Q.: What do you mean by ‘Sing it like you mean it?’

A.: I’ve always liked the term ‘artistic intention’, but for many, that seems too vague and too broad a concept. When you ‘mean it’ you behave in a way that is immediate and to the point, you open a channel of honesty that is essential to communication. You are truthful. To the music, the composer, the poet/lyricist, to yourself and to the audience.

What else happens when you ‘mean it’? People will believe you and therefore, really listen. You have opened a line of musical and emotional communication. The art of song can be so many things, it can be grand and universal or deeply personal. We are magnifying the human condition and must sometimes communicate the most initmate and private of emotions for the world to experience with us. In this we lay ourselves bare. This requires courage and commitment on the part of the artist. It is hard to ‘put yourself out there’, risking criticism and all that comes with it. The best we can do is prepare ourselves with the tools that we think we will need.

A lot of you may have experienced that sometimes it’s not enough to just ‘mean it’ when singing, we also need to have a good technique that preserves out voices and musical language skills. It’s difficult to communicate something convincingly in a language which you don’t fully understand with an instrument that isn’t working as well as it could.

So, fellow singers, along with enthusiasm and an adventurous spirit, knowledge and practice is key. Whether you study on your own or with a teacher, I encourage you to become as fluent as you can in our amazing language of choice, music.