Movement is interesting because it works in so many ways. It works physically, functionally, it changes the way we breathe. It changes the way our muscles all are operating in our voice. lots of different things and it can add energy to our whole bodies. As we are seeing as we are, Â we are an entire instrument. It’s not just a larynx and a mouth and, and some lungs.
It is everything. Everything affects everything. so within that, we have to incorporate movement in whatever we do.  Now,  much like a power pose, if you’ve heard of a power pose, it’s poses that you get into to  make you feel like you are, you know, a particular, I don’t know, emotion, attitude, make you feel more empowered in the moment. And power poses are ways to kind of trick your mind into assuming something that has more confidence or more energy, because your mental state affects your voice.
So if we can use your body to affect your mental state, then we will change your voice, which is great, and in, and we can explore the color that is available in your voice. Â Now think back to when you first sung that song, and how it felt. Now, there was an improvement after the warmup for a lot of you, which is great. Some of you might not have felt that improvement, which is cool.
It might mean that you need something more specifically tailored to you,  but maybe somebody might feel something different when moving. Now,  throwing your hands in the air is a very quick way to tap into some kind of power pose like this. Look,  they, you get to see my  like slightly hairy stomach in this one, so apologies for that.  But this is me and that’s the position  I’m stood.
You might notice that if you try this as well, if you stand  and just in a,  in a really kind of a, a jubilant way with pride and  euphoria  that you raise your arms up  like that  and you might notice what it does to your chest.  The chest tends to  lift up a little bit.  It’s more open.  Whereas a lot of people when they sing, they tend to feel like it’s quite crampy in the chest.
It encourages you as well to  stand taller. You try lifting your hands above your head when you lean forward or when you are hunched, they don’t go. You have to stand up to get them directly above your head.  So by raising the arms, it, it subliminally changes a lot of things. you might also notice if I’m quite proud, it also raises my chin slightly, which some of you might, might maybe been told that that is a bad thing, but it isn’t, if it’s kind of planned.
So  getting used to that movement  Is something that we can apply to the tricky section of the song. Now, if your song does this thing where it goes kind of up, yeah, yeah. somebody just said they, they can see me getting taller against the picture frame, which is a really good frame of reference. Well done. I hadn’t noticed that, but that’s right thing. My, my whole being just gets taller, which is kind of cool. Maybe I’m slouching as well.
but if your melody line in your piece tends to go up and there’s a high note, you can raise your hands in correspondence to that high note as you go to it,  whatever,  or throughout the whole phrase, you can just keep the power pose.  So with that, sing your song segment again with your arms directly above your head. Stood tall, open chest, and the chin is up. I’m really proud and jubilant,  sing your peace now like this  and you’ll have to tell me what you feel.
Was there a change from before?  And negative change is  as valuable to know  as positive change. So please, I’d love to know jubilant, yes, jubilant amazing difference. More projection. Wow.  Much stronger and more confident.
So much more energy  makes you want to sing louder. Yes, it does. It just makes you wanna sing. Felt more jazzy. Who’d have thought it?  That’s what I love about all that. My voice cracked and then released.  Interesting, huh?  So this kind of movement  is a, it is a simple movement, but it would tell, tell you a lot about how the body is used. when you’re seeing, and it might, it might just tell you that there is an element to your posture that maybe causes cracking.
And so resolving posture might be a useful thing for that person.  It works with both hands, but would not, but not with one hand separately. Hey, I love you are experimenting. I haven’t thought to do that, but that’s quite, quite good to know.  And there’s more relaxed pe more relaxed, more open voice, higher harmonics. This must be a producer. Surely  they’re like, I’m getting 4K, man. And you’re like, yes, I love that.
I love that. That’s gonna carry in the mix, isn’t it? Above that even. so  just more than showmanship. That’s another comment that’s coming in.  It’s, it’s it’s performance that’s disguised like, or it’s technique rather that’s disguised as performance. and it’s like, you know, whether the voice going so high and big that it makes a singer, the whole thing goes together. It’s not like this is a fake thing that you do, but it just seems ripe for something big and high, right?
So, whether it’s kind of technique in disguise or whether it’s just the body likes it some way on some deep level  primal level, the body likes it. there’s a great point about playing with guitar and piano and I will explain this a bit later. Okay? one other thing to try before we move forward into the homework, is take the same segment of your song  and tell me  if it gets easier.
If you constantly turn your head left and right.  So seeing the song as you turn it left, then, right?  And just see if that makes your life easier  or equally, maybe it makes it a real pain in the ass, but I’d like to know anyway.  So do the same thing. Turn your head  left and right.  Yeah,  worse kind of hurts my neck made me really dizzy.
That’s what people pay me for. Don’t you know, nice tone.  Somebody put  anymore. Any more ideas? Distracting? Is that a good thing?  A bit harder changes the flow of air.  No, no. To what?  Easy or harder.  So if turning the head is tricky, it might mean a couple of things.
It might mean that when you sing you have to be very focused and, in control and turning the head is just too much change. Â If that’s the case, then it’s kind of like I would stick with it, okay? Because the negative stuff tells you that if the neck is working hard when you sing, it’s really hard to turn the head and the neck muscles, they’re not really too involved in singing.
They, they are slightly supportive, Â they help the head stay on the shoulders in the right way, but they’re not supposed to engage so much that the head doesn’t find it easy to turn whilst you’re singing. So if there’s a negative outcome for this one, I think it’s important, that you find a way by lowering the key or singing something simpler and quieter. Â If, if that allows you to turn your head, then you can gradually, raise the key or change the song so that you are able to keep, the head allowing it to be slightly more flexible in the process.
’cause that tends to rob people of high notes and make them tire quickly. Â But there’s plenty of people as well, that are experiencing a better tone or more freedom in their throat from doing that. So, either way there’s, there’s something to be noted.
There’s a question in there. I move my head around all the time, subconsciously, subconsciously when I sing and I only know when I see back in videos, I’m a total fidget. Is this a bad thing? It’s not a bad thing. If it detracts from the quality of your performance, Â then video feedback is great because it means you can deal with it. It doesn’t mean you have to be rigid, Â but if we are looking kind of anxious and that move seems to be rooted in, in anxiety, Â it will come across to the audience on some level.
Because as much as, you know, we might not always show it,  people are quite subliminally perceptive, right? So,  so I would, in my stagecraft, I would identify which parts of my body are responding to anxiety, and I would try and deal with that either at the base of the anxiety  or within the performance to distract and give myself something else to do.
