How to Sing with Emotion: Storytelling through Acting Tools

You do not need to be a great actor to be a great singer, but the greatest singers have direct access to their emotions when they sing and perform. Although I teach many non-actor students who have no interest in acting, I find that certain aspects of actor training really helpful when it comes to cultivating singing with emotion. After all, the core of acting is to tell a story truthfully and effectively, which is also an important aspect of singing. Here are several of my favorite acting tools I use with my students to cultivate emotional expression in singing.

The Conversation Exercise

Sometimes, in order to fill a song with emotion, you have to get rid of any patterns or preconceived emotions in your performance to make space for and invite genuine emotions into the song. The conversation exercise is an acting tool developed by Seth Barrish, (a renowned acting teacher in NYC) used to free an actor from any obligations to the emotional and narrative expressions of the text. This exercise is easiest with another person present, though it can sometimes work with just yourself. Here is how you apply this to any song of your choice:

1. Have a Conversation: first, start a conversation with a friend (or yourself) about anything at all (e.g. the weather, how’s your day? What did you have for breakfast?). Notice how you feel when you have a conversation.
2. Slip Into Text: once you have a good grasp of what a regular conversation feels like, you can start speaking the text of the song without break. While you speak the text of the song, let go of any rhythm or pitch attached to the song. Notice any shifts between the “Have a Conversation” phase and the “Slip Into Text” phase. If there is a shift, try to get back to the feeling of conversation.
3. Talking On Pitch: when you feel comfortable enough with maintaining the feeling of conversation when speaking the text of the song, try to add pitch to the text. Essentially, you will still be speaking the text of the song with the melody but no rhythm or sustaining notes.
4. Now Sing!: once you feel comfortable talking on pitch, you can now try singing the song, maintaining the feeling of conversation throughout.

Identify the Shifts (or Beats)

In acting, shifts (or beats) are everything. They inform a character’s change in thought and how they react to the environment around them. This is a great exercise to add variety and build to a song without labeling it with specific emotions. Here’s how to apply this to any song of your choice:

1. Identify the Shifts: Print out a lyric sheet of your song. Then read through and identify when there is a change in perspective, thought, or event. When you find it, put a slash (/) between the sentences to indicate the shift. Moreover, when words are repeated in a song, underline them.
2. Make the Shifts Vocally: Once you identify all the shifts, try to sing the song while reading the lyric sheet. When you reach a slash or an underline, make a change vocally or a different vocal choice. At the starting stages, don’t worry if a vocal choice or change is appropriate for the song - just make sure to commit to any choice or changes you make and let your creativity go wild!
3. Rinse and Repeat: Once you go through the entire song, evaluate what shifts you like or don’t like and go through step 2 again. Hopefully, with this process, you let go of any preconceptions about how the song SHOULD be sung.

What I love about this exercise is that students tend to make the craziest, most dynamic, most emotionally informed vocal choices that I as a vocal coach could ever dream of suggesting. You as a singer actively participate in exploring YOUR own voice.

Channelling Body Energy

Sometimes it is helpful to focus on the physical performance of the song. Our bodies have an ancient, unbreakable bond with our minds, and if we can channel the right body energy, it helps inform how we should sing a song. Here’s how to apply to any song of your choice:

1. Critical Listening and/or Viewing: Listen to and/or watch a performance of the song and notice the performer’s vocal choices: how they carry their body, the instrumentals, and really anything that catches your eye/ear.
2. Generate Adjectives: Once you feel like you understand the song well, start generating as many adjectives as possible that describe how you feel about the song using as many senses as possible. Is it loud/soft? Gentle/rough? Smooth/jagged? Flowy/heavy? Sustained/abrupt?
3. Curate a Body Energy: Once you feel like you have enough adjectives to play with, play the song and try to do an interpretive dance that feels right for the song, incorporating the adjectives you have generated in step 2. That interpretive dance will serve as your body energy for the song.
4. Use It to Sing: Now you will channel the body energy you curated while singing the song. The most important thing in this stage is to keep moving - never stop moving when you sing. You may be surprised by how your body changes how you sing the song.

With these simple tools, you can transform songs of any genre into compelling mediums of emotional expression. Go find a song you like and have a try yourself!