I’m living proof that singing is a skill and not a talent.
I’ve been teaching privately since 2008, but in 1980, my fifth grade teacher was so bothered by my singing voice that she told me to just “mouth the words.” I don’t know how to describe the shame and humiliation I felt except to say, I just wanted to be vaporized off the planet. Since then, I’ve met way too many people who know exactly what I mean.
It took me a long time to find my way to singing where strangers could hear me. I spent years wishing I could be on stage instead of playing the violin in the orchestra pit. In college, I did find my way to a community chorus, and then in my early twenties was told, “You’re a soprano, and you need training.” The rest, as they say, is history.
Your voice is a muscle.
Muscles change as they are used.
If you’ve ever tried an exercise program, even for a short period of time, you already know that muscles change as they are used. This is true for the voice, too.
Most common vocal problems – singing out of tune, running out of breath, struggling with high notes, struggling with low notes, talking yourself hoarse – come from having too much tension in some muscles and not enough activation in others.
And many common performance problems – forgetting the words, losing your train of thought, missing your entrances, going a mile a minute – come from having too much attention focused outside yourself and not enough focused inside.
I can show you how to manage both your body and your mind because, while I did say, “the rest is history,” that history is full of trial and error. Teacher after teacher. Attempt after attempt. Worrying I wasn’t good enough. Being told I wasn’t good enough.
I started “late” and I learned how anyway.
It’s never too late to sound like your truest, strongest, clearest self.
I have helped hundreds of students sound more like themselves, and feel at home in their bodies even in stressful situations. Many of them feel more comfortable singing and speaking than they ever thought possible. They got there one moment, one exercise, one song or speech at a time.
You can too.
Ready to get started?
Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
~ Oscar Wilde
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