Vocal exercises, like other athletic skills training, do two things:
- They nurture the vocal musculature, strengthening it, warming the instrument with increased blood flow and enabling greater flexibility.
- They create muscle memory.
With the flexible and strong instrument at your disposal, and with muscle memory causing an automatic connection to take place between your mind/body/vocal apparatus, you're then and only then ready for a great vocal performance.
Points to ponder:
- Don't think about technique like you do when you are trying to learn a vocal exercise correctly. The time for that is BEFORE you perform.
- Do your vocal training exercises regularly so it's just what you do naturally when you perform.
- Learn how to connect with the audience through the song. That should trigger all the right reflexes, if you've trained your muscle memory correctly.
- Don't worry about being perfect!! I've found that if you just commit to communication (after you've trained your instincts), you can do things in performance even better than in a mechanical vocal exercise.
Consider this: When you are doing vocal exercises, you have to be focused on yourself and on how you're working your voice. This is not, I repeat NOT communication. When you are performing, the truly effective performance moment happens when you are delivering a message. If you scatter your mental focus with too much thought, you'll miss the ball (sorry- golf again- ask me how I know >: )
Bottom line... you have to do both: Exercise and Perform. Just keep them separate in your mind. Voice teacher Jeffrey Allen says the Italians used to suggest taking your technique onstage with you in your little finger". Meaning... that's how much awareness they gave to training when actually performing. It's a paradox that you must also practice performing... make it a regular habit to sing to someone (even a cat or dog will do).
Trust your trained voice and it will reward you with performance magic!