I Front a Loud Band - "WHAT?!?!"

Where do you sing the best - with great pitch, tone, flexibility, range and emotion?

Home alone?  At lessons?  When your best friend is singing with you?  In the car?  In the shower?

For most people the answer is not "With a live rock band in an unfamiliar venue, with very little control over the soundboard and very little vocals in the monitor, while trying to win over a noisy crowd."

Duran and Ben know how to give energetic live performances that are played and sung under control.

I work with professional musicians who perform with full bands.  In their lessons they have been progressing tremendously well; expanding their range, learning how to blend their lower and upper registers and breaking bad singing habits.  Their lessons and acoustic performances are wonderfully improved.

But performing with a band is completely different.  The singer often can't hear himself well, which leads to shouting over the guitar, bass and drums.  This leads to pitch problems and throaty singing.  The singer also now has the job of fronting the band, which requires a level of energy similar to that of doing sprints in a sauna.  There goes breath control!  

Many frontmen and women say they don't want to have to think about singing when they're on stage - they just want to feel the music and go with it.  My answer to that is "so... practice a lot."  

Here are my recommendations for anyone who plans to maintain pitch, tone, power and vocal health while fronting a band:

1. Learn how to sing with POWER without straining
2. Utilize more movement while vocalizing in lessons and rehearsals
3. Redefine what it means to vocally "bring it" on stage - there are ways to cut through the sound of the band without shouting.
4. TURN DOWN YOUR INSTRUMENTS AND TURN UP THE MONITORS.
5. Redefine what it means to bring the energy level up while keeping your vocal performance under control.
6. If you don't exercise regularly, get on an exercise program.

Peace, love and power,
M