WELCOME

Hi, I'm Mike! A little info...

My goal is to give you in about 30 minutes what it took me over 30 years to learn!

A tall order I know.

First off, who I've worked with doesn't matter at all if I can't help you...right?

And if I can help you, it really doesn't matter...but here's a little info anyway. 😊
Clients in over 20 Broadway shows
Lots of celebrities, Grammy winners, a Tony winner
Most major record companies and movie studios,
TV and Movie Stars
I was the guy behind the scenes assisting Mike Myers with his voice for SHREK.

There's a short bio is here if you're interested.

Disclaimer
The publisher and the author are providing this book and its contents on an “as is”
basis and make no representations or warranties of any kind with respect to this book or its
contents. This book and its contents are opinion for educational and illustrative purposes only.
It is not personalized advice. Consult a qualified professional to answer your specific
questions and address your individual circumstances.

This is all the stuff my attorney told me to write. The copyright and legal mumbo jumbo.
Copyright © Mike Goodrich All rights reserved. No part of this book may be
reproduced or used in any manner without written permission of the copyright owner.
 FEARLESS SINGING
MTP
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 1

STEP I. MINDSET
Mindset 4
Vision 6
Identify 9
Plan 16
Case Study 17

STEP 2. TECHNIQUE
Technique - THF System 22
Thin it out 22
Hook it up 24
Fill it in 25
Case Study 27

STEP 3. PERFORMANCE
Performance 32
Presence 35
Intention 39
Result 40
Case Study 42

WWW.MIKEGOODRICH.COM
 FEARLESS SINGING
MTP FORMULA
INTRODUCTION
Magic happens when Technique, Mindset and Performance intersect!

😊
Yes, I know I said 'Technique' first, but let's face it, that's what most of us want.

But the truth is when all 3 come together you'l hear things like:

"You have such an amazing voice!"

"You look so confident!"
"You have great stage presence and charisma!"
"How do you hit those high notes?"
"You're such a natural singer!"
"Were you always this good?"

Great Singing requires that you have a solid and impressive technique, the ability to
light up an audience with your performance and a mindset that supports the success
you want as a singer. Then you’re a FEARLESS SINGER!

The subtitle of this book says, ‘Why all great singers use the MTP formula, and how you
can to’.

I could have said, "All Great Singers Use The MTP Formula...Whether They Know It Or
Not!"

That's because: All Great Singers do... Learned or Naturally.

My MTP Formula will give you a step by step framework to massively succeed in all 3
areas.

And FEARLESS singing requires all 3!

Create magic!

1
 MTP
MY 3-STEP FORMULA

2
STEP ONE:
MINDSET
 Mindset
Okay. First things first...

I know nobody wants to start with mindset.

But the bottom line is, it's the most important thing when it comes to
singing. ..

Especially if you want to be fearless...So I have to start here.

Now I know that Mindset has become a very overused word.

Let me tell you how I relate it to your voice.

I think of having the right mindset as 'setting your mind right'.

I know there's a ton of material out there on mindset so I'm only going to
outline what I mean by mindset specific to becoming a wildly successful
and fearless singer.

I'll show you in 3 steps that you can do today to start setting your mind right
for the success you want as a singer.

4
 Mindset (Cont)

So Let's Jump In!

5
 Vision
The first step is: Vision

I want you to create a vision of how you want your voice to be.

What kind of singer do you want to be?

What kind of high notes do you want? What kind of tone do you want? What
kind of range do you want? What kind of phrasing do you want?

What kind of music do you want to sing? What sort of songs do you want to
sing? What kind of performer do you want to be?

Where do you want to sing? How will it feel to sing the way you've always
wanted to sing and have the voice of your dreams?

I want you to get into the feeling of that enthusiastically, emotionally and
joyfully.

This is the first step in creating the voice of your dreams and the life you want
as a singer.

Visualize it, See it, Feel it.

6
 Vision(cont)
This triggers the imagination portion of your brain, and gets you enthusiastic
and excited about what you're going to create with your singing.

You'll be amazed at how quickly you make progress and how quickly you
discover things about your voice when you're in this emotionally enthusiastic
place and you're expecting to find all the answers you're looking for.

When you expect things to go great with your voice and you see it and feel it
as if it’s true now, you set yourself up for wonderful insights and progress!

Here's how you create your vision

A great way to do this is to write it down.

Pro tip:

Write it out long hand. Pen to paper. There is a hand - brain connection that will
help anchor your vision in your brain. This won't be nearly as strong if you type it
into a computer. You can type it in after you write it down.

Make sure you write it in the present tense as if it's happening now, exactly how
you want your singing to be, exactly what you want it to sound like and what
you want it to feel like.

7
 Vision(cont)
Include the kind of recognition that you want, the kind of songs you want to
sing. If you're a singer songwriter, include the songs that you want to writ. If
you're a singer or a musical theater performer, include the roles that you want to
perform, and write down these things in present tense.

For example:

‘I'm so happy and grateful for the fact that my voice will do anything I want it to do,
and that I can sing anything that I want to sing. My range is amazing! I can belt
and sing loud and soft, high and low, and I can do amazing riffs and runs.

My voice is totally flexible. My vibrato is fantastic, and I have complete control

over every aspect of my voice. My voice is always here for me 100% in any
situation, no matter how high the stakes.’

Create this vision the way you want things to be, and write it down as if it's true
now. Remember to write it by hand on paper. I'll say this again: There's a special
hand brain connection so this will help rewire your brain faster to match your
vision.

It can be a paragraph or a page or even two pages. But whatever it is, make it
real. And then begin to read it, and read it on a daily basis.

Read it a couple of times a day and soon you'll memorize it without even trying.

Read it with emotion like an actor learning a part. Feel the emotion and
enthusiasm and deeply engage with it.

That's how you begin to shift your beliefs from, I don't like my voice, or I can't do
this, to I love my voice and I can do anything I want with my voice.

Do this through repetition and visualizing what it feels like. Remember, it doesn't
matter if you see things in living color like you're watching a movie. It’s more
about the emotion and the feeling. So we want to use our amazing imagination!

8
 Identify
Step 2 is: Identify.

Identify the gap between where you want to be and where you are now.

This is an important step and it's also very important how you approach this
because we're going to approach it in a very curious way, like a detective.

Now that you have your vision for

where you want to be, let's
identify where you re now.

Very important: you're going to

do this without any judgment,
shame, blame or guilt of any kind.

You're just going to notice the

gap between where you are now
and where you want to be.

And you're going to take note of what isn't working quite as well as you want it to in
order to have the voice of your dreams.

Now, it may be your high notes or your mix. It may be your support, your tone, or
your phrasing. It may be your range.

It doesn't matter what it is. What really matters is how you notice it and how you
become aware of it because that is going to set the tone for how you make
progress.

The way to approach this is very mindfully. That means with great awareness and
curiosity.

And again, no judgment and no blame. You are just becoming aware. Now, let's
talk about mindfulness.

9
 Identify (cont)

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness is becoming aware.

So let's start with just becoming aware of where you are right now with your
voice. What’s working and what isn’t working as well?

What do you believe about your voice? What is your mental state with your
voice?

Are you happy with your singing? Are you unhappy with your singing?

Do you love to sing? Do you get self-conscious when you sing? Do you love to
sing and perform in front of people or does that make you nervous?

Do you have stage fright or are you uncertain of your voice? Do you worry that
parts of your voice won't work?

Where are you with your voice?

10
 Identify (cont)
You could be in a fantastic place. You could feel great about your voice and
your singing!

Maybe you just want to improve it a little, refine it a little, and that’s it.

Or you could be in a completely

😊
different place. (Like I was )

You could have struggled for a long

time with your voice (I sure did), and
you could be plateauing or hitting a
wall. You could be stuck…Feel like
you're not getting where you want to
go.

Maybe you’re discouraged and

frustrated or upset.

This was me!!

(without the tie)

11
 Identify (cont)
I've been there!

Believe me, there's nothing wrong with you.

And to ease your mind…there is an answer!

And whether it’s high notes, mix, tone, range, singing soft or singing loud or
anything in between - there is an answer!

I couldn’t sing particularly loud and certainly not soft. I had NO high notes or
mix. No vibrato. Bad tone (I was told I didn’t have a pretty voice) and it felt
strained and awful when I sang!

If you’re having any of that or any of the feelings I already went over, then try
this:

See if you can create a little space between you and the feeling.

Take a step back a little bit from whatever those feelings are and become an
observer of them.

Now, all of a sudden, they don't own you.

12
 Identify (cont)
Let's say you're discouraged or frustrated about your voice.

You may be feeling: ‘I don't like my voice. I don't like what's going on
with my singing’ or ‘Maybe I’m never going to get this’...

Look at that and realize that those are just thoughts which are creating
feelings and emotions.

This may truly be how you’re feeling… but the feelings are not you…
they’re just feelings.

As you become aware of those beliefs and feelings and observe them
rather than being in them, you become aware that there’s a you having
that feeling. That observation creates some spaciousness between
you and the feeling.

Now you’re watching the feeling rather than being the feeling.

Then you can start looking at it a little bit more curiously, like our
detective.

13
 Identify (cont)
You can ask:

‘Why am I feeling like this? Is it valid to feel like this right now?’

And maybe it is. Maybe you really can't do what you want to do with your
voice, and maybe you're really discouraged.

That’s okay. You have to start where you are. If you’re discouraged or
frustrated don’t push that down or ignore it. Look at it and become aware
of it.

Then with mindfulness and awareness you can create a sense of

separation between you and the feeling itself, so that you can observe the
feeling.

You can observe yourself having the feeling.

This puts you in a really terrific place because you no longer are the feeling.

This awareness gives you the opportunity to make another choice.

Maybe you don’t need to stay with this feeling?

Maybe you can choose to do something to shift the feeling.

14
 Identify (cont)
I like to watch comedy or listen to music!

When you have mindful awareness you have a functional choice to move
in a different direction if you want to.

Always Sing With Joy!

15
 Plan
The 3rd step is: Plan

Now that you have the vision and you've identified the gap between where
you are and where you want to be, you'll need a plan to fill in that gap.

Don't create your plan yet...You still have a book to finish!

For now...

Have a look at what you've identified.

What knowledge do you feel you need to fill the gap?

What skills do you need to develop to fill the gap?

What skillset do you need to improve?

Which part of MTP do you feel you need the most?

Mindset, Technique or Performance?

In this book I'm going to show you a lot of things that are going to expedite
your progress and help you fill in the blanks for your plan.

The technique and performance portions will help you immensely.

But for now, sit back and relax, read the rest of this book, watch and listen to all
the supplemental material, and you're going to be well on your way to creating
a great plan to build the voice of your dreams.

16
 Case Study
If you watched the bonus video above then you now know about mental
rehearsal.

I’d like to share a story about how amazingly well mental rehearsal can work in
somebody's life when it comes to singing and performing.

My student, Julie, is a singer/songwriter and is recording albums and performing

all over.

A woman that she grew up with was getting married and wanted Julie to sing at
her wedding.

Julie was very nervous because none of the people that would be at the
wedding would expect that she could sing and play guitar as she didn’t do it
back when she knew all of them.

So she was about to go into a situation where people knew her, but not as a
singer/songwriter and a guitar player.

So, even though she'd performed on television and had records out, she was still
very unsure.

It's kind of like going back and performing for your family. It can be challenging.

We decided to change her focus and work on her mindset. We created a

scenario for her of the outcome she wanted. Something that she could mentally
rehearse.

She began to imagine this situation.

She looked out of her mind's eye and could see all the people in the wedding.
And she imagined where she might be in the ceremony with her guitar at the mic,
looking out and seeing these people. and of course she knew the song that she
was singing.

17
 Case Study

She began to mentally rehearse it, looking out through her mind's eye, seeing
the audience, seeing the bride and groom, seeing her friend, and feeling the
love and the joy and the enthusiasm that she wanted to feel when she did this.

She saw herself feeling absolutely elated and fantastic.

She got into the feeling of how great it's going to feel to have done such an
amazing job after she finished singing, and how everybody would be so
surprised!

Not only would the bride thrilled with what she did and the gift that she gave
her, but everybody at the wedding would be incredibly surprised and excited
about how great she did and how good she was, because it was an aspect of
Julie that they didn't know.

I suggested she include this next part as the cherry on the sundae…

Afterwards, at the reception, when you're going up and you're waiting in line
for food, imagine so many people are coming up to talk to you that you can't
get to the food and you're really hungry!

All these people are coming up and they're telling you how amazing you did
and how surprised they were that you’re such a wonderful talent when they
never knew you could sing!.

You’re getting incredibly great feedback and it feels great!

So she worked with this for a couple of weeks, every day for five minutes or so,
visualizing this and getting into the emotional feeling of how great this would
feel.

Because that's what it's about, the emotional feeling of how great it feels as if
it's happening now or has already happened.

18
 Case Study
About a month went by and she went and did the wedding.

When she came back in for her next lesson I asked her how it went.

She said, "Great!'

Then she told me how fun it was and that she sang it and I played it great! And
how everybody loved it!

Here's the cool part...

She shared that at the reception she was trying to get food, but so many people
were coming up to her that she could hardly get through everybody because
they all wanted to talk to her and tell her how fantastic she was!

So I said, “does this sound familiar at all?”

And she literally said, “What do you mean?”

I said, "It's the exact scenario that you created! It's the mental rehearsal that you
were rehearsing!"

“Oh my God” she said, “I totally forgot.”

It had become so natural to her that she had forgotten that the mental rehearsal
that she created and the actual performance that she gave were not the same
thing!

She didn't even remember doing the mental rehearsal until I reminded her!

So the moral of the story is, you can use this too! For a performance or an
audition or a recording session or anytime you want.

No matter what stage you're at with your voice, you'll accelerate your vocal
progress by adding mental rehearsal to your practice, vocalizing, and singing!

Now, on to Vocal Technique!

19
 STEP TWO:
TECHNIQUE
 que
hni
Tec

Technique
I love vocal technique. I've taught it for 32 years and studied it for longer than that.

Whether you want great high notes, a strong mix, beautiful phrasing and tone,
great range, the ability to sing powerfully or softly, consistent vibrato or solid
support it usually boils down to just a few main things.

Mastering your break or your first bridge area is one of the most important.

I've seen this with men and women for over 32 years, and although we all seem
very, different and we sing all kinds of different genres of music, the challenges we
singers have are very similar.

I call the first bridge or break area 'the one thing' that when you fix it, almost
everything else just gets better. And oftentimes, some problems just seem to
magically go away! They just fix themselves.

I love systems and formulas, so it's no surprise that to master your first bridge and
master your high notes, I developed the THF System.

THF stands for Thin it Out, Hook it up and Fill it in.

The THF system is going to show you how to fix your break, build great high notes,
smooth out your vocal registers, get a beautiful and consistent vocal line. You'll
sing high and low, loud, and soft and maintain ease and flexibility so you can do
runs and riffs your audience will love. Let’s get started!

21
 T - Thin It Out
What does ‘Thin it out’ mean and how do we do it?

If you watched the video then you already know…but if you’re saving the video
for later then read on!

Actually, you may want to read on anyway…

First let me assure you that In my 30 years of experience I've seen that most
singers have a challenge with their first bridge, transition, break, or whatever
you want to call it.

Usually it's because of singing too heavy with too much weight in the voice up
to that first bridge. Usually caused by not understanding how to sing your
vowels.

This makes it very difficult to get into our upper range (high notes).

Think of a car with gears - first, second, third and fourth gear.

Imagine driving way too fast in first gear before shifting into second.

That’s like singing too heavy and high in your chest voice without going into
your mix (upper register).

If you're pulling too much weight and you get up to where you need to go into
your upper register but your voice either strains or pulls, or you can't get any
higher, or it breaks and cracks into falsetto or head voice, then that's not going
to serve you.

We all know what that feels like!

22
 Thin It Out (cont)
This is what most singers do. Pull way too much weight and take their chest
voice up far too high before going into the mix, before going into second gear.

Since this is often true it’s usually necessary to thin the voice out a little bit, just
initially. I'm not talking about a finished product here.

How do we thin the voice out?

We do that with vowels and sounds.

We do it by tuning in the vowel which dials in the resonance and thins out the
vocal cords. This assures you can make it through your bridge/break into your
upper register (high notes).

We do it also with sounds, a variety of different sounds.

The voice has a specific way it likes to work and it has to do with the muscles
of the vocal cords. I won't get into it right now. But you'll discover that in the
supplemental explanations and videos that are included in this book.

Make sure you watch or listen to those so that all this makes sense to you. And
watch the video as well on the THF System.

Just know that it's the way you sing your vowels that makes all the difference!

Once you’ve thinned it out you’re ready for Step 2 which is: Hook it up!

23
 H - Hook It Up
What does 'Hook it up' mean?

This means that we maintain cord closure as we go through our first bridge.

In other words, our voice doesn't crack and it doesn't pull, but there's a smooth
transition as we sing through our bridge.

At this point, it doesn't matter how loud or strong it is, all that matters is that it's
beginning to hook up without cracking or breaking or pulling too much weight.

We now have the beginning of a nice vocal line from the low to the high, even
though it may be a thin sound that's not anywhere near performance ready yet.

That doesn't matter.

We've thinned it out, step 1. Now we've hooked it up.

That's vitally important. We're golden when this happens.

Now that you've done this we are going to use the best way to fix your break
and build your mix - from the top down!

Very few teachers understand this. Most try to push up then low voice which
only causes more push and strain if not done very carefully.

Top down is the magic!

Make sure you watch the video on my THF System on the bonus page I
provided for you! I’ll show you how to do this!

Now let's Fill it in!!

24
 F - Fill It In
How do we do that?

We do that with exercises that are specifically designed to train and

strengthen a specific coordination within the voice.

Think of it like going to the gym and wanting to build up your biceps.

If you just do a general workout with stretching and some weightlifting you'll
probably affect the biceps a little bit.

But if you get a personal trainer and you do exercises that are specifically
tailored and designed to strengthen the biceps in all kinds of different ways,
you're going to come out with big, strong biceps after a few months, right?

Or however long it takes. It really doesn't mater if you reach your goal. 😊
But the important thing is it's a specific plan.

There is no comparison as to what your biceps will look like when you have a
specific plan with specific training to build them, versus just doing random
exercises with no goals or plan.

25
 F - Fill It In (Cont)
Imagine if you applied this principle to your voice!

How could you be singing in three to six months?

How do you feel about your voice then?

How are your high notes?

Is you mix stronger?

Is your break gone?

Are you finally getting the recognition for your singing that you've always
wanted?

That's what can happen with your voice if you have a plan and stick to it!

Once you’ve thinned it out and hooked it up, it’s time to fill it in with exercises
specifically designed to strengthen these parts of your voice.

Then just watch the magic happen.

Here’s the challenge:

Most singers (even singing teachers) don't know how to do this.

They're just doing general voice exercises and scales, but not specifically
isolating these areas of the voice that need to be trained.

Training these areas of the voice is how you build the voice of your dreams.

That's how you fill it in.

26
 Case Study
I want to talk a little bit about the THF system and how it gave me my high
notes.

I had been singing professionally back up until about 1989 when I moved to
Los Angeles to study with Seth Riggs because I believed he could help me
expand my range and get where I wanted with my voice.

I'd already played Che in EVITA and and George in Sunday in the park with
George, but I still was not able to access my high notes on any kind of a
consistent basis because I was singing too heavy and my vowels were all over
the place.

So even if I could get a high note once in a while, I couldn't sustain it, and I
couldn't sing them in the context of a song.

Actually, they were useless because I couldn't access them.

Then I had what I call one of the greatest 15 minutes in my life! It was 15
minutes with Seth Riggs.

My buddy Kevin and I split a half hour voice lesson with him.

We drove four hours to take it!

We couldn't afford his rate which was $200 an hour so we split a half hour, 50
bucks a piece.

I got 15 minutes and Kevin got 15 minutes.

What I discovered in that 15 minutes changed my life and the direction of my

voice forever.

27
 Case Study

I discovered I couldn’t get into my high notes because of how heavy I was
singing. I’d push or crack but I was hitting a wall and couldn’t get there.

He showed me how I could actually connect the registers of my voice with a

really tiny sound that wasn't falsetto.

I'm not gonna get too technical right now but suffice to say that was the sound
was so soft that I could practice in my house with my roommates at one
o'clock in the morning, and nobody would hear me.

I could barely hear myself!

But I could feel it.

The exciting thing was that I knew it wasn't falsetto and I knew I wasn’t pulling
too much weight.

I wasn't pulling up my chest voice.

I could get through the registers in my voice with a connected sound without
breaking, cracking, splatting or pulling up too much weight.

I knew I was really onto something with this.

It was a tiny, thin sound, completely not usable, not performance ready, not
even anywhere near it.

But that didn't matter. I was excited because I had accomplished the first thing
in a system that I would go on to develop myself, called the THF System.

28
 Case Study

I had thinned it out with Seth's help.

And actually, in all transparency, while studying with Seth many years ago, I
heard him say that phrase...but only one time.

Thin it out, hook it up and fill it in.

That made such an impression on me that I developed my whole system on

that.

I'd never heard him say it again.

I don't know it's anything he used or if he just came up with it in the moment.

But I felt it was brilliant and it really made an impact on me because I could tell
that's what I was doing.

After thinning it out it magically started hooking up by itself!

Now, all I had to do was go through the process of filling it in.

With his help and by developing exercises myself, I focused on the parts of my
voice that needed building. I developed what I called on purpose work, or
O P W.

It's like our bicep example... going to the gym and knowing how to strategically
strengthen and work on your biceps and isolate those muscles to get them
bigger and stronger, rather than just doing a bunch of general workouts that will
affect your biceps, but nowhere nearly as much as the specific work needed.

29
 Case Study
That's what I started doing with my voice…and the results were amazing!

To my incredible delight, those notes that were really tiny and thin began to fill
in.

What I noticed was that the top began to fill in first, for reasons that I don't have
time to go into in this short story.

Suffice to say that once you can access the high notes (no matter how tiny), you
can begin to build them and fill them in.

Then you can begin to fill in the notes below them from the top down without
pulling up from the bottom and trying to fill them up from the bottom up which
causes us to push and strain.

That's very important.

So we want to thin it out, hook up, and fill it in.

This developed great high notes for me that are incredibly consistent and
ridiculously easy to sing.

I had always heard that was possible, but I had never gotten even close to being
able to do it.

Now I understand it... so I can teach it. 😊

So that's my THF story.

On to Performance!

30
STEP THREE:
PERFORMANCE
 n c e
m a
f o r
Pe r

P - Performance
Now we're into what brings it all together...your Performance!

Before I get into my process that will guarantee you a great

performance... I want to address one very important reframe in your
thinking about 'performing' and how to approach it.

Even though we're going to talk about performance I need to acknowledge

that we all know there are a lot of conditions we place on ourselves when
we think of 'giving a 'performance'.

Most of these put a lot of pressure on us and an expectation that things

need to be 'perfect' for it to be a great performance or even a good
performance.

I'd like to offer this shift in thinking.

32
 PERFORMANCE (CONT)
It's one that has greatly benefited me and my clients.

First let's look at some of the performance criteria most of us judge

ourselves by:

My voice needs to be perfect

I need to remember all the words
I need to have stage presence
I need to connect with the audience
I need to know what to do with my body
I can't make ANY mistakes
The sound has to be perfect
My technique has to work
There have to be enough people in the audience

Have I forgotten anything? 😊

The following little shift can relieve you of all of that but you need to
really take this in because it's going to sound too simple.

Replace the word Performance with the word Experience!

Sit with this for a moment.

33
 P - Performance (Cont)

When you ponder the idea of having an experience vs. giving a

performance, all the performance conditions and criteria drop away!

An experience doesn't have to be perfect. It just is.

Feel the effect on your body when you make this shift.

Imagine - 'I'm open to having a wonderful experience!'

Now, I'm not so naive that I don't prepare like crazy so I have the best
experience possible. I do.

But when you shift your thinking and reframe a 'performance' into an
'experience' you will start having some wonderful 'experiences', and as a
result, you'll be giving great 'performances'!

34
 Presence
This means presence with yourself, presence with the lyric and presence with
'who' you're singing to or about. It has to be personal. (There's another P for
😊
you )

First get present with where you are.

I had a wonderful teacher that used to say, ‘to go far, start where you are.’

It's a nice little rhyme, but it's absolutely true.

And it's especially true in singing and performing,

because how in the world are you going to start anywhere else?

You have to start the song at the beginning of the song and you have to know
where you are emotionally before you begin.

So when you're getting present, before you sing, don't look at the song as a
big number you have to be really excited about, or really angry in.

Get present with how you feel now. Discover where you are right now, in this
moment. And be there.

Once you're emotionally present with yourself, you can get yourself emotionally
where you have to be to start the song.

If it's a happy song and you're feeling miserable today, then that's gonna read
in the song.

35
 Presence - (Cont)
So first of all, you have to acknowledge, ‘I feel miserable today. I'm not happy,
I'm depressed’, or whatever, right?

Then be okay with yourself.

No shame, no blame, no guilt, no judgment and no justification.

You are where you are. You don't even need to forgive yourself because
there's nothing to forgive. You are where you are, right?

So just feel it. It’s just a feeling. It's not you. So now with that in mind, you look
at the song, look at the lyric, and you say, okay, where do I need to be to
communicate what I want to communicate with this lyric?

Make Sure To Watch

the Authentic Performance BONUS Video
on the Bonuses Page I Gave You!

36
 Presence - (Cont)
Now step two of Presence is being present with the lyric.

Read through the lyrics and get a general sense of the feeling and the
emotions of the song. What is trying to be communicated here? What's going
on?

If you're in a musical, it's very clear, right? Because in a musical, the songs
move the show and the story forward.

However, if it's a pop song sometimes it's not as clear, and sometimes it can be
a little bit left to the imagination. So you can play around with it a little bit more
than you can in a musical.

In a musical if it’s a happy song then you have to get yourself to that place that
is expressing joy. Even if you don't feel like it.

Or if the song is sad and you’re feeling happy. It doesn't matter. You have to
tap into the appropriate emotion for the song.

But with a pop song, it does leave something to the imagination and the
individual interpretation.

So whichever it is, you need to get yourself into the emotional place that you
need to be to express the feeling of the song.

How do you do that?

That leads us to the final opportunity for Presence.

You need to make the song very personal to you.

Tell your story through the lyrics of the song.

37
 Presence - (Cont)
So you must get present with who your singing to or about.

Ask yourself:

Who am I talking to? Who am I having this conversation with?

If it's a person, make it a very specific person. If it's a group, make it a very
specific group.

Not just a group, not just a person, not just a friend.

What friend? What's his name? What's her name?

Don’t worry as in a second I’m going to explain how this all works and give you
an example.

38
 Intention

Intention is the ‘Why”.

Why are you having this conversation? Why are you giving this speech or
having this conversation with this person or this group?

Why?

It has to be very specific. You have to have a personal reason why this is
important to you.

If you don't, the audience will feel it.

Even on a record!

The reason for this is because if you aren’t having an experience singing the
song, an experience with lyrics, then the audience won’t have one.

The more personal you make it, the more engaged you'll be and the more
engaged the audience will be.

This is how you connect with the audience...by connecting with yourself and
the lyrics from a personal place.

When you do this you are actually able to share something of yourself through
the lyrics of the song.

And they’ll love you for that because it’s all they want!

They don’t want to hear a perfect singer - they want to have an experience!

39
 Result
What is the result you want from this 'conversation'?

What is your desired outcome?

Example:

Let's take the song, The Rose. Beautiful song and beautiful lyrics.

Let's say you were using that song and your personalization was that you were
comforting an adolescent who just had their first heartbreak in a relationship.

Now you could use the lyrics of The Rose as a means to communicate that
things get better. Right?

For my personalization, I'd use my son.

My intention would be to comfort him, to love him, to help him understand that
this sadness is temporary and it'll pass.

To express that the world is a great place, and love is fantastic.

I’d want him to feel better.

I want to release him from this burden.

So now I've gone from just looking at this as a pretty song with a nice lyric to
making it an absolutely personal thing to me, where I am now expressing a
deep feeling to my son through the lyrics of this song.

It's deeply personal and it means something to me.

40
 Result (cont)

Can you feel the difference?

If you do this process with every song, your performances will be head and
shoulders above other singers, because the songs will be deeply personal to
you.

They’ll mean something to you, and the audience will resonate with that
and they'll have an experience.

They won't have your experience, they'll have their own experience.

But they'll have an experience.

If you're just up there riffing and running about and and showing off with your
voice because you think it's a pretty song or has good high notes or whatever,
there's gonna be a wall between you and the audience because you're not
going to be feeling anything.

There won’t be any kind of a resonance with them.

They may be impressed but they will not be moved.

You want to move people!

To move people, you have to make it personal.

41
 Case Study
This is a story about Andrew.

Andrew was in my performance class a few years back. He’s a wonderful

singer/songwriter and an excellent piano player.

That night he was performing a song that he'd written himself.

I was sitting out in the audience, as was the rest of the class, and he sang it and
played it and it was absolutely beautiful.

He played flawlessly and sang beautifully.

As I sat there, I was wondering why I wasn't moved. It was really good. He played
beautifully. He sang beautifully. It was a beautiful song.

So I sat there for a second before I said anything, and I thought “what am I feeling?

And the word impressed came to me.

So I said, Andrew, that was absolutely beautiful, but I have to share something with
you. I was completely impressed by your ability, but for some reason I wasn't moved
and I didn't feel a connection between you and the lyric that you're singing.

I felt your voice worked beautifully. Your piano playing was perfect, but there was a
disconnect somewhere.

So let's look at that for a second.

Then, I did the presence, personalization, intention, and result with him and walked
him through that PIR process and you could see the light bulbs going on with
Andrew as he started remembering why he wrote the song.

He started remembering how personal the song had been to him when he'd written
some time ago.

42
 Case Study
By the way, this can happen with songwriters or even with singers that sing a song
over and over again. You kind of forget why you originally wrote it or liked it.

You forget what it originally meant to you, right? And you start losing that
personalization, it starts getting distant from you. Or it doesn't work anymore or isn't
relevant in your life anymore.

So we got him present and brought him back to where he is now and what the song
can mean to him now.

He got a personalization that is accurate now, and picked an intention that is perfect
for this moment.

Then he came up with a result that he was going for… a desired outcome.

Now he had a purpose for singing the song other than an assignment for class, and
he got very clear on that.

As he began the song from this new place, I don't think he was even 30 seconds
into it before he just broke down and started crying.

And he kept trying to play but he would just cry.

That's okay!

That means that you are tapping into something that is so deeply emotional to you
that you actually can't do the song and hold that emotion at the same time.

Oftentimes, that's what scares us about going to the real emotion in a song.

And of course, the truth is, when we’re performing a song, whether it's our own
song, musical theater, or whatever it is, we can't break down and cry halfway
through the song. We do have to finish. 😊

43
 Case Study

The great conductor of the Metropolitan Opera, James Levine was asked one time,
‘When you're conducting this gorgeous, beautiful music, do you ever cry?’

And he said, ‘I used to and the audience didn't. Now I don't. And the audience does’.

My feeling about what he meant is that when we can hold the emotion, but it
doesn't control us, and we're telling our story through the lyrics of the song and
expressing our feeling through the lyrics of the song, the audience has an
experience.

They don't have our experience, but they have their own. One that’s personal to
them.

But if we're holding back and we're really not having a deep experience or any
experience other than we're singing well, then our audience is robbed of their
experience. Maybe they’re impressed at best, but never moved.

And they're disappointed because they didn't get to have the experience they came
for.

So the way we work through this is in our rehearsal process. We allow ourselves to
feel.

We laugh if it's funny, maybe so much we can't get through the song. Or we cry , or
we're angry or whatever

We rehearse the song until we go through it enough in our rehearsal and practice
that we begin to feel those things, but they don't derail us from the song. They don't
control us. Then we can have our experience and the audience can have theirs.

44
 Case Study

So don't be afraid to allow yourself to feel the lyric, feel the song, have a deep
personalization, intension and result that you want.

Get present with yourself like Andrew did. The next thing you know, you’ll be
impressive and incredibly moving.

With my MTP Formula

You Can Have It All!

45
CONGRATULATIONS
If you've read the entire book, now make sure to watch the
Bonus Videos on the BONUSES page...

NOW you’re becoming a Fearless Singer!

And, you're exactly the type of singer I LOVE working with!

WOULD YOU LIKE MORE HELP WITH THIS?

 NEXT STEP
If you'd like some help designing a plan to help you achieve the voice of your
dreams and Sing Fearlessly, then book a call with me!

During our call I’ll give you a plan and a roadmap for overcoming this and get
you on your way to the voice you've always wanted!

😊
Book a Call Now...This is Your Time.

RESERVE YOUR CALL

Important: Please only reserve a call if you've read the entire book. I
only work with very serious singers who understand what I do.

Mike Goodrich