There is a reason this particular live performance keeps coming up in conversations about modern pop singing. Selena Gomez took to the stage and delivered a back to back run of Lose You to Love Me and Look at Her Now, two songs that lean heavily on breath, restraint and emotional storytelling rather than wall to wall power.
It is a masterclass in saying a lot while doing very little, and that is exactly the kind of control that takes real training to build.
In this post we break down the vocal technique behind both songs so you can understand what is happening underneath the surface, and more importantly, how you can start working toward those sounds in your own voice.
The Breathy Opening of Lose You to Love Me
The very first thing you hear in Lose You to Love Me is a soft, intimate, breath led sound. This is created with thinner vocal folds and a small amount of air passing through the tone. The trick that many singers miss is that breathy singing only works when the volume stays relatively low.
Push the volume up while still letting that much air through and the sound falls apart quickly. You will notice the microphone is held extremely close to the mouth in this opening, and that is no accident. Working close to the mic lets a quiet, breathy delivery still read as full and present to the audience.
If you want to experiment with this delivery at home, keep these practical points in mind.
- Keep your volume soft so the breath does not overwhelm the pitch.
- Sing close to a microphone so the quiet sound still carries.
- Aim for thinner vocal folds with only a touch of air, not a heavy push of breath.
- Practise holding that soft texture steady before adding any volume.
Glottal Onsets and Why Selena Gomez Lets a Little Air Escape
Listen closely at the start of certain phrases and you can hear Selena Gomez reaching for a glottal onset, which is where the vocal folds come together first and the sound begins from that closed position. In a couple of moments a little puff of air breaks away instead.
This is a really useful thing to understand, because it happens to almost everyone. When we push too much air or too much effort behind a glottal onset, it actually does the opposite of what we intend.
Instead of bringing the vocal folds neatly together, the extra pressure forces them back apart. The fix is rarely more effort. It is usually less air and a calmer, more balanced setup before the note begins.
Falsetto and Stiff Vocal Folds in Lose You to Love Me
Several of the most delicate moments in Lose You to Love Me sit in a falsetto quality. Falsetto is produced when the vocal folds are stiff and only a tiny portion at the front is touching, which gives that hollow, hooty texture with very little core to the sound.
It is worth being clear that falsetto is not a fault or a sign of poor control. Sometimes, though, when you are aiming for a thin fold with breath and a few nerves creep in, falsetto becomes the natural outcome rather than a deliberate choice.
The important thing to recognise is its limitation: because there is so little fold contact, falsetto does not gain volume well when you try to push it. Knowing that in advance lets you plan your dynamics instead of fighting the sound.
How Selena Gomez Handles Vocal Crackle
At the start of some phrases you can hear a small crackle in the tone. This can come from any number of things, from nerves to a cold a couple of weeks earlier to a long day of interviews, and it is genuinely impossible to know the cause from the outside.
What matters is the response. Rather than drawing attention to the catch, the smart move is to work with whatever the voice gives you on the day and shape it so a casual listener never notices. This is the real payoff of solid vocal technique. It is not about having a perfect instrument every single time.
It is about managing your expectations of your voice and making appropriate adjustments in the moment so the performance still lands.
Darkening the Tone in Lose You to Love Me
There is a lovely technical detail in the lower, breathier lines of Lose You to Love Me. Carrying that much air through a tone low in the range is surprisingly difficult, so you can see the lips coming forward to darken the sound.
Rounding the lips like this does two helpful things at once. It shifts the colour of the vowel toward something warmer and more covered, and it creates a slightly smaller opening at the mouth.
That smaller aperture builds a little back pressure, which in turn helps the vocal folds come together more reliably. It is a small physical adjustment that solves a real coordination problem.
Pulling Back to Stay in Tune with Selena Gomez
When the second section of the song arrives, Selena Gomez deliberately uses a smaller sound with less breath, and the benefit is immediate. Less air means better vocal fold contact, and better contact makes the pitch far easier to control.
This is one of the most useful lessons a developing singer can take away. When breath starts to disrupt a phrase more than you wanted, the answer is usually to pull back on the air and pull back on the volume.
That reduction is what brings the pitch back under control. Breathiness is a wonderful colour, but it needs to be managed rather than maximised.
Switching Into Look at Her Now
The performance then moves into Look at Her Now, which shares a very similar vocal world. This kind of delivery is often described as whisper singing, a style that gained real momentum a number of years ago and is genuinely tricky to execute.
The whispered, airy approach sounds effortless, but it is one of the hardest things to keep in tune over a sustained passage, precisely because there is so little fold contact to anchor the pitch.
Understanding that difficulty up front is half the battle. If you know the style is fighting you on tuning, you can prepare for it rather than being surprised by it.
Whisper Singing and Slack Vocal Fold Onsets in Look at Her Now
The foundation of Look at Her Now is what is sometimes called a slack vocal fold onset, the slowest and gentlest way the folds can begin to move. Creating that onset relies on very low air pressure and very low volume. What is remarkable is that even at that whisper level, every single word stays intelligible.
That clarity does not come from the folds themselves, which are barely engaged. It comes from strong, well trained articulation muscles in the lips, cheeks and tongue carrying the words across the soft sound. Here is what makes that whisper style work.
- Use very low air pressure to allow a slack, gentle onset.
- Keep the overall volume low and consistent across the phrase.
- Lean on the lips, cheeks and tongue to keep every word clear.
- Practise with a microphone so you do not force the sound out of tune.
Articulation: The Real Secret Behind Selena Gomez’s Clarity
It is tempting to think a whispery sound is built purely by practising endless scales on that one quality, but the truth is more interesting. Selena Gomez stays understandable in the softest passages because the surrounding muscles of the lips, cheeks and the wider vocal tract are doing serious work.
Strong articulation is where intelligibility lives, where a lot of pitch stability comes from, and where a quiet style gains the consistency it needs to survive on a big stage. If your whisper singing feels unstable or muddy, the fix is often not in the folds at all. It is in building up the muscular control around them.
Full Vocal Fold Closure and the Big Moments in Look at Her Now
The contrast arrives near the end of Look at Her Now. On the lines where the energy lifts, you can hear full vocal fold closure switch on.
There is a clear jump in volume, the breath drops away from the sound, and there is a noticeable increase in thyroid tone that brightens and strengthens the note. You will even see the microphone move further from the mouth, which is a dead giveaway that the voice has gained real power.
These louder closing lines often function as adlibs, the slightly improvised flourishes that tend to appear as a track keeps rolling toward the finish. Hearing the shift from slack, breathy onsets to firm, fully closed notes within the same song is a perfect illustration of how much range of fold contact a trained singer can call on.
What Selena Gomez Teaches Us About Pacing a Performance
Perhaps the biggest lesson from this whole performance is about strategy rather than any single sound. Across both songs there are moments where the voice is clearly being held back, with plenty of energy and emotion poured into the delivery while the vocal effort stays conservative.
We do not always need to let an audience know exactly what is going on inside our bodies, and choosing restraint is a completely valid artistic decision. It also matters for stamina.
A short festival or awards slot of a few minutes asks very different things of a voice than a two or three hour headline show, so the smart approach is to read what you can realistically do on the day and make the most of it. Sometimes the most professional choice is to hold back, perform, and leave the audience wanting more.
If you want to learn more about how you can learn to implement these singing techniques into your own voice, let’s sit down for a chat and discuss if the vocal academy is the right fit for you. You can join us here.