Leaping Into Thin Air…

…or: how to stop freaking out and enjoy the first note

You can’t break your neck singing. Well, ok, you could fall off the stage into the orchestra pit. And some singers do develop nodules — which, by the way, are usually reversible with re-training. But singing, when compared to the trampoline, skiing, or Nascar, is a safe activity. Yet many singers, even in the practice room or at a lesson, are beset by fear and anxiety—particularly of initial onsets— which can greatly inhibit resonant sound production, smooth entrances, flexible coloratura, and optimal dynamic range.

As I write this, I’m asking myself how I can navigate this post without delving too deeply into psychology, as I’m not a therapist. Nevertheless, any voice teacher will tell you that Stuff Comes Up at lessons that we’re not always qualified to deal with. There are times when I’m quite relieved to hear from a student that s/he is seeing a therapist.

Singing is an extraordinarily vulnerable activity. There we are, facing the world (or at least an audience) with our naked voice. When I switched from flute to voice in grad school, a violinist classmate of mine was stunned. “I can’t imagine,” she said, “not having anything between me and them.” That’s right: we are our instrument. And think of the various expressions pertaining to our vocal apparatus, such as having a “lump in your throat” or being “all choked up.” I can’t think of any similar expressions that reference the elbow or little toe.
The absence of something “between us and them” is exactly why many of us do gravitate inexorably to singing and experience a thrill — I call it the singer’s high– when performing. But there can be a huge tug-of-war inside the singer between the thrill on one side and the fear on the other. If the fear has the upper hand, singing will be tantamount to driving with the handbrake on.
This post is not about how to deal with stage fright.  Nor is it about lots of things a singer can freak out about, which range from “there’s one note in that 10-minute aria that I’m not nailing” to “OMG, I shouldn’t have eaten that cheese, now I’m going to be totally froggy” and everything in between. I’m focusing specifically on how anxiety even in seemingly unstressful environments, such as the practice room or at a lesson with a trusted teacher or coach, can impede the very first sound a singer makes, and thereby mess up what follows. And I provide a two-step approach for overcoming this.

Perhaps the scariest moment for a singer is the initial onset of a piece or a section of it, particularly when the first note is high. Or soft. Or starts with a difficult vowel or consonant. Or comes out of nowhere with no support from the piano or orchestra. Or all the above. So, what tends to happen? The inhaled breath, instead of flowing in freely and transitioning seamlessly to the outgoing sound, stops right before the onset. This causes a gap—tiny, but crucial—and the singer, as it were, chokes on the entrance. (There’s another expression for you.) Instead of a resonant tone, we get a dampened one, or even a squawk. Fear of entering too late or too early can produce a similar catch to the breath and narrowing of the vocal tract.

Years ago, this often happened to me, until I experienced an ah-hah moment that I call, “You have to relinquish control to gain control.”
What I mean is that you have to relinquish a micro-managing control in order to gain true control. This can be quite scary, as the feeling at first is of intangibility. Rather than a glottal onset, or the famous choral nnDomine, the singer is, as it were, soaring into open space. In fact, one of the analogies I offer is that of a gymnast about to do a complex somersault on the trampoline.Women’s trampoline — 2012 Olympics She prepares with a number of jumps and then, at the height of the last one, begins the somersault. If, however, her legs tighten at all on the jump, this will break her momentum and almost certainly mess up the somersault.
Fortunately, as I stated above, you can’t break your neck singing. I’ve asked students who were “choking” the onset what they were afraid of. Usually, they’d never considered this but, once they gave it some thought, the responses were in the realm of, “I’m afraid to make an ugly sound” or they were afraid of not entering at the proper moment.

Step 1 is therefore about giving yourself permission to make an “ugly sound.” Without any accompaniment or conductor, so with no need to enter at a specific point in time, the singer inhales and, before reaching maximum inhalation, phonates on an open vowel (or precedes the vowel with a tongue trill, m, or whatever is easiest.) Yes, there’s a whole lot of technique involved here, but the mental state and intentionality are equally important. Some of these initial onsets may, indeed, be — let’s say sub-optimal rather than ugly, as the latter word contains so much subjective baggage. But, as the singer starts to dare to allow the onset to flow smoothly from the inhale, she also begins to embed this new technique.

Step 2 involves accompaniment, a metronome, or someone conducting the singer. She will now need to enter at a specific moment. But, unless the phrase is one of those inhumane crazy long ones (and that does require a very high level of technical mastery), the lungs need not be full to bursting. Here’s the magic ingredient: somewhere during the inhale, the singer will start to phonate. Maybe her lungs will be half full, maybe two-thirds. It doesn’t matter. I sometimes refer to this as singing on the inhale because the transition is so seamless from inhalation to phonation.
I have the singer repeat this entrance over and over, each time allowing herself to be at a different level of breath capacity. I also ask her to make a broad gesture with her arm as she inhales, and to continue this gesture in the same direction as she initiates the onset. Each time she starts to sing, her arm will have arrived at a different place in the air.

I admit to going down the voice geek rabbit hole with this post, but it is applicable to other musicians — and to dancers and actors. And maybe others as well? I’d love to hear what you think.