“What do I do with my hands?” asked every student of classical singing, ever. Let’s start with what not to do, because it is easier to identify what looks false or awkward than to answer what to do—which is to portray truthful and meaningful character work.
Top 10 Weird Hand Gestures
10. Holding onto your pants or skirt
9. Cupping hands together
8. Conducting oneself
7. Clenching fists
6. Tapping the rhythm
5. Pointing fingers
4. Hands gesturing airflow
3. Fig leaf position (hands over crotch)
2. Flailing arm movements
1. Hands on tummy
Fix Me
Quick fixes are doomed to look cliché. We have come too far in our high-definition opera broadcast generation to accept singing with outdated gestures. Putting your hands out like Pavarotti will not make you an international opera legend. We cannot watch a video on YouTube and mimic the gesture—that simply won’t have any truth in it.
Movement must have purpose to be genuine and look realistic. Putting yourself into your character with your voice and your body is a must. If you take a risk and explore a new movement while singing, you might trip, it might look or feel strange, it might be fantastic—but it will never be boring. Look further than just your hands and take the time you need to develop character work for both art songs and arias.
In an ideal performance, your hands will follow your heart. Which is to say, you shouldn’t always plan what to do with your hands—allow them to emphasize your phrase. Adding movement for the sake of doing something goes against our natural instincts. We communicate with our bodies, not just our words and not just our hands. To be an interpretive singer, your delivery of a song will connect your breath, your voice, your face, and your entire body, including your hands.
Standing Still
If you find yourself feeling physically awkward during a long introduction or during any part of the song, try to relax your hands. Nervousness is often demonstrated by tension in the hands. Standing still is difficult for many young singers, but it can be the most effective performance technique of them all. Legendary singers master the art of simplicity—both with their voices and their body language.
Music majors on their way to stardom are learning it all at once: classical vocal technique, diction, musical style, theory, history, etc. Many classical singers neglect acting/interpretation because there is already so much technical work going on. After learning your music, you will want to spend time on your interpretation. Create your scene with all the details you can imagine—time of day, scent, heat, scene partners far or near, etc. Then, by existing in this imaginary world, your song will become more specific and your audience will feel connected to your musical journey.
Gestures
When you are singing, allow yourself to gesture similarly to how you would move if speaking. But the music is often faster or slower than day-to-day conversations, and gestures should match the tempo of your phrase. Gestures are reactions to actions and emotions, so allow your gesture the time it needs to help your delivery of the phrase. Sudden arm gestures can look spastic or, worse, they cut off your air and end a note that could have had an exquisite release of tone.
When singing melismatic phrases, singers need to interpret the run with internal dialogue to motivate all those moving notes. For example, thinking, “I said I loved you, didn’t you hear me? What’s taking you so long to get this? We are Romeo and Juliet, you dummy. Oh! You’re about to kiss me. Oh, yes, please.” Then your hands might reach out or open in an authentic way because you are reacting to your scene with all the longing, excitement, sexual frustration, and anticipation that you would feel in real life situations similar to your character’s journey.
So while you are singing long phrases with the highest notes in the aria, you still need to express yourself with your whole body, including your hands, without demonstrating tension. Easy? Well, that’s the goal—to act, react, sing beautifully, and make it look easy.
Christi’s Rules* for Gesturing while Singing
*The best actors break all the rules.
–Opera—more movement allowed but not required
–Art song—less movement preferred, gesturing allowed
–Operetta—movement required, gesturing at a minimum
–Musical theatre—movement required, please no choreography
–Cabaret/crossover—move occasionally, don’t sit on the piano
Prop Problems
Many arias and musical theatre songs require a prop in a staged production. What do you do in an unstaged situation? If you mime a prop or action, such as writing a letter, then you need to mime the prop away! Don’t let it disappear—simply put the imaginary paper and pen down at an appropriate section. If you are singing the Jewel Song and pretend to hold a mirror, pretend to put the mirror down.
If you are uncomfortable pretending, then don’t. Just sing and tell your story with your voice. Audiences in performances will appreciate either choice. Directors know they can put a prop in your hand later—but for an audition, they want to know if you can sing.
Dying Problems
If you die at the end of a song or aria, I do not recommend actual death—nor a dramatic interpretation that involves falling, staggering, gasping, etc. Young singers often forget that teachers and directors know the story. We know the song. We know your character dies. When you are done singing, you can close your eyes for two seconds. Bam, you’re dead and you didn’t sprain an ankle trying to leap into the orchestra pit.
When to Hold onto the Piano
In art song, the voice and the piano are partners. Holding onto the crook of the piano creates both a pretty picture and gives singers a sense of strength. You can ground yourself and physically partner with the piano. I recommend this when you are working on simplicity and learning to be still. You do not have to stay in this position; the piano isn’t going anywhere. If you wander, come back to your partner.
Arias are different because they are extracted from staged productions and they are composed to be sung with orchestra. Your pianist serves as your orchestra, not your duet partner. It can be effective to begin a slow, dramatic aria with your hand on the piano when you are in a room, not on a stage. But I would advise walking a few steps downstage of the piano to create your scene and place your character into the story of the opera so you are not limited by the constraints of the room.
Mirror Work
Watch yourself in the mirror singing an aria from start to finish. For most singers, this is a dreaded exercise, so videoing yourself might be an easier way to see what you are doing physically while singing. Even if you find this work painful, chances are you will see something you did well. If you like the position of your hands at any given moment, ask yourself, “What was I thinking at that moment?”
Recreating honest hand gestures is not about posing, mimicking or choreographing. The most beautiful, heartbreaking, or delightful gestures come with specific intentions. Hopefully these intentions are inspired by both the text and the music. The book The Third Line: The Opera Performer as Interpreter by Daniel Helfgot and William O. Beeman will help you explore this concept in detail.
The mirror is your best coach as a singing actor. For one thing, it’s free. For another thing, it doesn’t lie. If you do not like what you are seeing, then why would you present that for a jury, an audience, or an audition? If you get stuck on what you do not like, then write down the problem section, go back to your text, and re-examine your character’s journey through the aria or song.
Next, take your questions about presentation to your teacher, a director, or an acting coach that can help you identify places where you can make mental decisions that will inspire physical changes that are honest and natural.
“Acting is the ability to live truthfully under the given imaginary circumstances.”—Sanford Meisner
Vocal music majors have rigorous degree tracks with more credit requirements than most other degree programs. That said, finding time to take an acting course with your theatre department is one of the best ways you can put yourself together as a singer. Discovering new techniques for interpretation will help you get ahead as a student and prepare you for auditions when you are ready to land your first roles.
Your theatre program might advocate the Meisner Technique, the Stanislavski Method, or a hybrid of these and others. My studies in these methods aided my metamorphosis from just a pretty voice into an employed singing actor.
“The language of the body is the key that can unlock the soul.”—Constantin Stanislavski
Stanislavski’s Method for actors includes answering the what, when, where, why, and how questions. His teachings lead actors to trust their authentic selves and create truthful moments on demand by trusting inner experiences to portray external experiences. Of course, there are many songs and arias that depict melodramatic scenes that I hope you have not experienced! Within any acting technique, there are tools to help your concentration and motivate your actions and reactions based on your own experiences.
The “moment before” is one of the most important techniques a classical singer should work on. Singers might burst into song walking down the hallways—but on stage, a song will be more poignant if it comes from a thought or the knowledge of what just happened in the opera. If you are singing an aria with recitative, the recit serves as your moment before to set up the emotional plight of the aria. If you have a long introduction, that can serve as your moment.
Rhonda Carlson calls this “the backstory” and she writes about the mistake of using the introduction of a song to fix hair or clear your throat. “When the singer suddenly engages on the first sung note,” she writes, “it creates a sort of dramatic whiplash.” Carlson’s book What Do I Do With My Hands?: A Guide to Acting for the Singer is a comprehensive book of information, techniques, and helpful tools for singers of all levels.
Make a New Plan, Stan
To understand what to do with your hands, you must understand your character and have a specific plan for your song or aria. Your audience needs to see and hear a change by the end of the song—a change of heart, a commitment to your lover, a decision to laugh it off or give in to your desires or take revenge, etc. When you have a plan, you can analyze the action by both the text and changes in music. The great classical composers have literally spelled it out for you. It is the singer’s job to interpret these changes and bring the character to life with your unique voice.
There isn’t a “right” way to do this. But there is a “wrong” way, and that is to do nothing. Take a risk, break the rules, and let your hands follow your heart. Most operas are not subtle, which gives us remarkable opportunities to explore crazy, devoted, angry, silly, murderous, or blissful acting moments.
At the end of the day, it’s not about your hands, although the hands get blamed for demonstrating nerves. Your hands are an extension of your character work and your musical expression. Do your homework, take risks, and practice being in the moment. These are just a few ways you can work on trusting your character choices—and when you trust yourself, you will trust your hands.
