How To Handle Haters – Dealing with Negative Comments About Your Singing

This video is about how to handle haters…dealing with negative comments about your singing.

Let’s be honest.  When someone criticizes your singing, it feels very personal. What do you do? What do you say? Watch and find out!

 

Hi, I’m Chuck Gilmore, International Vocal Coach and Founder of Power To Sing.  Each week I teach you lessons in vocal technique so you can build a powerful and confident singing voice. If you haven’t subscribed yet, please subscribe to my channel Power To Sing. Be sure to click on the bell so you’re notified when I post special videos for you each week.

 

Several weeks ago I received this comment on my YouTube Channel: “Take a gun and blow your head off you sound like s**t*”

 

I then asked him if he was having a bad day. My question was sincere. Sometimes people lash out because they’re upset about something unrelated and they just happen to lash out at you. He responded: “If I sang like that YES”

 

He then added in the next comment: “Same too you lol”

 

The video he commented on didn’t contain any singing from me.  So I’m not sure what of my singing he was criticizing. I sent him a link to a playlist with me singing several songs. I never heard back from him.

 

Through the years on YouTube, I’ve been criticized, although, until this time,  nothing that extreme. As singers we put ourselves out there and from time to time we get negative feedback.

 

Here’s a YouTube comment I received this week. He said:

 

“Hi chuck, somebody had just heard one of my recordings and said it was terrible. I felt very discouraged…..hopefully you might respond to this…People must be more careful.about their criticism as I did not think it was too shabby after all.”

 

How To Handle Haters

 

Here’s how to handle haters, both the purposeful haters and those who mean well but hurt us just the same.

 

When you get negative comments or mean and unsolicited criticism the first thing to do is to do nothing. Don’t respond immediately. Wait until your feelings settle down. If the comments are online, wait an hour or a day. Come back to them later when you’re calm.

 

Once you’ve settled down, you’re ready to deal with the feedback.

 

First ask yourself this question: Is this person someone I know and whose judgement I trust in this matter? If the answer is yes, then you say: “Thanks for your feedback. Tell me more” or “can you be more specific?” You might ask, “What do you recommend?”

 

Engage them in a constructive conversation about how you can improve, or explain why you were doing it this way.

 

If the answer to the above question is yes, you know this person and want to maintain a positive relationship, but do not know or trust their qualifications to give you feedback about your singing, then you might say: “Wow! I’ve not never gotten that kind of feedback. Thank you. What were you hearing?’

 

Let them talk. Maybe they have something that will be helpful. Listen to them and evaluate whether you can use the feedback or not.

 

If the answer to the question is: I don’t know them, nor trust their knowledge or understanding of singing, don’t take it personal. There are 1000’s of people with 1000’s of opinions all based on personal preferences. Truthfully, their feedback is meaningless.

 

Why? Because they’re expressing an opinion based on their personal preferences. No matter how magnificent you are, and you may truly be an amazing singer, the vast majority of people will not care for your voice.

 

For example, I once told someone I really liked Barbra Streisand’s voice. They said to me, “I don’t like her voice at all”. That shocked me. I thought everyone liked her voice. I think she’s a great singer.  Then I realized that if everyone didn’t like her voice, why should I expect that everyone will like mine?

 

Even Lady Ga Ga’s 80 million Twitter followers is a small percentage of 7 1/2 billion people on earth.

 

The very best singers have only a small percentage of people that like their voices. That’s life.

 

That’s why it doesn’t matter when you get negative feedback. Most criticism is arbitrary and based on personal preference and opinion given by people without any knowledge of vocal technique and unqualified to coach or improve your singing. So, treat them kindly, thank them for their feedback and forget it.

 

Is there a time you should listen carefully and take positive action on fair criticism? Yes! When the feedback is given honestly by your trusted and professional vocal teacher. If you don’t listen to people who know more than you do about singing, how will you improve?

Have you ever received hard feedback from someone you trusted about your voice? Did you take action on it? Let me know in the comments section below this Youtube video.

 

Feedback from knowledgeable and trusted teachers can be difficult but positive if you’re open to it. Check out this video about frank criticism I got during a lesson with Seth Riggs. https://www.powertosing.com/how-criticism-of-your-singing-can-help-you/

 

Quality criticism can lead to improvement in our singing. Knowing your vocal type will also help you improve your singing. Your vocal type is not whether you are soprano, alto, tenor or base. Your vocal type describes what your voice does when you sing from chest to head voice.

 

To get your vocal type, download this free PDF, Get Your Vocal Type. Get it here or in the description below this video.

 

Follow the links on the PDF,  take the vocal test and get your vocal type. Then watch the videos about your vocal type and download the exercises for your vocal type. These exercises will help you improve your singing rapidly.

 

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I’m Chuck Gilmore with Power to Sing. You can sing higher with beauty, confidence and power. I’ll see you inside the next video.