Singing in a group, ensemble or choir can be challenging. How do you make the group sound great without losing your own identity of a singer? How can you use it to improve your own skills? You’ll be surprised at the answers in this episode of The Voice Club’s Sing Out Proud Podcast

Ready to take your voice to the next level? Check out online training at The Voice Club Academy

Hitting Bottom

Where is the bottom of your range?  Well, it can vary slightly depending on what time of day it is, how warmed up your voice is and other factors.  But there’s a simple way to give it a test run:  just sing one note at a time down to where you can’t clearly go any further.  Now, for the magic ‘expand-o-range’ trick:

Starting anywhere you like, say “Ahhhh” and slide gently down as low as you can comfortably go. 

“Ahhh” should feel like your sinking into a comfy chair at the end of a long day.  Try it again and try sliding gently lower. 

Do this a couple of times a day and you’ll actually start to expand your usable bottom notes (as long as you are accessing them the same way when you sing and not ‘shoving your voice down’ to them).

Singing Low Notes in a High Song

When the melody of a song only briefly dips into the bottom end of your range before sailing back to the top your brain only wants to think about the high notes.  It thinks the low notes are easy and need no help but the truth is that if your bottom end isn’t warmed up on a song like this your voice just ain’t going low without a fight.

Many songs start low in the verses and fly high in the chorus, so it’s extra important to prepare your voice to relax to the very bottom before you sing them.  Check out the video below and see how I helped a student prepare for just such an occasion:

Give your low notes the credit they deserve.  Warm them up, continually expand them and they will thank you with an overall increased vocal range and a comfort starting in almost any key that you never knew was there!

Ready to take your voice to the next level? Check out online training at The Voice Club Academy

Don’t think so?  Just consider that happens to the rest of you the first day you run out of the house without a jacket forgetting the seasons have changed; your body tenses, your muscles shrink back in protest and even your brain looks for the quickest escape.

Your voice is no different.  Just like the rest of your body, your vocal cords are dependent on groups of muscles, skin and tissues to stay relaxed, warm and pliable so they can do their job.  So what are the best ways to keep that hot voice when singing in the cold?

Warm Your Cords

You warm up every time you sing.  Right?  RIGHT?!  Good.  Well, that vocal warmup becomes THREE TIMES more important when you’re singing in the cold.  The muscles responsible for zipping your vocal folds/cords up and down are going to need some extra prompting.  If you lied about warming up, this is the time to fess up and start warming up!

Warm Your Throat

Just like a hot bubble bath has the feel good factor after a long trek in the snow, a nice warm beverage will have your throat relaxed in no

time.  Us vocal teacher types are known for telling you to lay off the lattes and hot chocolate.  It’s the milk factor.  But if you’re going to throw that rule out the window there is no better time than when you’re about to sing outside in the cold.  If you’re a purest, go for some hot tea. Honey has good properties too.  Just skip the lemon; it will speed dehydration and you don’t need any help with that!

Warm Your Neck

Now that you’ve warmed your vocal cords and the tissues around them, wrap a nice big blanket around them to lock it all in.  Well, a blanket might look a bit odd, so maybe a nice big scarf.  Whenever you sing in the cold, wearing a warm scarf will preserve both the warmed up muscle and tissues but also help to keep your voice from dehydrating so fast in the cold air.  Make your own stylistic choices, just make sure it includes a scarf that covers from chin to coat.

Follow these three steps and you’ll help your voice make it through one of the most difficult situations to sing in. 

Have a story of singing in the cold?  SHARE IT BELOW!

Ready to take your voice to the next level? Check out online training at The Voice Club Academy

How vibrato works

• Your vocal cords are moved by groups of muscles that surround them
• Vibrato happens when the muscles pulse; think of a baby bouncing on a mother’s knee
• Any sound that does that is a vibrato.  But who wants to sound like that?

The Secret Behind a Beautiful Vibrato

• To take a vibrato from ugly to nice requires vocal fitness; it takes the ability to control the muscle coordination.
• People who are born with a natural vibrato usually lack the ability to control it.  But gaining control will allow you to really color songs with your vibrato like a true artist.
• People who don’t have a natural vibrato are honestly no further away from discovering a beautiful vibrato than those who are born with it.  When you develop the coordination to control the muscles that make vibrato you will have just as beautiful a vibrato as anyone who’s been doing it their whole lives.
• What determines how fast you can develop a beautiful, controlled vibrato?  The right instruction and you!

How to Control a Warbly Vibrato

• A warbly sound is not the vibrato that most of us want.
• Just like a singer without a natural vibrato and weak muscle coordination will sound a bit ugly when they try a note with vibrato, a singer WITH a natural vibrato who lacks muscle coordination will also sound less than lovely.
• If you’ve got an over active vibrato it just means that the muscles that control your voice are wimpy; kind of like your stomach muscles after having a baby.  For you, building muscle coordination and a balanced voice will tighten those muscles and give you greater control over them.  THEN your vibrato will be a slow, fast, narrow or wide as you choose EVERY TIME.

Feel vibrato today!

• [Audio exercise]

 Want to see a student discovering her vibrato for the 1st time?  Check out this video Lesson Sneak Peak!

Have a question/comment about vibrato?  Type it in below!

Ready to take your voice to the next level? Check out online training at The Voice Club Academy

Can You Learn to Sing Better on Your Own?

YES:

Practice and experience WILL develop the voice you have

DO IT:

If you have some good direction and you don’t have a need for immediate improvement

NO:

If you’re singing with bad vocal technique or in any way that causes pain, strain or discomfort of any kind

DON’T DIY:

If you want to see results fast

If you need to correct vocal problems

How to Know if DIY is Right for Your Voice

Do you just want to lose a few pounds to fit into your skinny jeans? (I’m just singing at home for fun)

Do you need to lose 20 pounds for a special event coming soon? (I want to or am singing in public)

Do you want to see defined muscles and look lean in a bikini?  (I want to or am singing solo in public)

Are you training for a Triathlon? (singing competitions, musical theater performers, indie artists, aspiring solo artists)

Warning Signs for Singing DIYers

If you’re a singing DIY’er testing out different things you hear, watch for these signs that you may need some additional help:

• You’re feeling pain or strain when you sing
• All your notes sound or feel airy
• You experience fatigue after you sing
• You don’t see marked improvement in a year
• You find you have more questions than answers

DIY Singing Quick Start Tip

An essential vocal exercise for the DIYer [see audio]

Have you worked on your voice on your own?  What worked?  What didn’t?  Tell us your story below.

Ready to take your voice to the next level? Check out online training at The Voice Club Academy

The Kinds of Singing Pain That Signals Trouble Ahead

We are about halfway through the summer and I just completed a long road trip. Did you notice that everyone in the world seems to be doing construction during the holiday? Everything is closed down from three lanes to one and you have those great cones directing you and thousands of other vehicles, including the huge semi- trucks into one tiny lane for, I don’t know, three States. That was pretty much what my two day drive there and back was like. Sometimes when I’m passing through the cone zones, I will count how many times people have smashed into cones because secretly I want to run through them and go to the open lane where no one is clearly working. But the truth is that the cones are there for our protection. Let’s say there is legitimately construction up ahead, if you hit one cone it’s like, “Whoop, I better get in my lane.” Hit two cones and you’re like, “Yeah we are getting off the right track here”. Hit three cones, “Disaster Ahead”. Not to mention that fines double in construction zones.

Well that’s what different kinds of pain and discomfort are for your voice. There like warning cones. You feel pain one time when you sing and it should peak your interest like, “Huh why do I feel that pain?” Feel that pain again, ‘Huh, I really need to get some help for this.” Feel that pain again, “Disaster Ahead! Get Help now.”

Pain, Discomfort and What it Really Means

First of all, not all singers that have problems with their voice say, “I have pain when I sing.” Sometimes they will say, “It’s more like soreness in my throat when I sing or sometimes after I sing. Sometimes it just feels like my voice is really exhausted and tired.” Have you ever felt the “scratchy voice” and you feel like you have a catch in your throat afterwards? Sometimes it gets to the level of hoarseness or loss of voice, usually this is the day after. You get up the next morning after you have been singing and you sound like you have laryngitis. Sometimes it just really hurts to talk so you decide you better not talk and it’s probably a good idea. But many times its just plain pain. Your throat hurts. Your voice hurts, during singing, after singing, sometimes two or three days after singing. Too many cones my friend. So why does it hurt to sing. Well to answer that we have to answer a more important question, does it feel that way when you talk?

Why it Hurts

    It all goes back to the way the voice works. Your vocal cords live inside a little box called the Larynx. If you were to run your finger down your chin, down your throat, you would feel a little bump. Guys it’s really easy for you, it’s your Adams apple. Girls ours is tucked away in there a little bit, you can feel it if you run your finger down there. If you put your finger on it you will want to move it side to side, if you put your hand on it you can feel the vibration when you talk. That’s because your Larynx is the Chamber of your Chords. Making sound doesn’t have so much to do with the Larynx, because the Larynx is more of the house for the vocal cords, but it has to do with the vocal cords closing and resisting the air flow coming from your lungs. It’s kind of like barn doors closing. They will close and a big wind storm will come and go “Whooooooooooo!” That’s a simplistic way of explaining how it makes sound. The wind comes up, the barn doors, or the vocal cords, close against them and resist the air flow, a little bit of air gets through “Whoooooo!”  If the barn doors are too open they go “woo”.

Your Voice Already Knows What to Do

To make different pitches, the vocal cords zip up like a zipper. It’s kind of like a rubber band. Have you ever made your own DIY guitar with rubber bands? The big fat ones that are loose are low sounding and the really tiny ones and you pull tight are very high sounding, it’s the same thing. Your cords actually get really thick at the bottom when they’re open, and then they zip up and they thin out like pulling a rubber band at the top. So there’s zipping up and zipping down and thinning out at the top and getting  thick at the bottom all while resisting the air.
How do they do that? Well there are several groups of muscles that work together kind of like a finely tuned engine, shifting gears.  They are handing off and deciding who needs to close which part and who’s in control of thinning out the cords. So all of these muscles are working together to make the vocal cords zip up and down and come together to do what they need to do. When all those muscles do what they are supposed to do seamlessly, it’s like a sports car shifting gears.

That happens in speech. That’s why when you’re talking to your friend’s you don’t go “Oh my goodness I just really couldn’t possibly speak that loud about anything” and you also don’t say, “Oh my goodness, I could never speak that high because I just don’t think that I have those notes in me.” You don’t even think about it you just do it. Why do you do it? Because the muscles know what to do, they trade off, they shift and they get the cords zipping up and thinning out and doing what they need to do to resist the air flow and bang there you go. You are a conversationalist. No training needed. Your voice just does it naturally.

So Why Isn’t It Doing It?

What is getting in the way of that just doing what it does when you sing and causing you pain? Have you ever felt yourself reaching for a note? Sometime you feel like you have to scream to get it and then you feel like you’re tired after that. A lot of times we aim at a note because we don’t think we can reach it and we are just taking a stab on how to get to it. Sometimes we have heard other people sing something and we say “I want to sound like that” so we copy what we do and it results in this forced kind of feeling when we are aiming for those high notes.

Copying may even get you to the note that you are heading to but here is the problem with it. When you aim for a note that way, what happens in your body is that it’s engaging the swallowing muscles. The Larynx, the house that your vocal cords are in, yanks up. When that happens it sets a whole chain of events in motion that are like a whole mile of cones.

The Proof

Try something here for a minute. Say ABC. Now swallow. Now do them both at the same time. Doesn’t work does it?
It doesn’t work because what happens when the Larynx goes up is it closes the epiglottis. There is this little flap that goes between the food pipe and the wind pipe, it’s there to protect you from basically shooting food down your wind pipe and choking yourself to death. It just works automatically, as soon as the Larynx goes up the body says, “Oh it’s time to close the wind pipe.”

The problem with that is your vocal cords are in the wind pipe that’s how you’re trying to get your sound out. So while you are trying to get that note out there your Larynx is going up and its choking off the windpipe and it’s trying to shut it. That’s why you feel that strain, that’s why you feel that pain, and that’s why it can cause vocal damage.

You have a fight going on inside. Another name for yanking the larynx up, which closes the windpipe, which causes all sorts of problems, is pulling chest voice. Basically because “Chest Voice” is the name given to the very very bottom of the notes in your register, speaking or otherwise, they reverberate most in the chest, so that’s why we call it chest voice.  It’s the very bottom notes. So when you pull up or yank your chest voice way beyond where it’s supposed to go in speech, the larynx goes up, the epiglottis tries to close and you’re in a battle for your life, or at least your note.

How to Reach Notes without Discomfort

We have identified what’s going wrong, that’s causing you the pain, so how do we fix it?  Somewhere along the line you have learned to yank up your chest voice to aim at notes. So, basically, you have to unlearn the bad habit that is pulling your chest voice and you have to learn to sing the way you speak.  A key to that is that you have to remind your voice what it feels like to have your larynx down to be really at a speech level.

Along with getting our larynx to relax, which it does automatically in speech, we need to learn to let the muscles shift and work together like that finely tuned sports car in singing. When it does that in speech it’s called mixing. It mixes a little bit of chest voice and a little bit of head voice, which is the name for the top part of your register. Everything in between has to be a mixture of those two and when that happens no pain, all gain. The answer is always the mix.

Alright you’re saying, “Sign me up teach me that, give me a couple of exercises and I’ll get that sucker down and we’ll be just fine.” Well think about how long it took you to learn to sing the way that you do. It could have been months but more than likely it’s been years, maybe decades. The truth is once you have learned a habit of totally not mixing in singing. 

It takes a trained instructor that understands the mix to definitively get you there.  A good instructor will help you from creating new bad habits that can cause damage while you get a feel for what mixing in the singing voice feels like. 

How Long Will This Take?

So how long would it take you to learn to mix, keep your larynx down, not yank those notes, and not to have pain when you sing? I have to be honest; it just depends on the quality of your instructor, how bad your non-mixing habits are and how willing you are to do the work it takes and to learn how to sing the way that you speak.

But there are two things that you can start doing today to start heading the right way. [SEE AUDIO FOR QUICK START TIP]

Get Started

If you are looking for some professional help for your voice we do provide one on one online lessons via Skype at The Voice Club.  If you just want to find a qualified instructor in your own area I’m happy to refer you to someone who really knows their stuff. 

If you have a singing question that you want answered by a pro, email me at Podcast@TheVoiceClub.com .  I’d love to hear from you!

Ready to take your voice to the next level? Check out online training at The Voice Club Academy

Is Singing Learned?

Point in case; iCarly’s star Miranda Cosgrove.  In her role in Jack Black’s Movie School of Rock she was actually trained to sing badly.   But when she moved on to her pop career phase she realized what she had been taught had stuck.  She had actually become a really bad singer.

Miranda’s experience is not that different from that of people who can’t sing in the first place.  Whether they know it or not, they have learned to sing bad.  Sometimes the brain confuses messages it gets from hearing different notes at the same time and not knowing what to do with it all.  Sometimes the brain tries to make sense of it and just calls it good.  That’s why you’ll hear people at all of the major singing TV show auditions swear they can sing well when they can’t hit a note.  Their brain tells them it’s right.  Some people just think they sound good because in comparison to other people they’ve heard they do.

So what about those who know they can’t sing?  Are they just victims of a non-musical gene pool?  Have they missed the musical boat and are left to be a listener rather than a participant?  How many times have you heard someone say they would love to sing but they just can’t?

What if I’ve Been Told I’m a Bad Singer?

Chances are they’ve just believed someone who told them they can’t sing or heard something in their voice that was embarrassing and decided not to let it happen again.  But is it true that if you don’t sound good you can’t be a good singer?  No.

When I was four I was initiated into the family trio and taught to sing the alto part.  My oldest sister was naturally a really good singer.  It was effortless for her.  My middle sister and I….not so much.  In fact, to this day my middle sister doesn’t believe she can sing, despite hundreds of public performances through our youth to eager audiences who invited us back time and again. 

I don’t remember when, but I remember someone telling me that I wasn’t really a good singer; that I was just born to sing back up.  And I believed it.  But when I turned 16 I got tired of singing alto.  I wanted to break free from the trio and…dare I say…sing lead. I ‘knew’ I couldn’t sing lead but it only made me more determined to figure out a way to learn to be a real singer.  That was the beginning of what turned into a career as a studio and live vocalist and independent artist and being the only singer in our family to make a living from my voice.

Maybe you think that’s a stupid example.  Obviously we could sing if we could harmonize.  What if you’re tone deaf?  Then I’m totally wrong, right?  Well, let’s take a look at tone deafness; the #1 excuse people claim for not singing. 

Maybe I’m Just Tone Deaf

Statistics show that only 2% of people are really tone deaf.  Tone deafness is actually a physical hearing impairment that makes it literally impossible for you to be able to tell one pitch from the next, regardless of all the musical education in the world. If only 2% of people are truly tone deaf that means the other 98% of people can learn to sing every note on pitch.  I wouldn’t believe it if I hadn’t seen it for myself.

When I had just started teaching the natural balanced voice technique I now teach an adult woman came to me who could not hit a single note.  I don’t know if she knew it, but she couldn’t.  If that weren’t enough, she spoke a foreign language and very little English so there was a communication barrier.  Add to that every vowel I tried to have her correct confused her because her language had twelve times the vowels of mine.  I knew it couldn’t be done.

I went to a couple of associate teachers and told them I wouldn’t take her money because I didn’t believe she could be trained to sing.  But they both assured me that if I just did what I was trained to do she would.  So, for the benefit of full disclosure, I told my student that I didn’t think I could help her.  I told her my associates thought I could and that if she wanted to we would try this experiment together.  She went along.

To my complete amazement, within six months she was singing every pitch dead on.  Her confidence shot through the roof and my belief that I could actually help anybody learned to sing was born.  Since then I’ve seen it time and time again.  If a student will do what I ask and stick with it, a balanced healthy voice will result in good pitch.

So can anyone learn to sing?  Well 98% of them can.  And unless a doctor has confirmed your tone deafness, that includes you.  Want to find out?  Click here to get started and I’ll show you how.

Never give up.  If you love to sing you really can learn.  There is an amazing joy that comes from singing.  You can have it too.

Ready to take your voice to the next level? Check out online training at The Voice Club Academy

The increasing amount of TV talent show auditions drawing massive crowds is a great thing.  We love to see who makes it, who doesn’t and root for our family, friends or just tv favorites.  But before their debut on stage these singers have to get through a grueling audition process.  There are hours…DAYS of standing in line in all kinds of weather.  Then there are the calls from the producer for an hour or so of crowd cheers and screams and of course, the constant temptation to sing along with your line mates at the top of your lungs.  It’s part of the experience, right?  Sure.  Have a blast.  It’s the least you deserve after all your efforts just to get in the door.  But before you get carried away, don’t forget why you’re there: to show off the best of what your voice has to offer.

Here’s how to make sure your voice is at it’s best by the time you get to the front of the line:

1.  Cheer with your hands, not your screams. If you’re a purest (and I am but I don’t expect you to be) cheer with fist pumps and not your voice and, if you’re not, keep it to “whooo’s”, not screams.  Screaming can cause swelling in the tissues around the vocal cords leaving them susceptible to damage, especially when you’re already sleep deprived.  A good rule of thumb is to cheer at no more of a level than you would in a group of say five or ten, not thousands.  Dance, jump, wave your arms…but protect your voice.  It’s why you’re there.

2.  Get and Stay hydrated. This is my weak point.  I NEED coffee when I’m up before dawn to stand in line, but it does dry you out.  Drink plenty of water while you’re in line.  Nominate a ‘line keeper’ (like a designated driver) to hold your place while you take the necessary potty breaks.  Yes, it’s a pain.  But when your body is hydrated your cords connect and abduct (open and close) much more smoothly, resulting in more notes that you nail to the wall.  And THAT’S always worth it.  If you’re not sure if you’re getting enough pick up one of these great water bottles.  Fill it up once – it’s all you need for a full day.

3.  Warm up…all the way. It’s as hard on your voice as it is for your body to be freezing or sweating in line for hours.  Remember that if your body is hotter or colder than usual when you get inside that affects your voice too.  This is when vocally warming up becomes absolutely essential.  I don’t mean singing through your song in the corner of the hallway either.  You want to do a warmup that gets all of the muscle groups surrounding the vocal cords up and running.  The bubble is the perfect warmup (more about the bubble here) because it warms up all of the facial plus the vocal muscles at the same time, but a good warmup can be as simple as humming on a low note and sliding it up, then down lower than the first note and higher than your first high notes.  Don’t skip the warmup.  Athlete’s don’t.  And you’ve just stepped into an arena filled with them.

4.  Don’t gunk up your throat. Ah the typical arena fair; french fries, fried fish, hamburgers.  Tasty?  Yes.  Ok to eat before what could be the most important audition of your lifetime?  NO.  Greasy food adds, well, grease to the back of your throat which can get in the way of the epiglottis (the ‘door’ that opens and closes between your windpipe where your vocal cords are and the food pipe where you think it’s all going).  Spicy food can cause acid in the throat that can irritate the voice or indigestion that will irritate everything else in your body.  Again, not a safe bet.  The best thing in the world to eat before an audition?  Fresh apples.  They’ve been known to cut down on excessive saliva and cut through natural gunk that can sit in the back of the throat.  Unfortunately you can’t sneak one in.  But look for them in the vendor areas.  You might luck out.  If you want to be on the safe side, bring along Thayers throat lozenges.  They have the double kicker of slippery elm (better than it sounds ) and licorice root, two knockout natural sources for curing a dry or gunky throat.  If you love the taste of black licorice you can also try what my moma fed us; Throat Discs. I can’t believe they still make them but they’re super yummy and do the job.

Follow these simple tips and you’ll have the best chance at showing them all that you can do.  Now just get out there, look ‘em in the eye and let your voice do the rest.

Have an audition experience?  Share it below.  You know we wanna know.

Ready to take your voice to the next level? Check out online training at The Voice Club Academy

You don’t need a vocal coach to tell you what’s wrong with these sad attempts, but give ‘em a listen and let’s look at how they could have all been avoided.

So how can you avoid getting your performance on this list?

Top 5 Mistakes Made in the National Anthem

1. NOT KNOWING THE WORDS It’s the flippin’ National Anthem.  I understand forgetting a word or two when the nerves get to you but many people wing it and never take the time to learn the actual words.  Incorrect lyrics are all over the internet.  Get the right ones here. I have Canadian students who know every word of our anthem so I think the rest of us can do the same – consider it your patriotic duty.
2. OVER STYLING There can be a fine line between adding your own personal style to a song and adding so many vocal trills that you can hardly recognize the melody.  Honestly most people don’t understand what styling is and how to incorporate it.  So when they’re not sure they just pull out the whole bag of tricks.  The melody is there for a reason; it’s the face of the song.  Over styling is like putting on so much makeup that you can’t recognize the face anymore.  Real styling complements the integrity of the song.
3. CHANGING THE MELODY This is way more noticeable in a song like the National Anthem where people have a patriotic attachment to the basic melody but it’s an important lesson for all songs: the melody should only be changed after it is established and should not be changed so dramatically that it sounds like you’ve launched into another song.  This is styling 101.  Unfortunately, many stars who are surrounded by yes men are not required to take that class.  Consider yourself one step up.
4. STARTING IN THE WRONG KEY The National Anthem reaches just short of two octaves of the vocal range.  For a non-mixing singer, that’s probably 4-8 notes less than you can comfortably reach which is why this song terrifies us.  For a student who’s learned to mix you’ve got another octave or two on top of that.  Either way, starting in the right key will give you the best use of what you’ve got.  How do you pick a key?  Sing the first line quietly and choose a key where the 2nd word (“say”) falls on one your lowest notes possible.  That’s your key.  Obviously you can determine this ahead of time and use a pitch pipe or similar note reference but I’m a big fan of going freestyle because I’ve found it trains the ear better.  If you don’t use a pitch device and you start where the brain will tell you to (closer to the middle of your range) you are…toast.
5. SCREAMING Incorrect ‘belting’ is just screaming near or on a note.  It happens when a singer doesn’t know how to narrow their mix to transition to their higher notes.  When they try to add volume to power through the result is….well, Christine Aquilera’s big note.  Scream singing yanks up the larynx (the box your vocal cords are in) and literally puts your anatomy in place to choke yourself.  That’s why it sounds (and feels) like you’re being strangled.  How do you sing with power without screaming? THE MIX.  Mixing allows you to use the power of the chest voice and mix it with the higher resonance of your head voice to reach high notes with balance.  It prevents the vocal damage scream singing brings and it sounds way better!

Singing the National Anthem is an honor and one I think ever singer should seek.  It’s well worth it to learn this song.  When you’re ready to sing it just record it acapella on a CD or mp3 and contact your local sports venues to see who to send it to.  You’d be surprised how easy it can be to get in to sing the National Anthem even at a major sports venue.  Why?  Because this a tough song and not many people are in line to try their own luck at getting You Tube’d for their less than lackluster performance.

None of us are perfect and live performances with no music to hide behind are the toughest of all.  But if you’re up the challenge, singing the National Anthem is incredibly rewarding.  It feels good to do what few singers can.  Do it!  Then tell us your experience.  And don’t forget to check back in July to hear our students compete in our National Anthem contest!

Ready to take your voice to the next level? Check out online training at The Voice Club Academy

I could be the worlds stupidest musician.  Heck, my very own childhood piano teacher would regularly slap my hands with a ruler and finally dropped me as a student because I had a tendency to change the arrangement as I went along, which she said made me an incompetent student.  And honestly, it didn’t get much better when I started to go through a lineup of voice teachers.  I always felt like an idiot.  They regularly seemed disappointed that I wasn’t producing the results they were asking me for.  Most of the time I didn’t go back.  Sometimes I stuck it out until my ego could take no more.

My mom was a classical voice instructor and I eventually begin teaching a variation of the method too.  But when I found myself doing the exact same thing to my students that had been done to me I decided maybe I was just as bad as a teacher as I had been as a student.  So I quit.

But then something amazing happened.  After years of seeking answers to some of my nagging vocal problems I started finding answers that really worked.  The results were amazing and made such a huge difference in my voice that people kept asking me to teach them.  I went through the teaching program and before long I had given in.  I was a teacher again.  But this time with one major change:  I now knew why I had felt stupid all along.

Now I’m not the brightest bulb but even so, I realized that it was all my teachers fault.  Not because they were uninformed or nasty people, but because they simply were frustrated by not having the answers for me.  I was always a  front row, middle seat, hand always up kind of girl.  But the reality was that when what they had either been taught or personally experienced to be true did not produce the right results in me, well, it made them frustrated.  And since it worked for them, the obvious choice was to blame me.

YOUR TEACHERS REAL JOB

The first part of your teachers job is to understand a method that has a proven track record.  A lot of teachers know a little about a lot.  I used to be one of them.  Others know a lot about methods that are really more smoke and whistles than proven science.  Sometimes they’re trying to teach you to hit a bulls eye by turning around three times, flipping a lucky coin and throwing six darts in six seconds.  Might work.  But if it doesn’t, prepare for the disapproving glare.  Teaching that way does work for some people some of the time (ah the golden ones whom favor has rested upon), but understanding how speed, force and angle play into it would be effective for all people all of the time; making your teacher feel brilliant and, by extension, making you feel like the brightest student EVER!

The second and most overlooked part of your teachers job is to find a way to deliver the information they know in a way that you can relate to it and be benefited by.  No matter how much a teacher knows or even how good they are at doing what they’re asking you to do, if they can’t help you do it too it’s not a good situation…for either of you.

YOUR JOB

Yes, your job is to show up, bright-eyed and ready to soak in your teachers world of knowledge.  But an even bigger part of YOUR job is to ask questions.  Will it make you look stupid?  Well, think of it this way: if you knew the answers to the questions that pop into your head about the topic your taking lessons on….would you even NEED lessons? O.k.  So let’s assume you’re there because you don’t know, so asking might just help!

The more questions you ask, the more great ideas you give your teachers on how to deliver the information they have in a way you can best absorb it.  Which is…their job.  If you have a teacher who frowns upon your questions you either have a teacher who doesn’t know the answers and/or one who doesn’t want to take the time to find a way to get the information to you in a way you can best access it.  Either way, that means you’re with the wrong teacher.

BUT I LIKE MY TEACHER

So what do you do if you have a teacher you like but after reading this you’re wondering if they’ve got what you need?  You find out for sure.  Start asking questions during your lessons.   A good teacher will not make you feel stupid or like you’re bothering them for asking questions.  Work with your instructor to get a realistic time line of when you should start seeing results.  With the technique we teach, we try to get students hearing and feeling something different in the first lesson.  Big breakthroughs come at their own pace, but results are what you’re there for.

While you’re in that introspective mood, ask yourself if you understand more than you did before you started your lessons; not if you’ve been given new information, but if you really understand anything new in a way that you can use it and will make a valuable difference for you.  Sometimes it does take a bit of time for new concepts to sink in and you won’t fully grasp everything your teacher gives you, usually because it takes time both for them to learn how you learn and for your brain to change old patterns of thinking.  But if you don’t feel wiser now than when you started, that’s a red flag.

IF YOU DON’T GET IT, IT’S THEIR FAULT

As a teacher I can tell you that being able to help someone else discover something wonderful that you’ve learned is an incredible experience.  It’s WAY better than just trying to get through a lesson hoping what you tell them will work and never really knowing for sure.  I’ve been both places and if I had to stay in the latter, well, you wouldn’t be reading anything on this blog right now.

If you feel stupid when you finish a lesson or afraid to ask a question, it’s not your fault; it’s your teachers.  And it’s time to do something about it.  If you’re looking for a solid teacher check out our online lessons.  And if you want walk in lessons form a good instructor in your area let us refer you to someone.  We don’t get any kickback for it.  We just happen to think that both the student and teacher are best served when they know they’re a good fit.  And we think you deserve to know that up front.  For the rest of you: you are your best advocate.  Asking, asking, asking + good teaching = great learning!

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