Expressive Engagement
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Expressive Engagement
Master Your Talent with SMART Goals and Deliberate Practice
by Suzanne M. Stone
You train like an artist—and now you’ll practice like an athlete. Expressive Practice gives you a clear, step-by-step system to turn scattered effort into steady progress: set SMART goals that actually matter to your repertoire, run focused sessions that target one skill at a time, capture immediate feedback, repeat clean reps, stretch beyond your comfort zone, and protect your voice with rest and recovery. Then you’ll apply it all with whole-body warm-ups, breathing mastery, song-by-song plans, and a built-in Progress Journal so you can see your growth. You leave guesswork behind and build a voice that’s reliable, expressive, and stage-ready.
Ready to unlock your full vocal potential and transform your practice into a powerful journey of artistic growth?
Discover how to turn every practice session into an expressive and impactful experience.
Authored by vocal performance expert Suzanne M. Stone, Expressive Practice: Master Your Talent with SMART Goals and Deliberate Practice is your essential guide to mastering vocal performance through a unique blend of athletic discipline and artistic expression. Whether you're a seasoned vocalist or just starting out, this book equips you with the tools to elevate your skills and connect deeply with your audience.
In this book, you will learn to:
Embrace the mindset of a Vocal Athlete, integrating discipline and creativity.
Master the art of deliberate practice for measurable vocal improvements.
Set and achieve SMART goals tailored to your vocal journey.
Hone specific techniques through focused practice sessions.
Utilize feedback and journaling to track and accelerate your progress.
Expressive Practice turns traditional vocal training on its head, combining scientific knowledge with artistic insight. This book empowers you to perform with confidence, passion, and authenticity.
Start your journey today—transform your vocal practice into an expressive, dynamic art form. Your voice deserves to shine in its most powerful form. Are you ready?
“I’ll be honest, I’ve always struggled with practicing in a way that actually feels productive. Half the time I’d just run through songs I already knew and call it practice, but I wasn’t really getting better. This book kind of called me out on that, but in a good way. It breaks down how to actually set goals that make sense and how to practice with intention instead of just repeating stuff on autopilot. I really liked the “vocal athlete” idea. It makes sense, since singing does take stamina, and treating it like training instead of just “warming up” has already changed the way I approach it. The exercises are straightforward, but what really helped me was the journaling part. Writing down what I did and how it felt makes me notice patterns I’d never paid attention to before.”
Spencer Y.
“I've been a fan of SMART goals but they always seem designed for business or productivity. The focus on SMART goals for performing arts has been super helpful for me. Lots of detail, and practical steps for vocalists to use these kinds of goals and training to help develop skills. As someone who just practiced-practiced-practiced, this has brought focus and intention to how I approach creative skill development. Very well written, clear and logical flow, and lots of content. I highly recommend this book.”
Justine
“The author weaves the 'why practice' with the 'how to practice' in a way that stirs up motivation and momentum! As a teacher, who is always looking for the right tools to encourage progress in students, (and in myself for that matter) this workbook is a great resource!”
Mark R.
Where voice, grief, faith, and hope find words
Suzanne M. Stone is an author, educator, musician, and voice teacher whose work explores the quiet, deeply human places where faith, grief, expression, and belonging meet. Since 1982, she has helped singers and speakers find freedom, courage, and authenticity in their voices through decades of teaching and study in vocal performance, contemporary vocal pedagogy, vocology, and Body Mapping. Her books—including the Expressive Engagement Series, When the Clouds Lift, and Small Invisibilities—give language to experiences that are often carried in silence: performance anxiety, memory loss, invisible sorrow, spiritual longing, and the ache of feeling unseen. Rooted in faith and shaped by a lifetime of walking alongside others in tender moments, her writing offers both honest witness and hope. She lives in Las Vegas, Nevada, with her husband Greg.
Speak and Sing so People Want to Listen
You don’t just want to sound “right”—you want to move people. Expressive Engagement is your hands-on action planner for speaking and singing with power, nuance, and heart. You’ll investigate the building blocks of your voice—pitch, intensity, timbre, rate, rhythm, tone, accent, and more—then translate those insights into clear choices that serve your music, your message, and your story. Step by step, you’ll craft programs that land, shape character and emotion with precision, and use body language that matches what listeners hear. With practical checklists, vocabulary tables, rubrics, and the “Performance Playground” for daily reps, you’ll turn careful preparation into genuine connection—on stage, in the studio, at the mic, or in the room. Show up prepared. Leave them changed.
To Transform Performance Anxiety
You don’t have to “power through” stage fright—you can transform it. Expressive Strategies to Transform Performance Anxiety gives you a practical, science-informed roadmap to convert nerves into usable energy. You’ll learn what’s happening in your body (fight-or-flight, breath, tension), borrow proven tools from sports psychology, build a steady pre-performance routine, and protect your voice with smart recovery, nutrition, and sleep. Then you’ll assemble a personal toolkit: mindset resets, body mapping cues, breathing protocols, visualization, and a performance-day plan—plus reflection worksheets that turn each appearance into data you can act on. You step onstage present, prepared, and steady—so your story, not your stress, takes the spotlight.
A Dialogue of Two Should and Their Savior
What happens when the person you love forgets your name—but you're still standing right there?
Alone and Invisible in the Crowd
Small Invisibilities is a faith-rooted poem about the quiet ache of being unseen in the very places where belonging is supposed to come naturally. Moving through scenes of church pews, church assignments, children excluded from friendship circles, parking-lot grief, and the pain of being measured by usefulness rather than inherent worth, it gathers private sorrows into a shared human experience. At its heart, the poem turns toward the compassionate presence of Christ, who sees fully, does not ask us to become smaller, and reminds us that our worth has no limit.