The Singers Mindset Will Make You Or Break You!

“The Singers Mindset Will Make You Or Break You!” — Nancy D’Agostino

Mindset — refers to methods or notions held by an individual or group of people. Having the right mindset is important for Singers, Performers, Artists and Presenters. In fact, it’s just as important as training your voice.

How does the Mindset differ for Singers?

The human instrument is not only unique but a part of us and so our emotions, thoughts, actions and physical and mental state of mind all come into play when we sing and speak. For example:

• When you’re feeling great, your singing is better than ever
• When you’re feeling stressed, your voice feels like jamming up.
• When you’re feeling sad, you feel withdrawn and your energy levels have been depleted.
• When you got stuck in traffic and arrived late to your rehearsal or the venue you are performing at. You can feel the build up of nervous energy, you’re panting and your mouth is dry. Then you go to sing and you mind is scattered and you’re struggling to focus on the task at hand.

The Journey of Learning to Sing!

Learning to Sing is a journey but within that journey is a process of learning Singing Technique and Vocal Conditioning with Vocal Warm-ups. Then we move onto the Song, Repertoire and Genres with the focus on memorising lyrics, learning melodies, studying and rehearsing the technical aspects of the song before tackling the emotional delivery of the song and more.

How can a Singing Teacher and Vocal Coach help me?

Singing takes on a whole new level, when we work towards our dreams and desires and in particular with the guidance of a Singing Teacher and Vocal Coach in any the following areas:

• Singing Technique
• Vocal Warm-up Exercises
• Performance
• The Audition Process
• Songwriting
• Recording Process
• Asset Creation
• Emerging Artist Development
• Building Personal Artist Brand towards Passive Income
• Long-term building wealth and a generational music legacy

What is your state of mind? (Positive v Negative)

The Singers Positive Mindset will allow you to:

• put aside any self-doubt or voices in your head to take the action needed to get started
• Put aside a million and one excuses as to why you can’t book that first Singing Lesson or practice daily with why you can
• find your voice and make it dynamic with vocal variation
• face your fears and build confident on and off the stage
• feel connected to your song and audience
• sing with conviction and vulnerability
• feel one with your voice as you explore singing and your favourite genre’s
• have a positive outlook on the task at hand
• have positive energy to help build and maintain momentum
• generate positive energy and turn a flicker into a flame and there is no stopping you with that happy feeling and infectious vibe!
• commit to training, developing and improving your voice with the guidance of a Singing Teacher or Vocal Coach
• target problem areas such as pitching, monotone singing, breath support and poor diction whilst working towards opening out into your full vocal range
• feel energised, motivated and inspired to do all that you can and reach your full potential
• be accountable for the way you think, the decisions you make and actions you take and actually getting things done to have massive impact
• have the power to pivot by implementing a Plan B if needed should things not go to Plan A
• sour to great heights with that feeling of being lifted as well as helping to lift others along the way
• attract more of what you put out there in the world (The Law of Attraction)
• to get into the flow and level up
• sing to the best of your ability

The Singers Negative Mindset will have adverse effects such as:

• negative self talk
• lack of confidence
• self sabotaging your dreams and desires
• stage fright
• loss of momentum
• feeling defeated
• feeling overwhelmed
• feeling anchored
• negative affirmations about what you can and can’t do
• lower energy
• fear of public speaking
• succumbing to peer group pressure

What you need to know, moving forward…

• Keep your mindset on track every day by practicing mindfulness and doing whatever it takes to maintain a great state of mind for mental health and and overall wellbeing.
• Singing Teachers will help guide you with your technique and to help get your voice tuned like a fine instrument through Vocal Warm-ups and Song work to be confidence and sing to the best of your ability. They will also help to support you along the way to finding your feet and preparing you for the challenges ahead of you.
• A Vocal Coach will guide you through your performances and auditions to prepare you and your songs. They will also work you on artistry and top and tail your performances so that you can be a confident performer.
• Learning to understand your song and how to interpret it with emotion and movement will add to your confidence when delivering the song before an audience. You will know what you are capable of and what to expect and will be well prepared and ready to bounce back in any case.
• Most importantly the role of your Singing Teacher and Vocal Coach is to guide you through The Singers Journey and to provide you with the encouragement and the support you need.
• Remember that practice makes for perfect in becoming a confident singer and to mastering your voice.
• Learn and earn it! Training your voice for performances is enjoyable when it is done from week to week. Remember, you are a WIP and that means we are always working on ourselves and towards something.
• The key is to prepare for your performances in advance. Give yourself time to memorise lyrics and master your songs with long term memory where ever possible. The “I’m gonna wing it!” approach doesn’t alway deliver and can send you crashing down like “Humpty Dumpty had that had a great fall! Getting panicked a week before your performance and cramming in several lessons in three days or signing up for singing lessons is more common that not and doesn’t always turn out the way you had planned. Instead plan ahead so that your Singing Teacher or Vocal Coach will be able to taper down to your performances over the weeks leading up to your performance date so that you’re ready in time and to the best of your potential and with the right mindset to put on a great performance.
• Having a clear plan on what you want to do and how you are going to do it is important to help you get there. One singing lesson, does not amount to a trained Singer. One semester of attending University does not make you a Doctor. Singing for the love of it, doesn’t make you a Musician. You will need to treat your Music like a business and build a personal artist brand.
• Whatever you do, do it to the best of your ability. Pretend it’s the first time you are doing it every time and put all that you have into it.
• Amateurs are quick to give in. Professionals are backed by years of experienced and know that they can improvise and figure it all out. They don’t give in and the certainly don’t give up.
• The show must go on! It’s easier to think that we can just stop and start over when you forget your lyrics during a performance. However, this never ends well with a ripple effect on the audience and band members. It’s important to be flexible to work through your mistakes both on stage and afterwards in your lessons to help you move forward.
• Have a Plan B for all the mistakes that can happen and all the problems that could occur that are sometimes out of your hands and out of control. Know in advance what you will do or say and rehearse it so you are in control when things don’t go to plan. Let say you forgot your lyrics you could ask the audience to sing the next part. Or your band would take over with a guitar solo. You could even have a cue to end the song earlier if needed to go to a break. Perhaps you could sing the earlier verse to fill in the blank. You’ll be amazed if anyone will even notice or think anything of it! That is, unless you bring attention to it.
• Be the best version of yourself! Be Authentic! Be uniquely you! People are paying to see you on stage and you need to be able to express yourself freely though your song and also by connection with your audience. If you are in a Tribute band, you will be imitating your favourite artists as opposed to singing original songs where you are the artist and have your unique style and sound and nuances.
• Practice makes perfect! When you watch an artist perform on a stage or a Singer perform on TV for the first time, you may not realise that they may have been performing those songs for the past decade over and over until getting their lucky break. They have learnt and earned it with blood, sweat and tears and nail it every time because they had the the mindset to never give up and not take the easy way out and Quit! Know your performance by heart so you can be the confident performer and win over your audience every time.
• Stage fright during public performances is experienced by most students and statistics show that approximately 75% of the population has some anxiety related to public performance. Most artists experience being nervous before performances. The key is that it’s not always possible to eliminate the anxiety you have before hitting the stage but it will normally disappear once you begin the performance and actually focus on what you have to do.
• Learning to manage your mindset is easier when you understand that it is only a passing feeling and that you can better manage it with good preparation. This way, you will be able to to build your confidence and have your Plan B ready to implement if needed to help you all the while stay calm and gathering your thoughts.
• Remember…wanna-be’s will be wanna-bee’s! Those who choose to dabble will be dabblers! If you want to be something, then you need to be doing that! You need to go deep to begin with and then you will go deeper and that is where the rewards and satisfaction come into play.

The important things that a Singer, Performer, Artist and Presenter must remember and accept are:

• from a performance perspective, the singer needs to be in the right headspace to connect with the audience and deliver a song with conviction, emotion, vulnerability and also dynamically.
• know that with live performance you will need to accept that there is so much at stake and that every performance is different and singers will face problems and fear both on and off the stage. However, with the right mindset, you will get through them and bounce back stronger than ever and in time flourish!
• the performer needs to commit to the performance, memorise lyrics and turn up to the venue. Sounds easy enough!
• that things will go wrong and you will have to stop and reset or take some time out to clear your mindset in order to move forward again.
• that you will have the power to pivot, to make the shift required to implement your Plan B and keep going. Your Back up plan will be similar to a Fire Plan, Emergency Plan or even a Business Plan. You will be able to implement the steps you are already familiar with in order to avoid getting yourself into damage control and will bounce back and finish your performance on a high note!
• that you will get stuck along the way many times over but your Singing Teacher and or Vocal coach is just one Singing Lessons away! They will be there to help you with your vocal training, performance and audition preparation and more. They will be able to guide you support your every step of the way!
• that this is a journey and that you must stay focused and remind yourself everyday that you are on The Singers Hero Journey that is made up of the highs and lows and failures and wins. Visualise the end result that got you started in the first place to help your stay on track.
• being accountable for yourself and the things that don’t go to plan help you to acknowledge and take action to avoid further damage control. Theres nothing like a professional who is able to lead by example and put everyone at ease with clarity and to assure them that its all going to be OK! It’s not easy being in control when there is so much that can go wrong or at stake but its nice to know that everything happens for a reason and at just the right time. Make the most of it!

Scenario 1 — There you are side of stage ready to perform. You suddenly begin to pant and that feeling of stage fright has already entered your head. Your feet feel like they are set in solid concrete, you can’t remember your lyrics, you’re feeling flustered and just wanna quit right there and then . But somehow, you manage to walk out on the stage half the performer you know you are and you perform anyway. Then after all that pre-judgment about what you cannot do, you then post judge your performance as the worst performance of you life. A little over dramatic but in reality this is how it feels and you are in damage control and everything is about to crumble!

So you do exactly what you shouldn’t do. You allow the cookie to crumble! You stop singing lessons, and never put foot on another stage as long as you live and vow to never perform again! This is the sad truth of the matter and there have been many casualties that have succumb to this negative mindset.

However, you turn all that negative into positive energy with a positive mindset and get motivated to learn from the mistakes of the performance. You could take on more singing lessons, practice and rehearse more to be better prepared for upcoming performances. You could study your performance with your Singing Teacher and or Vocal Coach and work through critique to gain back your confidence and back back up plan should things not go to plan in future. Basically, get back to work!

Scenario 2 — You are a seasoned pro performing as you do and suddenly you trip over the fold back speaker and are humiliated. You manage to pick yourself back up and dust yourself off, knowing that the show must go on and that the band is still playing. Then you go for the key change in the song as you hit high note and in all your fluster, your voice breaks. So where to from here!

You could make a thousand apologies to the audience and make matters worse. You could finish the set early and never return to the venue or even worse, you could quit the band.

However, you could focus on a better way to handle the mishap by saying something along the lines of:

• “Thank- you! Thank-you! Now that was a first!”
• “Now that didn’t go to plan!”
• “I definitely didn’t see that one coming!”
• Then you could follow that up with a question to the audience such as:
• Are there any song requests?
• Is anyone having a birthday today? Perhaps go out to them in the audience to Sing it to them or ask them to join you on stage.
• Who wants to dance?

This will allow you the power to pivot and make the shift needed to change the energy in the room and move it away from a moment that you would rather forget. Bouncing back is the key in staying on track and loving what you do.

Another way would be to have your band in on the Plan B! They could just go into wrapping it up music and one of the band members could make an announcement such as “Well, Ladies and Gentlemen, it looks like we will be taking a short break and will see you back her in 10 minutes!” Then they can attend to the lead Singer who has a big smile on his face and has lifted one arm up to acknowledge and salute the audience. It’s all light hearted fun and it happens. Get over it and get the show back on the road.

So what do you do?

• first you are going to need to get committed with fierce clarity and do the hard work.
• You’ve got to quit the excuses and promise yourself to finish what you start.
• Then you’ve got to realise that there is only one sure way to failure…

“The only sure way to failure is to QUIT!” — Nancy D’Agostino

Understand that you are a W.I.P. and it takes all the years of training, practice and experience and more to arrive where you are headed. All those problems, mistakes, failures and struggles are all part of the lessons you will learn (Life Lessons). Stay strong and focused with the right mindset to keep going.

Don’t give you on your dreams?

Don’t give up on yourself?

Then add to that the wins, the triumphs, the awards and moments of success. You must work through all of this to get to the other side, where the grass is greener, the sun shines brighter and dreams are realised.

The best part is that when we are in the right mindset, we can find what we are searching for and immerse ourselves in that with a great vibe and loads of energy. We can experience the health benefits as well as get recognised and rewarded for our achievements with awards and other forms of recognition. We are able to turn our mess into our message and we are able to do great things and actually impact others in positive ways.

Nancy D’Agostino

https://instituteofsinging.com/

Day 12 — Write 365 Blogs in One Year Challenge! Starting 28/10/2020