On Saturday I was a participant in a masterclass, in which one point above all others was drilled into us - words! Too often we think "I am going to sing to you now.", and let the focus on this get in the way of conveying the text itself. The notes will come once learnt, and of course a rock solid technique is vital, but a song is nothing if there is no emotion or meaning in the words.
One way of helping with this is to recite the words without the music, in their original poetic format, taking great care and detail in the way you want each word to be expressed to carry your meaning over to the audience. Tell it as though you were a highly skilled actor delivering a monologue. Now keep doing this, until you are completely happy with your interpretation - how can you convey meaning unless you're sure of what you want it to mean yourself? And once you're completely happy? Forget that interpretation, find a new one. Explore the text from all possible angles, until you have the deepest understanding of it. Now, imagine that instead of "singing" you are "saying words to notes". Imagine that you are reciting the poem as before, but this time notes are coming out. It's such a hard thing for me to describe, whilst I am still only learning myself, but when you really get it, there is such a great feeling of freedom.
