Most contemporary music performance situations involve the use of microphones and often even very skilled singers do not pay enough attention to using them to their advantage. This article will include some very generalized and basic information that should be of use, please keep in mind that every voice, microphone, sound system and performing space is different so adjustments must be made.
The microphone should be thought of as a musical instrument, not just as a delivery system for your voice. You sing into a microphone, which colors the sound of your voice and sends a signal through a mixing board, which further alters the sound of your voice and sends it through a speaker that changes it even more before the sound is delivered to the listener. What the audience ends up hearing is not actually your voice but an altered reproduction of your voice. What comes out of the speaker is no more your voice than a picture of you is you. This is why care must be taken in the selection and use of the microphone, the manipulation of the signal at the mixing board and the selection and placement of the speakers. Most of the advice given is meant for use of a standard microphone with a cardioid pick-up pattern in a live environment.
1) Each microphone has a color of it’s own that changes the sound of your voice. Before purchasing a microphone read reviews of the instrument to best understand how it will impact your voice. This goes for both live and recording mics. Trying the mic out to see how it sounds with your particular voice, if you can do it, is extremely helpful. Recommendations on the performance of the microphone from fellow singers or sound engineers are also an important guide. There are many good microphones in every price range.
How you use the microphone not only changes the dynamics (volume) of what the audience perceives of your voice it also changes the color/ timbre.
Here are some things to keep in mind;
1. Sing into to the mic not across the top of the mic. If you don’t sing into the mic those sound waves you are producing with your vocal cords, which you call your voice, will not be amplified properly.
2. There is a contemporary fad these days made popular by rappers and some hard rockers where the mic is held by the head . Don’t do that. Your hand will be in the way muffling your voice, you will be blocking the view of your face, you are also more likely to cause feedback. Hold the mic by the shaft and point it up towards your mouth at an angle that permits you to sing into it and does not block your face This is what professionals with good microphone technique do. Why emulate the mistakes of others?
3. Be aware of where the speakers and monitors are located and don’t point the mic directly at them, you will cause feedback. Microphone feedback is a squeaking, howling sound caused by loop of sound from the mic going through the amplifier, coming out the speaker and then re-enters the microphone creating it’s own frequency. It is unpleasant and indicates that a performer does not know how to use their equipment in a performance or a rehearsal situation.
4. As a singing teacher, I know that posture and body alignment are critical for good singing. I always check how my singers use a microphone because more times than not, it throws them off. When holding a microphone, always bring the mic to you, do not bring your head to the microphone. Try this exercise: hold the mic in your hand at your side and sing a phrase as you would normally sing it, then lift the microphone up to your mouth without changing your posture and then sing the same thing. Do not lift your chin, do not tuck your chin , do not bend your neck and remember to keep your shoulders relaxed. If you are singing into a mic with a stand., make friends with that stand. It is your performance equipment. Adjust it to the right height for you, make sure you don’t have to crouch down or reach up. Same thing with the angle of the mic, position it so you will be able to sing into it not across the top of it. If you are called up on stage to sing, take the time to adjust the stand for yourself, or take the mic off and hold it. The audience can wait a few seconds for this and will get a better performance for having done so. You are also allowed to grab the entire stand and angle it as exciting rock singers often do if it helps you do all the physical things you might need to do such as bend your knees to anchor your high notes etc. Using a mic stand this way helps make for an exciting performance. In general, interaction with objects (the set, the piano, a scarf, your microphone and people (other performers, the audience) in the physical world tend to make performances ,whether they are musical or theatrical, look more real and more confident.
5. Remember what I said about singing directly into the mic? Well that does not count in recording or even live situations when you have a big plosive “P” or “B” sound. Those should be sung a bit to the right or left to minimize the booming or popping sound they create.
6. In general be consistent and don’t drift off mic. That means don’t forget what you are doing and stop singing into the microphone. Many people do this! If you are playing guitar and sing with a boom mic stand work during practice to ensure that you don’t have to move off mic to look at your hand when you need to be singing into the mic. If you are unable to do this, you really should consider a headset mic . If you are a classical singer in concert where standing or choir /suspended mics are used, make sure you are standing and remain standing in the spot you were in during your sound check during your performance. You really can’t vary too much. Theater singers, if there are suspended mics not body or headsets you really do have to observe your blocking so you will be heard properly. Lastly for quieter types of music such as vocal jazz with an acoustic trio or small ensemble in a small room you might want to have the mic level adjusted to work with a mic held just above the waist for a natural and gentle amplification. I have seen several legendary singers work this way.
7. Ok, here is where the real deal skill of microphone use comes in, the adjustments in distance from the mic that you need to make according to the volume and pitch of your voice. In general, when you sing a climactic high note you should back off of the mic a few inches. That is because loud high notes suddenly send more signal into a microphone that can overwhelm the system and cause distortion. If you “eat” the microphone while singing loud and high nobody will be able to hear and appreciate the beauty of your high notes. How much of an adjustment you need to make depends on your mic, the levels the sound person has set, and how big your voice is. Experience should put you in at least the right ballpark with this. Conversely soft low notes will get lost if you don’t bring the mic as close as possible to your mouth. This, also especially with cardioid mics, tends to warm up/ or fatten up the sound as you get closer. Not only is this important sound-wise but it is also important as a stagecraft device. Audiences had subconsciously absorbed the mannerisms of great singers and become aware that a big vocal moment is coming up when they see that microphone distance increase. Without this convention, a performance can seem to fall flat from a theatrical perspective.
In addition to backing off when you are loud and high and coming closer when you are low and soft is the you can use the microphone to create or enhance crescendos and decrescendos on sustained notes in the middle of your range. You can do this by pulling the microphone off to one side and away for decrescendos and starting from that position and pulling in for crescendos.
It is vital for singers of all genres to become comfortable with the use of microphones and informed about not only not letting their use interfere, but to use a them as musical instruments to enhance your performance.
