Start by singing the first four lines of the Star-Spangled Banner:
Sing strongly, as you would to an audience. Start high enough so that the top notes (“by and “proudly”) are just a little challenging. When you’re done, take a minute to evaluate your performance:
- How even was your tone?
- How accurate was your pitch?
- How comfortable were the highest and lowest notes?
- How expressive was your performance?
Now, starting on the same note, sing the melody again but this time sing it without words.
WHAT? Without WORDS?
Instead of words, make up nonsense syllables. Start each syllable with a “D” or “B” like this:
But rather than reading the ones above, make up your own sounds as you sing. Again, make sure you perform the song as you would to an audience–not the wimpy way most of us sing it when we’re in a crowd.
If doing this feels clumsy at first, give yourself permission to pause for a minute (very important) AND THEN REPEAT until you no longer feel you’re struggling to think of the sounds, but they are flowing naturally.
Are you done? Now compare the second, wordless, performance to the first one:
- Was your tone more even?
- Was your pitch more accurate?
- Were the high and low notes more comfortable?
- Was your performance more expressive?
If you answered YES to any of these, you’ve just tasted the benefit of shifting from left-brain to right-brain. Now you’ll want to discover how to apply this to actual lyrics. BUY THE BOOK! for a complete guide to this amazingly effective process!
But if you felt no difference between the two performances, or if the second version was more difficult to accomplish, then you probably won’t benefit from this system. In order to get the most out of the ideas and exercises, you must be able to remove yourself from yourself. However, the guidance of a good teacher or coach–especially one who uses this system–would be quite beneficial.
