What good is an encore performance if your voice dies before you get there?

Written by Diana Yampolsky

After all these years of bigger and bigger live music shows, everyone that's been to a concert, large or small, expects any great show to have an encore. So after singing, playing and entertaining the crowd for two or two and a half hours on average, the crowd expects the artist or band to come out and sing with the same excellence, energy and conviction another song or two to close the show.

The problem is that the majority of singers are not singing it by design. And primarily they deliver their performance by what I call, 'playing it by ear.' That means that they do not have an adequate vocal technique or at least the knowledge about it, which would allow them to save and protect their voices, and make it last for hours on end.

Ultimately, they're using the wrong set of muscles while singing and thus using and abusing their vocal apparatus sometimes to the bitter end. It's a known fact that even Celine Dion once lost her voice during her concert. Luckily she found a very knowledgeable Doctor of ENT (Ear Nose and Throat) who, not only fixed the acquired damaged cause by improper technique, but also no doubt showed her how to re-structure her voice in a different set of muscles, and thus save and protect her voice up until the present day. I'm not sure what means he used, but on the final analysis she was able to acquire something similar to what I am teaching to every client of mine by applying what I call the "Vocal Science Technique". The core of this technique is to re-structure your voice in a set of the facial muscles and then put them to work in full conjunction and coordination with the abdominal muscles, which will allow the performer to work smart and not hard, and with minimum efforts achieve the maximum result. The facial muscles in this equation will also play the role of the natural resonator or amplifier and thus the voice will sound well placed, structured and projected while simultaneously being supported by the physical body. As a result, the tone, the conviction of the sound and the body of the sound will dramatically improve. Furthermore, the enunciation and pronunciation of the words as well as overall clarity of the sound will be achieved.

If the vocalist is well aware of all these components, his or her voice will never be in jeopardy. And therefore the songs in the encore will sound just as good as the ones at the beginning of the first set.

Afterall, couldn't you agree that this type of show would be desirable on both ends, for the performer and for the audience...?