Feedback : Seeing & Feeling

Tension causes a lot of problems when we are working on new skills. Here are some suggestions for feedback methods to remove unwanted tension from your singing.

Seeing

Use a mirror to see what you are actually doing when you sing.  Check out your jaw, lips, face, neck, torso, legs and arms and apply deep practice to weeding out the tension.

If you are not near a mirror or you “just can’t deal” with it, put your hands on areas that you suspect might be tense such as your jaw, the area around your mouth, torso, especially the solar plexus area. 

We want to be sure the jaw is not jutting forward to “help” the sound.  In fact it is best if the lower jaw is slightly back but not locked or pressed back.  We want the solar plexus area to engage smoothly and to widen under our hand. 

Feeling

Tuning in to our body’s sensations is another important feedback.  We can put our hands on our jaw or abdomen to feel from the outside and we can also develop a sense of what we are doing in those areas from the inside. 

Just like we did in the listening feedback, go back and forth between using your hand to feel what is happening in an area, and then taking the hand away and seeing if you can feel “from the inside” what is happening in the area.  This is a very good skill to develop since putting your hands on body parts during performance is not always an option. 

These are just suggestions of places to look for feedback in case you are stuck.  Allow your own awareness to guide you to “places of interest” during your practice.  Always remembering that the practice is serving your desire.  See if you can make your practice really interesting for you.  See what things you notice and enjoy them.  

Next we’ll talk about authentic desire versus ego desire. And how not to be highjacked by the ego.