How To Sing With Emotion | From Pretty Notes to Powerful Storytelling
From Pretty Notes to Powerful Storytelling – Juliana Coaches Lara
I had the absolute joy of sitting down with the amazing Juliana—one of our superstar coaches and artist development expert here at VoxTape Studios—and we went deep. We talked about how she helps her students find their own voice and she even coached me through a song as well - helping me create more contrast and tell the story in a more powerful way.
If you’ve ever felt like you’re singing all the right notes but something’s missing—this one’s for you.
Here’s how it went:
*Scroll down to the bottom of the page to watch/listen to the podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcast or YouTube*
Making You More Well Rounded
🎙 Lara: You love working on artistry with your singers. How do you go about helping them find their own sound?
💬 Juliana: I like to challenge the opposite of what they like because if you keep doing the same things over and over again, you’ll start getting stagnant.
This was fascinating to me. I’ve worked with over 15 different coaches throughout my singing journey and no one ever did this with me. But it totally makes sense! In order for us to find our sound we need to explore first, and what better way to explore than by doing the opposite of what you’ve always done? This is expand your skill set and give you more options to choose from.
Is Technique Important?
🎙 Juliana: It’s hyper important to not think about technique. Cause then that gets in the way.
Listen, technique is important (duh)—but when it’s time to perform, you gotta trust the technique and just let go. Stop micromanaging (and judging!) every sound and let the emotion and story of the song lead.
Luckily the song I picked to work on with coach Juliana - Video Games by Lana Del Rey - is an easy song for me to sing, which gave me the perfect opportunity to focus on the storytelling and artistic expression of the song.
This Is What Lights Up Your Audience - This Is How You Make Your Audience Love You - Make Your Audience Cry
🎙 Juliana: When I first saw the reactions people had to my singing I knew that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. But we don’t get these kinds of reactions from hitting pretty and impressive notes… We get them from raw emotion and artistry.
The storytelling side of singing—the honesty, the messiness, the realness - that’s what she pulls out of her students so that they too can make their audience feel something.
Here’s the thing… A perfect performance is boring to watch. It feels too fake and robotic to us humans - especially in the age of AI and autotune! Our audience lives for these real, honest and imperfect moments. It reminds them that were are just human too and that they are not alone in how they’re feeling.
That One Question That Shifted Everything
🎙 Juliana: What emotion are you trying to convey with this?
That was the moment for me. Not “is this note perfect?” or “how’s my vibrato?”—but what am I actually trying to say?
I’m almost a little embarrassed to admit this, but I sometimes tend to forget to pay attention to what the song is about and what emotions I want my audience (and myself!) to feel… but that’s what singing is all about!
🎙 Juliana: Cause then it becomes intentional. Then it becomes authentic and it’s not just pretty notes coming out of someone.
That’s the stuff. We don’t want our audience to STOP being singers - we want them to be MORE than singers so I would rephrase it like this: That’s when you’re not just a singer anymore, but an artist as well.
Emotional Singing Tips
Once you know what your song is about, it’s time to make it feel real. I want you to see the movie (the story of the song) play in your head as you’re singing it. Who’s there? Where are you? What are you wearing? What is happening? How did we end up here? The more detailed you can be, the more real it will feel. Cause here’s the thing… we can only make our audience feel something if we ourselves are feeling it too.
🎙 Juliana: I like to create waves of emotion and contrast to keep the listener engaged.
I loved that tip she shared with me! Instead of keeping everything at the same volume and intensity throughout, she made me play with creating these waves (like ocean waves) and it was super powerful.
If you’re anything like me and sometimes get caught up in sounding perfect— I hope that this reminds you why you started singing in the first place. To tell stories. To feel things. To make other people feel things.
🎧 Go give the full episode a listen and watch me get coached by Juliana (coaching starts at 33:00). It’s raw, it’s real, and it might just change how you sing.
Follow Juliana and her journey on Instagram @juliana.beltran
Check out her original music here: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5NfNMKwOPzCw9S1s3OMS6z?si=gF8GZXHQQ1Sy7a481U5Zsw
Prefer Listening To The Podcast On Your Favorite Platform? Listen Below.
