What Makes a Great Singer: Skill or Emotion?

With over a hundred years of recorded history, music has seen plenty of absolutely amazing singers. Every era had its popular vocalists, some of whom reached “larger than life” status. Icons like Elvis Presley, Freddie Mercury, Whitney Houston, Nina Simone, Tom Jones, the list goes on and on.

But what made these incredible singers that great? What did they have, that allowed them to capture attention of millions of music fans for so many years? Was it their trained vocal skill or something more – a natural talent to deliver emotions through their voice?

In the argument “What Makes a Great Singer: Skill or Emotion?”, I always choose the “Emotion” side. A singer can develop their vocal performance and skills through training. However, the natural ability to capture and deliver strong emotions with a voice is something you either have or you don’t.

How Important Is Skill?

Not to say that an artist doesn’t need to train at all. It is very important, and can help develop a vocal talent for sure. You can have a born given voice but if you don’t develop it, you might never reach your full potential.

Then there’s also health and longevity benefits to using a voice skillfully. It’s not a secret that singing can be quite stressful on vocal cords. Try continuously speaking or reading aloud for at least 30 minutes, and you will feel these stress on your voice yourself. If overused and with the lack of rest, a vocalist can easily loose their voice. Knowing the proper vocal techniques can help mediate these negative effects, at least to a certain degree.

So yes, knowing how to use your voice, how to train and practice certain techniques definitely helps. But it’s not the ultimate secret ingredient that creates a great singer.

Ability To Sing Emotionally

What separates good singers from the great ones is their instinctive, natural gift of pouring their soul into singing. It’s the innate ability to not only make the listeners believe the emotions a singer is expressing, but to also make the audience feel those emotions themselves.

Take some of the greatest music performers in history like Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Mick Jagger, Jim Morrison. Did they have great voices? – Yes, they did. But did they have huge vocal ranges, or were they flawless technically? The answer is – No. And yet, it didn’t stop them from becoming music icons. They proved that being a perfect vocalist is not a requirement.

What a great singer must have is the ability to capture audience with their emotion and charisma. Be it joy, or sadness, or excitement – the listener must believe the story, and live through what the singer is singing about. No technique can replace that ability.

Skill vs Emotion

So if “emotion” is better than “skill”, does it make the latter insignificant? Obviously not. There are skills that help to deliver the emotions. Singers train them to become better all the time. Depending on the music genre, some are almost obligatory. Like an opera singer for example. Without training they won’t be able to reach the audience simply because they will not sound good enough.

The balance between these two factors can vary: it can be 60% skill vs 40% talent. Or 20% skill vs 80% raw ability. Depending on the singing style and the genre, any combination can be the right one. But it’s always better to have at least a bit of skill. That brings me to my next point

What Separates Good Singers From Great Ones

There are many good singers in the world. Some possess charisma, some have powerful voices, some have a talent to deliver emotional performance with their voice. But the most iconic, legendary singers I know about – have all of that combines. In different proportions, but they still have it all.

Take Tom Jones for example. The man was given a nickname “The Voice”! Elvis himself admired Tom’s rich and deep voice. Just as he could make people smile and dance with his upbeat songs, he could also make people tear up with his emotional ballads. And he had an excellent technique to go along with his natural gifts.

Or take Whitney Houston as another example. An absolute legend of a singer. And just like Sir. Tom, she had the whole package too. I mean beautiful and powerful voice, tons of charisma and amazing emotion in her delivery. And of course a very strong skillet to support her natural talent.

Conclusion

A good singer does not need to have an extraordinary voice from the beginning. History shows that what matters most is the ability to emotionally connect with the listener through their performance. With practice and training certain weaknesses can be improved. But even with them, an emotive voice can enough for great success.