Ever been on the receiving end of some top of the voice singing by someone with headphones on, those noise cancelling ones at that? Torture, and at best, noise, if its a good singer. Even playback singers, technically the best singing lot, have those half-headphones covering only one ear while they sing. It is not possible for anyone to hit that perfect note without being able to hear their own voice.
So whats the big deal about that now? If you can't hear yourself singing, its not singing, 'simple as that! But think about it. Even when you sing without the headphones on, what you receive in your brain, is a playback of the soundtrack, with the lyrics, beats and pitch from your memory, superimposed by your own voice singing. The effect is as good as having headphones on while singing, and it can be of all variety from noise to torture for your poor audience, who only have your voice playing to their ears and brain.
To get better at singing, hence, even before you come to quality of voice or pitch, you need to hear how your own voice 'comes across' to someone listening to your performance. For that you need to eliminate your preconceived, memorized and wired version of the track from playing to you. That is the first milestone, to come any closer to becoming a good performer.
In a strange analogy, so it is with all social and interpersonal interactions too. Haven't we heard the 'stepping into others shoe' and 'thinking from someone else's point of view' or 'putting into perspective', more often than not in just about any wisdom on effective communication? They never drove the point so hard for me, unlike the lesson from singing did. Its all about turning off your notions, biases and 'wiring' when you interact, its about turning off the headphones.
Just knowing how you come across when you speak, convey and behave, wins you half the battle in communicating effectively and objectively with about anyone. Making your audience feel more engaged to what they hear you say, and it may be anything from a single person to a stadium then, it doesn't matter. You will know whether what you are saying is music or noise, it will be exactly what you want to be heard as saying.
But wish it was so simple, and again that explanation comes from a twist in the analogy. They say, humans, and in fact all living beings with sound receptive abilities, are tuned to identify certain combinations of sound frequencies as music. In fact, that is the definition of music. It is not the same though with interpersonal communication. Every shoe is different, every point of view is liable to be colored and influenced just so much as the speaking, and even the audience can have headphones that don't let them hear what you are saying.
Nevertheless, being able to perceive how I come across has helped me come a long way from where I was in my interpersonal skills, and is for me one of the several boons that music has blessed me with.
So whats the big deal about that now? If you can't hear yourself singing, its not singing, 'simple as that! But think about it. Even when you sing without the headphones on, what you receive in your brain, is a playback of the soundtrack, with the lyrics, beats and pitch from your memory, superimposed by your own voice singing. The effect is as good as having headphones on while singing, and it can be of all variety from noise to torture for your poor audience, who only have your voice playing to their ears and brain.
To get better at singing, hence, even before you come to quality of voice or pitch, you need to hear how your own voice 'comes across' to someone listening to your performance. For that you need to eliminate your preconceived, memorized and wired version of the track from playing to you. That is the first milestone, to come any closer to becoming a good performer.
In a strange analogy, so it is with all social and interpersonal interactions too. Haven't we heard the 'stepping into others shoe' and 'thinking from someone else's point of view' or 'putting into perspective', more often than not in just about any wisdom on effective communication? They never drove the point so hard for me, unlike the lesson from singing did. Its all about turning off your notions, biases and 'wiring' when you interact, its about turning off the headphones.
Just knowing how you come across when you speak, convey and behave, wins you half the battle in communicating effectively and objectively with about anyone. Making your audience feel more engaged to what they hear you say, and it may be anything from a single person to a stadium then, it doesn't matter. You will know whether what you are saying is music or noise, it will be exactly what you want to be heard as saying.
But wish it was so simple, and again that explanation comes from a twist in the analogy. They say, humans, and in fact all living beings with sound receptive abilities, are tuned to identify certain combinations of sound frequencies as music. In fact, that is the definition of music. It is not the same though with interpersonal communication. Every shoe is different, every point of view is liable to be colored and influenced just so much as the speaking, and even the audience can have headphones that don't let them hear what you are saying.
Nevertheless, being able to perceive how I come across has helped me come a long way from where I was in my interpersonal skills, and is for me one of the several boons that music has blessed me with.
