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The Game
of Give and Receive
Many performers who sing in front of an
audience have a fear of “breaking down” emotionally while
singing. In deed, it has happened to me a few times, and it
trashes the voice, so it is something singers usually try to
avoid. The usual way that voice teachers coach their students to
avoid getting emotional to the point of crying while singing is to
repeat the song so many times that the emotion no longer has as strong
a “pull.” I have recently discovered a different way to
think of this whole dilemma, but it doesn’t only apply to stage
performers and church singers. Any singer can use this!
In the game of Give and Receive, someone has
to give, that is, release something, and someone has to receive
something. In this game, the agreement is that the singer gives
the voice and the emotional communication, and that the listener
receives these. Here’s how the emotional part works: what
if the emotion isn’t “yours,” like a possession that belongs to
you? What if emotions, because they aren’t a thing, like an
object you can touch or hold, are universal? They are everywhere,
at all times, and we just pass them around and feel them and talk about
them, but everyone has the same access to them. If so, when you
sing, your job is to make the listener feel something. If the
emotion you are trying to communicate gets “stuck” with you, in your
throat and tears, you are being the receiver and doing the audiences’
job in the Give and Receive game. What if you just made the
emotion real for them and gave it away to them as the audience?
The more you give away the emotion, and focus on the listener, instead
of yourself, the more the emotion is received by the listener.
Try it! It’s easier to give it away than it is to get stuck with
it. |