The Energetics of Singing – How Attitude Affects Your Vocal Range

by Laura on September 2, 2012 in Energetics of Singing, Singing Lessons

I’ve been giving singing lessons for about 10 years now. What I have discovered is that one of the major things that affect our singing ability is our attitude!

Singing is a form of communication. With all types of verbal communication, the listener receives many other messages as well as what is literally being said. For example, (lets move away from the singing area), someone might tell you how beautiful your dress is, but what you can feel is something different. You might feel that they actually don’t like your dress and are being patronising. Or you might feel that not only do they love your dress, but they’d love to get to know you better. What you can feel but not necessarily see is called the metaphysical… beyond the physical and basically it is what is actually going on in the space around us.

So getting back to attitudes in singing… let’s say you are on stage about to sing a song and your mind is filled with thoughts of… ‘Will they like me? Am I good enough? Do I look good enough? Will I be able to reach that high note?’ and similar thoughts. You could pretty much say that at this point your attitude is not very positive.

Lets say you get up on stage with the attitude of ‘I Love singing!’ or ‘I’m going to do my best for these people tonite and that’s all I can do’ or ‘wow, this time last year I would never have got up on stage!’ or ‘I’m just going to enjoy being here with all these people’ or ‘I know I’m nervous but everyone gets nervous at some point… it doesn’t mean I cant sing”. Your attitude at this point is fairly positive.

Your attitude has a massive affect on an audience. It determines how they see you, what they feel and how you sound. Having a good attitude allows you to walk onstage without the negative mind chatter. It is like you are giving yourself permission to have an experience, and the moment you walk out you are present with the people. Worrying about your singing or how you look will definitely cloud your performance and distort your original reason for singing, (which I would probably assume is about connecting with people!).

But how does it help your range?

Not having your mind whirling around in negative thoughts also helps you to reach high notes! YES

When we sing music, the lower the note that we sing, the lower the vibration of the note and therefore the lower the note sits in our body. It’s the same the other way. The higher the note, the higher the vibration and the higher it seems to sit in our space. If notes would shine a light in the air when you sang them you might see a really high note sitting right at the top of  your head!

Many of us walk around stressed  and as a result our personal space or energetic body  is not so big. When we go to sing a high note, we have to force it out as we don’t have the energy required to sing it effortlessly. Our body is a big instrument that needs to be adjusted to  ideal conditions and that means being relaxed!

So what you can practice is singing with a big space, clear of  thoughts and of anything negative in particular. When we change our attitude around singing to one that is at least positive in some way, this does tend to ‘clear your head’ as they say, as your personal space is not filled with the usual mind chatter that literally ‘keeps us in our mind’.

Stepping out and enjoying what you are doing increases the size of your personal space. Check it out for yourself. How do you feel when you are worried and in the mind? Compare that feeling to when you are joyful or singing in the shower!? Try it! Try singing from a positive attitude and then from a negative attitude. Notice the difference. If you changed your attitude enough you may have even gained even up to an octave in range!

Your attitude is the greatest contributing factor to your ability to sing. Try it yourself and you’ll be amazed!