Someone recently asked me to share something about stage fright and how it affects the voice when singing. So here you go…
Stage fright can affect your singing voice in many ways. While good vocal technique can make up for many of them, there are some workarounds to help you at least minimize the effect of performance anxiety.
When you’re nervous in performance you may experience some or all of the following:
- You forget words
- Your voice is shaky
- You have less breath
- You get lightheaded
- Your body gets tense
- Difficult passages give you the jitters!
1. Forgetting words is very common. There’s a lot going on in a performance, and a lot has to happen before the performance even starts. Often, by the time the concert starts, you’ve been running around quite a bit, figuring out last minute details and going over things one last time. So it’s not unusual to feel a bit flustered when the actual performance starts.
Besides the obvious suggestion to sing the song MANY times before the performance, to ensure the words all well etched in your mind, I recommend spending a few minutes sitting down and doing some deep diaphragmatic breathing right before the concert, to help your nervous system calm down and your mind to get centered and focused again.
2. When you develop a solid vocal technique you will be able to control a shaky voice. Make sure you engage your belly muscles, in order to have good and strong breath support, which provides a steady flow of air through the vocal cords, and, therefore, a steady sound.
3. The faster heartbeat, caused by stage fright, is often responsible for decreased breath capacity. You may find yourself running out of breath a lot more often, and in places where, in rehearsal, you didn’t need to breathe. If you know that you get performance anxiety, I suggest you plan on taking more breaths, during your songs, than you feel you need to. That way, you’ll be prepared and you won’t run out of breath during the performance, which would be distracting.
4. & 5. Spend a good amount of time doing some diaphragmatic breathing. Take long, deep breaths expanding your belly out, then exhale pulling your belly in. Diaphragmatic breathing helps you relax, lowering the harmful effects of the stress hormone cortisol on your body. It lowers your heart rate. It helps lower your blood pressure. AVOID caffeine before a performance! Besides making you dehydrated, it also increases your heart rate, which is what you’re trying to slow down with diaphragmatic breathing.
6. Take your time! The natural tendency, when facing difficult passages, is to speed up, probably because of the faster heart rate. Relax, sing consciously one note at a time, even to the point of almost slowing down. Often, it seems to you like you’re slowing down, but you’re not. It’s just that your brain is hyperactive and is moving faster!
If you catch yourself getting nervous again during the concert, before singing a certain song, do more diaphragmatic breathing. Deep breathing is your best friend in times of stage fright symptoms.
But overtime, the best weapon you have to counteract stage fright is a solid vocal technique. It gives you confidence and makes you able to hide or camouflage anything that might go wrong in performance.
