It's the song, not the singer

From my new Tuvan throat singing CD to my new fascinations with Fado and Rembetika to the Tex, Don and Charlie show I saw on Saturday night at Melbourne's beautiful Athenaeum Theatre, I have been blessed with good sounds this year and particularly good singing. See Diamanda Galas post.

I am filling with new and interesting sounds but I need to get them out of my body with as little interference as possible. Seeing Ms. Galas, in particular, really brought home the terrible ambiguity I sometimes feel onstage, where there's too much mental interference going on to really, purely express.

I'm talking about moving beyond vocal technique. I want to communicate the emotions of the words and melody, being completely in the moment of the song. I do get there, especially in the songs with my band and my own songs, but not consistently.

Sometimes I do a dodgy show (too much smoke in the room, underprepared, out of sorts, unwell etc etc) and people will still like it. I read today about the ambiguity or contempt some comedians get running the same routine past lots of people and having it all become predictable. I have felt something similar over the last 18 months, like I'm out of my groove. I'm gracious, but if people complement me and it's unwarranted, I wonder how discerning they can really be when I am actually inside the song and... flying.

I can perform the illusion of deep emotion and intensity when it's not there, which disturbs me because I'm not sure how many people are fooled. I want to move beyond performance into, I don't know... transcendence. Where I am pure copper wire between the song and the audience, where my voice tells the story fresh every time it's sung, where it's all genuine.

I'd love this blog to be a forum to discuss this stuff. I'd like to hear your experiences.
Sam