The Old Songs

OK, now you have the notes and words down cold (the A part that stands for accuracy) and you are sure that you can sing the song correctly (the C part that stands for confidence). [If you don't, go back to the first two posts in this series.]

Now what? What can you expect from this process? What is the next tangible piece of evidence that you can gain from all this? Ah, that’s where the letter E comes in.

The E in this ACE IT exercise stands for energy or emotion. Either one, it is the amount of focus or excitement (there’s another E) that you can now put behind each song to make it come alive.

You have watched your director use his or her hands, facial expressions, and body language to try to evoke the meaning of the lyric through you, the singer. Many times, unfortunately, the response from the singers is not forthcoming. Why? Because there is no emotion or energy behind the sound. The director can’t get the full-bodied sound or the whisper-quiet softs because the singer hasn’t internalized the song. [That’s a topic for another post!]

Just like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, you can’t really move to the next level if you are still concerned about accuracy or don’t have the confidence in a song. But once those two aspects are taken care of, you can put the energy behind the sound. You can make the louds full, you can make the softs delicate. You now have a range of emotion at your disposal to express the song as the director has asked.

This energy comes from training, too. The exercises that you endure at the beginning of a rehearsal are done for a reason. Those exercises help you move your focus from your day-to-day living mind to a musical performance mind. These exercises help you focus your breathing, your support, and your vowel intonation and matching. These are the very skills that you need to make the music come alive. When you can put energy behind your sound, marvelous things start to happen. You are singing songs instead of simply regurgitating the notes and words. It’s a process, but you can’t get the results that you and your director are looking for without doing the work in right order. Accuracy, Confidence, Energy.

Next up, the letter I.

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