Quote of The Day:
“Everyone has a photographic memory. Some just don’t have film”.
Comedian Steven Wright
A very good friend of mine who is also a singer and musician often asks me in amazement how I remember the lyrics to the hundreds of songs I have stored away in my brain. For some reason, remembering lyrics comes fairly easily to me, but it may have something to do with the way I learn lyrics.
Every singer/performer has had that “sick to the pit of your stomach” moment when they realize they don’t know the next line in the song while they are in the middle of performing it. I remember forgetting lyrics while on stage in the early days of my career and felt the heat of stress and embarrassment start in my toes and go all the way up my body. As you get more seasoned, you learn to “just make them up” as you go and most people don’t even know you’ve flubbed your line as long as you don’t react. One particularly funny moment happened when I was playing clubs in Winnipeg with a vocal band called The Argyles. The musicians started the groove to the song “Volcano” by Jimmy Buffet and would vamp until the singer decided to come in. The intro was going round and round AND round and my friend, Greg Nordman, who was singing lead on the song, looked at me in horror and said, “Ange, what’s the first line of this song?” At that moment I realized, I didn’t know either and said back to him “I don’t know”. The laugh came later when we realized I had given him the right line as the first line lyric is “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know where I’m a gonna go when the volcano blow”. Big laugh.
So, back to committing lyrics to memory… Long ago in another space and time there was no such thing as the internet. (I know, hard to believe that we survived without it.) When I had to learn song lyrics for an upcoming gig I had to sit down and LISTEN to the song, most likely from a record or cassette player, and stop and start the song line by line while jotting down the lyrics. Think about this. How does this process differ from just printing the song lyrics off the internet (which by the way are often posted by twelve year olds and are frequently wrong – LOL.)
When you take the time to really listen to the song you want to sing, you learn so many more things than just reading the lyrics off the paper. Think about it, you “hear” the line with all it’s nuances via your ears, it then goes to your brain, then down to your hand where you “write” it on a paper “feeling” the movement of the words and notes and then “see” it with your eyes once it is written on the page. In my world, that is using way more senses to learn the song than just reading it off a piece of paper. You are studying it while you are transcribing it. Whether you are realizing it or not, your brain is paying attention to melody, trills, breathmarks, etc. and I really believe that this process is the secret to committing a song to memory with all the technically demanding and emotional moments a lot faster than just reading it off a page. This process can also be used when writing original songs to really get to know your song and all the points in the song where you want to create “moments” people will remember. Re-visit the blog “Preparing A Song For Performance” to guide you in this process.
In closing, it may take a bit more of your time in the beginning stages of learning a new song, but in the long run, you will commit it to memory a lot faster with all the goods to make it a memorable performance for both you and your audience.
On another note…You are invited “Live At Angela’s” my internet concert this Saturday, May 19th at 8pm PST for some great singing, special guests and music from the 70’s to celebrate the launch of “The 5 Point Singing System”, my online vocal program guaranteed to make you the singer you’ve always wanted to be. Click here for access to the party!
http://5pointsingingsystem.com/live/at-angelas/
Click to link and come boogie down with us!
Until next time… Breathe and Happy Singing!
Angela
— Delivered by Feed43 service
