How Gestures Can Improve Your Singing Performances
When you sing for an audience, you want the story to come through and the listener to see and hear you connect your story and singing. Every movement you make while on the stage should serve as punctuation to your song. Gesturing during your song adds interest and can also help your audience to better understand the song lyrics – just don’t make the mistake of overdoing your movements. Here are some tips on coordinating movement with music:
Practice singing at home while you do general household tasks like folding cloths or washing dishes, so that you get used to doing other things while you sing. After you have mastered moving and singing at the same time, say rather than sing the lyrics to your song and notice your natural body language and hand gestures. Knowing how you gesture when you speak helps you figure out how to move when your singing.
Some songs don’t require much movement at all. During your initial practices it’s probably better to move too much and then later eliminate the movements that don’t enhance the words of the song. Moving around just for the sake of it when you’re singing doesn’t really enhance your song. For example, a classical song generally won’t need many gestures and requires little movement. You needn’t take more than a few steps when singing a classical ballad.
For those of you who have just begun singing, your first priority should be to concentrate on your singing and technique rather than movement. Starting with the basics and mastering good technique first is always a wise decision when performing a new song in front of an audience. When you’re ready to go from just good technique to coordinating that technique while telling a story you need to know how to move. You need to know where to look and how much to move when you sing.
Most beginner singers want to move their hands a lot when they sing because they assume that gesturing makes their song more interesting and exciting and it can when done properly. However, you need to remember that your palms should also be turned up and your elbows need to extended away from your sides.
If your hands normally move when you speak, then you may feel stiff if they remain frozen at your side during your song. Work the song as a monolog to discover what’s happening and how the character would react to the actions in the story. By reading the text aloud you will find that gestures are part of your natural reaction to what is happening and you can use those gestures when you sing to help add interest to your performance. However avoid excessive gesturing only to fill dead space.
I hope you found this information helpful. There are loads of great ways to learn how to sing online. Yes, that’s right, now you can affordably teach yourself how to sing with video lessons from acclaimed vocal coaches like Per Bristow. Best of luck!
Tags: gesturing while singing, learn to sing, live performance tips, teach yourself to sing
