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

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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

Categories: FREE and Lessons.

Comments

  1. Dana Ray

    Hi everybody!
    Here a contribution [as you request it in part B]
    The first part of making it, is to observe your audience; so, reading the previous comments, I have to say there’s great stuff Stephen [this homework prepare us to learn and practice what, where and how they’re done.]
    Now: let’s say transitions are those emotional “passagios” [roads] connecting two points, even if that only implies to vary a feeling intensity. So they’re not only between 2 songs, they’re inside any song too. As a singer you must play the feeling of what you’re telling on stage; we’re acting, projecting it using voice and corporal expression. These together will help us create the proper contour to transmit the message.
    As you say Stephen, you must be careful about tapping emotions. So here’s a quick review of how to do it!
    Basically, there’s two drama schools: form and vivencial.
    [The second, you know it well. Just remember your dog dying, then start sad singing.]
    Form is when you lie; you don’t feel it, but you make others experience it. In this case, you can use a closer emotion or sing certain tones [shades] to produce that reaction.

    Have you watch a really bad movie? Me, yes [too many, recently :s]
    And why are they so terrible? Because their transitions.
    Their scene’s dramatic tone [shade] is low, high or simply never tell us the right feeling. So you can end laughing for their misfortune!
    Now, imagine the plot of intensity versus time. Any great show, story, production… has a mountain form, which starts at (0,0) and ends any point above the middle.
    Finally, replace each scene with a song that matches with that mountain segment. Congrats, you have a concert.
    Now, if you coming from a place where you have no control over what happened before you, identify the “energy contour” and place it on the mountain. Here’s how easily we can take the audience up or down.
    If you have a recipe that works for you, that’s ok. Only consider to study the “steps” inside that mountain, in order to make a transition easier. You’ll find suspense works when taking up or maintaining a feeling.

  2. Singing Coach

    Hi Samuel,

    Thank you for the kind words. I’m happy to hear this expression was a good point for you – and yay to singing!

    I wrote a much longer response, but think I’ll hold it for later.

    Part B coming in the next couple of days…

    Stephen

  3. Samuel Erickson

    You can become a great musician by doing the same thing a great musician teaches you to do. But you can also become a great singer or musician by observing another person that is a great singer doing it. Observing another person who is at a level of greatness in any profession is another way I have learned you can become unconsciousy competent at the talent or trait you are working towards. So basically if you want to be a spectacular
    musician you then must go find a spectacular musician and become his apprentice and learn from him through one on one communication and mentoring unless you will never become a spectacular musician. If you want to be the best you must learn from the best. and model your self after them and learn how to sing from them and you will then get that effect aswell. meaning you will then become a spectacular musician. So if you want to become a spectacular chef and learn how to cook a soufflé but your learning from a guy who fries eggs your never going to be able to cook a souffle in your life cause your teacher doesnt know how to cook one. Stephen seems to know some of the basic core fundamental concepts that I have learned about so I do think he has the knowledge and ability to make any person including you and myself a very accomplished singer. The true meaning of the word education is to pull out from within and to help release what is already inside you and the secret is learning how to release it from within. meaning you got it all you got everything you need. You can see the love and humility he has for helping others grow I mean I can feel the difference in myself and in my body, its like night and day! Thanks stephen you just helped me release that knowledge from with in! Now its time to start singing!

  4. Samuel Erickson

    Practice doesn’t make perfect. Because if your practicing the wrong way yyour neveer going to become perfect. “Perfect Practice Makes Perfect”. very intresting.

    • Singing Coach

      Hi Samuel,

      Excellent point!

      Not sure if you were referring to part of my previous comment “practice, practice, practice” or just including this as a good general note.

      In case it was referring to the previous point, it might be helpful for to clarify… the “practice, practice, practice” statement, was in the context of being prepared with your repertoire – which requires practice, and a lot of it if you want to be able to spontaneously pull out a song from a list of 200.

      This context of “practice, practice, practice” is very different from the erroneous meme “practice makes perfect”…

      Thanks for dropping this in!

      Stephen

    • John Churilla

      aint that the truth so many wrong teaching so many getting right teaching wrong …I find learning music and singing it take a lot of patients and learn to go from high to low low to high soft to loud loud to soft , strumming guitar hard to soft or soft to hard its a and timing ah!!! enough to drive you crazy … specaily most of us are always in some kind of rush to work , school or what ever we do these days . to get into the right frame of mind can be a hard task in a very Industrial , political media driven world we all share .. we have NO time for our self ..or some to much time lol…. I wish a buck was still silver , back before the country was strong …any one know that song lyrics …you have to be a baby boomer to remember that old CW song

  5. Samuel Erickson

    I think that when your attitude is right then the facts don’t count! So if your attitude is right you will conciously transition in the right song because your internal guidance system or your green light, red light , yellow light will tell you what way to go, and even if it does not work out perfectly still can mean success! Because failure is just temporary defeat and when you know that you always get back up and fall again and again and again, but after enough times you will find the correct way because your gut intuition is always right, follow your feelings im talkin feelings that come from the solar plexus which is below your chest. a feeling above your chest is not a real feeling its a psycological reversal coming from your brain that causes you to feel things that are in effect not real and created by mysticism that you have not yet rid your self of! I am nit the best singer in the world but I know when, where,a nd who to play a song in front of and when, where, and who not to paly a song in front of by the the way I feel!

    • Singing Coach

      Hi Samuel,
      Sounds like you have a lot of this figured out. At least for the paradigms you work with for consciousnesses and awareness. I think you covered a lot of the basics beautifully.

      So, one thing I’m look at here is how to translate and speak in language that everyone can understand. For example, if i were to use the word Meditation – for some this is instant taboo. And i might really mean it in a way of “just calming your thoughts” – which would be ‘okay’ and accessible for most folks.

      My opinion is that attitude is very important, but the awareness (you refer to as green light, yellow, etc) is a bit beyond – though arguably may be part of attitude.

      I’m going to be very curious to hear your thoughts as we go through the rest of this lesson.

      Thanks for your note – i see a few more that i’ll get to soon.

      Stephen

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