Musicality Ideas

While most people feel that artistry or musicality is natural talent, the reality is quite the opposite.  Most professionals are so musical because they listened to a TON of music, and whether consciously or unconsciously, absorb the musical style of that genre.

You can learn how to be artistic.  "Manufacturing" musicality is not unnatural.  Here are some ways to sound 'musical'.

1) Listen to as much music as you can.  Try to identify certain elements of a singer that make that singer unique.  Then copy!  For example, Frank Sinatra loved to add vibrato on held notes after a beat or two, and that style has become essential to the big band type of singing..

2) Love the words you have to sing.  Figure out how you can shade each important word with a different vocal color so as to give the word(s) more meaning.

3) Always add more elements than what is written on the music page.  If composers wrote down everything they wanted us to do, where would artistry be?  The job of the performer is to add things the composer either did not think of or did not write down.

4) Above all - be willing to take a risk and make a mistake.  Try something crazy, record it, and see if it works.  In all likelihood, it may take 5-6 tries of doing something different before something works, but it is worth it.

DWS