Why Your Voice Isn’t Moving People (Yet) | Storytelling For Singers

Want to move people with your voice? You’ll need more than just pitch and technique.

Emotional connection isn’t something you either have or don’t. It’s a practiced skill. And just like breath control or tone, it can be developed over time with the right tools.

It’s not about performing fake emotions or trying to act “emotional.” What really works is building a vivid inner world—something that feels real to you. That’s when your voice starts to shift naturally: your phrasing becomes more human, your tone gets more personal, and your delivery becomes unforgettable.

So let’s have a look at some ways you can use to actually start feeling your songs instead of just focusing on hitting pretty notes.

The Visualization Technique

Try building a mental scene:

• Where are you?

• Who are you singing to?

• What are you wearing?

• What time of day is it?

• What’s around you in the room?

The more sensory detail you create, the more real it feels. And when it feels real to you, it starts to sound real to them.

“The more details you can have in your mind, the more real it then starts feeling.”

Whether you’re channeling a specific memory or inventing a scene in your mind, what matters is that you believe it. Because if it’s real for you—it becomes real for your audience too.

Anchor Into Personal Experience

Another option is pulling from your own memory—especially if the song's subject relates to something you've actually experienced. You don’t need to “re-live” the emotion, but you can borrow the energy of that moment and channel it into your tone, phrasing, and delivery.

“It’s about emotionally connecting to ourselves, to the song, and therefore also to others.”

When your voice is emotionally alive, it stops being just “good” or “correct”—and becomes something people remember.

Take A Beat

Most singers just hit play on their song and hope that they’ll connect to the story as they’re singing. This is unfortunately more likely to fail than to succeed.

Once you’ve found a way to connect to your songs it’s important that you take a moment before you start your song to get into that mindset. Coach Emily from our team calls this “breathing in the circumstance” before you sing.

Translating Emotion Into Sound

Sometimes we come across singers that say it’s really hard for them to sing a certain song because they feel so connected to it, yet it doesn’t translate into their performance at all. We don’t just want you to feel the song, but also translate these emotions into your vocal expression so that your audience can better understand how you’re feeling.

This is when understanding dynamic singing is very important. Knowing that a breathy sound makes you sound more vulnerable for example can help place the right tones and embellishments with the emotions you’re trying to convey. To learn more about dynamic singing, check out this post.

It’s Not Always That Deep

Not every song is this tragic story and has huge emotions. Remember, having a good time is also an emotion! Sometimes, we have just have to pretend that we’re in that situation that the song is about and that gets the trick done. But still you have to know what the song is about (to you) so that you can put yourself in it.

Get curious. Paint the scene. Make it specific.

🎧 Check out the full conversation with coach Emily and coach Juliana here:

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