Recording is really the best of safety nets in this department because there aren’t many people there to see you supposedly make a fool of yourself by playing a mean air guitar solo, or looking like Joe Cocker when you sing the lead vocal. You can also work on much smaller sections at a time, and this is one area where people don’t take enough advantage in the studio.
Instead of trying to get all the way through a song (in doing backup parts especially), try to map out the various things you do in a song and keep the attitudes separate. In other words, let’s say you are those above-mentioned guitars and horns, and also during the bridge you are doing harmony lyric lines. These are 3 distinctly different things, and to optimize them you probably shouldn’t be going back and forth between them.
Work on all of the guitar parts first – play those air guitars at all times, I find it really helps the groove as well as the attitude to be physically moving with the music, hand strumming in rhythm. Stand like your favorite poser guitar player – be a rock star. Trash a hotel room if you have to.
You can do a few notes, a few bars, or a whole section at a time depending on how well you connect to the part (and know that repeated sections, such as all of the verses or whatever, only need to be done correctly once - they can be pasted in other places if they are the same.)
After you have the guitar parts done, then shake off that guitarist attitude and pull out your air trumpet, sax, or trombone based on what you think your part is. You’ve seen these players, and know they have different attitudes as well – become them. For trumpet, sometimes it sounds really good to cup your hands around your mouth (like when you try to yell to a friend across a large space) to focus and sharpen the sound more. It also relieves a lot of self-consciousness for some reason. You can try this technique on people who are just having a nervous time in the studio no matter what part they are singing!
For lead vocals, first and foremost, there needs to be a connection made to the song first. If the singer has any concerns about pitch, notes, rhythms, etc, you need to help get them out of that mindset. I always say that the worst thing a vocalist can try to do in the studio is to “sing”. Those mechanics are easy to fix, but putting emotion and understanding to a lyric can’t be fixed with any studio tools I’m aware of. Studio bedside manner can be all across the board depending on who the singer is – if they are fragile, or they are trying to convey a lyric with a lot of emotion, positive reinforcement is good, and also imagery to help distract them from that dreaded “singing” thing I was talking about. “OK, you’re on top of a mountain and the girl you love is on the other peak – close your eyes and sing to her.” Or “You’re telling this sleeping girl how much you love her, but don’t want to wake her up because your love will go unrequited.” Just make stuff up, it doesn’t have to be 100% relative to the actual lyric, but can get the vocalist into more of a dramatic state of mind.
For other singers, sometimes you want them to just rock – let go a little more than they are used to. Pump them up, get them excited – even mock insults (as long as they are humorous to the person behind the mic) can help – “C’mon, my mom can sing it like that…I KNOW you can out-rock my mom without even trying!) Of course, you should know the temperaments of the people you are working with before just randomly trying the psych-out stuff, but if you know them reasonably well, basic psychology is your best friend!
Recording is full of not only second chances, but third, forth, tenth and fiftieth chances as well. Make sure the performer is aware of this, that only the best of the best stuff will actually be used. They can sing great stuff, miss one note and bum themselves out. Let them know that 99% of the stuff they did was good – the other 1% will come from another track, or be recorded on another day.
Click on the wrench in the upper left-hand corner to see what else you can do.