Every show requires me to get there early enough to help with setup and preparation. There is work before the work. And then somewhere in the middle of all of that I carve out thirty minutes before I sing my first note — to prepare my voice, my mind, and my body, with few exceptions.

Before that, it starts in the car — humming, sirens, lip trills on the way to the show. Thinking about the word WHO and how it resonates in the front of my mouth. Among other simple tricks I have learned along the way that work for me, that I will share in a later blog.

Once I arrive there is setup to handle first. And then when that is done I get to the real preparation. Wall push-ups and squats to loosen the joints, stretching out the stiffness, shaking out tension like I am having an episode of some kind, which is exactly as dignified as it sounds.

I probably look suspiciously interesting. So, if you have ever seen someone shaking it off behind a building before a show, that was likely me.

Then stillness. Just noticing where the tension lives in my body and breathing through it or out of it.

Tension is the worst enemy of a vocalist. In the body, in the jaw, in the face. You cannot sing free if you are braced for something.

Early in my return to the stage, I found a five-minute meditation to incorporate into the ritual. The guide said to imagine floating in space. Weightless. Arms drifting. Floppy. Zero gravity. A little ridiculous, maybe, but free.

What I actually pictured was Superman.

Rigid. Arms locked in front of me. Flying in a straight line like I had somewhere important to be. Efficient. Controlled. Completely missing the point.

I laughed when I caught myself doing it. Then I realized I was doing the same thing on stage. Standing like I was holding a pose.

I had mistaken tension for readiness.

It is a human reflex. We brace when we care. The more something matters, the harder we grip.

The job interview where you sit so straight your back hurts. The conversation you have been rehearsing for days, delivered with a smile so fixed it could crack. The performance, the presentation, the moment you want to get right — so you lock in, hold your breath, and hope competence looks like control.

But freedom does not come from holding tight. It comes from the opposite. From softness where you expect to need strength. From looseness where you thought you needed form.

On stage, it is obvious when someone is singing free versus singing careful. Careful sounds clean but small. Free sounds like it could go anywhere, and that unpredictability is what makes it alive.

You can hear it in the way a note lands or does not. In whether someone is performing the song or living inside it for three minutes.

The preparation before the show is not about adding more to do. It is about removing what does not need to be there. The idea that if you just hold yourself together tightly enough, sing it right — which is actually a whole other layered subject — nothing will go wrong.

This ritual is how I practice stopping. Stopping the pose. Stopping the performance of the performance. The stage taught me that the moment I stop auditioning for the room and just stand in the song, everything changes. The thirty minutes before is just me trying to remember that before the first note.

Taking it with me when I leave is a completely different skill set.

Because the same quality that locks up a jaw before a song is the same one that gets things done in the real world. It shows up for everything. It finishes what it starts. What it sometimes misses is the feeling of the thing while it is happening.

Connection tends to require a little more looseness than a straight line allows.

More zero gravity drift than Superman on a mission.

The stage is still teaching me that. And because of it I am closer to knowing what floating actually feels like than I was before I stepped onto one.

— Charlie