The holidays are here, and most certainly you will be asked to sing at the dinner table

Nov 28

The holidays are here, and most certainly you will be asked to sing at the dinner table

By Ariella Vaccarino creator of Voice Lessons To Go

Gobble, Gobble to you all. How many of you have had a mouth full of food at the holiday table and been asked to sing?

Your dear relative or friend says, "You know, XXX is a fantastic singer, you have to hear him/her.- XXX why don't you sing that song that you did at the XXX?"

This has happened to me so many times. Usually, I am mid chewing some food. People who don't sing have no idea that we actually need to prepare for these things; warm-up our voices, bring our music for lyrics, guitar, piano, or a recording for accompaniment...

No they just want to hear you sing. And they want to hear you sing at that moment, no excuses. You can tell them you were up all night, haven't memorized, haven't sung in weeks, are getting over a cold. They will always say, "That's ok, we don't care, just sing something".

But you know, that is true. They don't care. They really just want to hear you sing. And it DOES NOT NEED TO BE PERFECT. At all. Also, it does not have to be a lot of music. You can knock out 1 verse of something that is not too challenging on an a cold instrument. That will be enough to satisfy them and make your impression.

The fact that you have a gift to share, will blow them away. I say, "say yes", sing to them every time, and do it quick so you don't have to stress about it the whole night.

Most people can barely sing through Happy Birthday, they will be impressed by whatever you do.

And if you really just can't sing at that moment. Schedule a time that you will; "I am performing, this Friday, here's a flyer", "Here's a link to my voice on this website", "After we eat absolutely."

You need as a singer to build an audience and a reputation. If you don't stand up and sing, someone else might and then that person will be remembered for it and you won't. Forget about perfection. The fact that you have a gift and can share it is perfection itself.

For these situations, have a song or two that you sing well all the time. I personally can knock out Summertime, or the first verse of Quando M'en Vo from La Boheme at any moment without warm-up. Know what songs you can do that with. Probably something not to high.

But even better. Prepare yourself to be fantastic for any impromptu performance by warming-up your voice every morning as part of your routine. There are many reasons to do this: it trains your voice, increases your vocal stamina, and develops vocal agility.

But most importantly rememeber, your voice that you speak with all day is the same voice that you sing with. If you warm-up your singing voice and set it in its proper place, then the whole day your speaking and or singing voice will benefit. This will remove the stress about your friend at the table asking you to sing while you are gobbling your second helping of pumpkin pie. ;)

Here's my box set of Voice Lessons To Go to help you with that: