staring to think there are a bunch of “ringers” in this group! There are actually quite a few voice teachers in here which is so helpful!
Eliza you touched on so many aspects, I’ll try to stick with just one…
Emotional Connections – Within Yourself, the Band (if there is one), and the Audience
First off – when you dig inside and tap your own emotions, it’s like digging a well and hitting Spring Water. Now of course you may want to be a tiny bit cautious in some settings not to open the flood gates and break down in tears, for example… but – if you do, that’s REAL. It doesn’t happen often, but I’ve had to stop midway through a song and sit down for the night and ask someone else to take over. Thinking of a situation last year shortly after my father died and it was so intense that I’d not had time to grieve. So, there I was introducing a song, started singing it and it reminded me of my father… I “lost it” emotionally … or rather I “got it” – this is really life. Our feelings, our love is what [this] is all about it. So, I didn’t finish and the evening ended early.
I hope that little bit might be of value to someone. we don’t have to be perfect and emotions are part of who we are and it’s okay to let them show. In fact we MUST Let them show!
Usually what we’re looking for is tapping into that Spring Water of emotions that are ‘somewhat’ controlled… that is we’ve ‘worked with’ those emotions, we know their range and boundaries and how they can be expressed through the song we’re singing… anyone hearing, practice, practice, practice? And at the same time, practice gives us the foundation for spontaneity.
Gonna jump/flip a bit here – And, we don’t want to be an emotional DRAMA Queen/King either. Enough said on that point.
So, let’s get back to tapping into the Spring Water of emotions for a song. Yes, this is a source of beauty and energy that can flow through you and your voice and is a HUGE component of connecting with the audience.
Eliza, I like that you noted all three – yourself, the band, and audience. Sometimes there’s a song that triggers emotions in everyone and we need to be conscious about how we tap that energy.
This is really important because we most often think in these terms of a song that makes every feel good, or sad, or happy, spiritually connected, or just touches them in some way. There are songs and emotional energy that can take the evening in a very different direction. “What the heck happened?” as the energy of the room shifted in an unanticipated direction (sometimes sweet, and sometimes as much fun).
Who are we as singers?
Who are we and what is our role when we stand in front of a group of people to sing and talk?
Are we Peace, Love, Harmony?
Are we Fun, Enthusiasm, Freedom?
Are we there to facilitate a cathartic experience?
What is our message? What is our responsibility?
Maybe we just want to sing a sweet song for our sweetheart
Thanks again Eliza. I look forward to hearing more from you.
Stephen