I was watching ‘The Voice’ last night (don’t judge me) and someone posted on my Fb page, “I was hoping someone would pick up the fat guy. His song choice was terrible, but I thought he sang well.” He was right. The guy (Eric Tipton) nailed it. He sounded like the original (Hall and Oats "You Make My Dreams Come True") and that was the problem. The judges don't want to hear these people perfectly sing someone else’s song; they want to hear what their soul has to say about that song. Imperfections and all.

It’s like in baseball (yes, I'm going to use a sports analogy). It's like a pitcher trying to make the perfect pitch. If he’s not careful, he’ll end up trying to "place his pitches" instead of trusting everything that has led to that moment and just reaching deep into the bottom of his gut, grabbing a 101mph three-seam fast ball, and hurling it at a target that he, doesn't hope he’s going to hit, he knows in his soul he's going to hit. That's what the judges and most music fans want to see. I feel, however, that a lot of vocalists/musicians/writers/comedians/etc. don't trust themselves enough to reach down deep, tug on every ounce of soul and heart they have, and leave it all on the stage.

This is where the term "bare your soul" starts to have real meaning. When you truly bare your soul on stage, you're exposing every part of your being to the world. But more importantly, you’re putting it all out there to be judged which is a very powerful deterring force. No one likes to be judged. And having a performance judged is a lot different than feeling like the truth of who you are is being judged. What ends up happening is the performer hyper focuses on perfecting the song, pitch, inflection, moves, et al. instead of focusing of belting out that song like ONLY that person can do.

Perfect is what we want from our engineers (especially the ones responsible for bridges and planes and such). But when it comes to music; we want to feel what the artist is feeling and to live that moment, if only for a few minutes. If you get into the studio to finally make that record you've always wanted to make, remember, the more “perfect” you try to make it, the more emotional distance you put between yourself and the people you’re trying to connect with.

-Fisher

“’Cause there's beauty in the breakdown" - Frou Frou