Singing Lesson Expert, Performance Coach

The happiest of marriages between singer and song is when essence matches essence. That’s pretty easy to do when you are the songwriter, but that’s for another article. For right now, let’s just say there’s a song you’ve always wanted to sing. Why? Obviously you’ve heard it. Did you love how that singer sang the song? Was it all in their presentation or did aspects of the song leak out all through the performance. Sometimes a song just captures us because of what it is, regardless of any performance of it. It has essence, or personality to use a different concept. Yes, a top level singer can create a rendition of a song that takes your breath away, but that is their interpretation. That interpretation is not the song, only an artist’s version of it. You would never want to simply duplicate an existing rendition. There is no reason for it. The song has already been sung and recorded that way.

What we want to look at is how you and the song are in alignment. What about the lyric is something you’ve always wanted to say? What about the melody let’s your emotions soar? What about the rhythm makes your body want to move, or your heart to expand, or turn you thoughtful or introspective? I will say here that the very best performance coaches are incredible at helping you figure out the answers to these questions and more. Is the song something you want to yell from the highest mountain or whisper in your lover’s ear? Does it help you vent your anger or does it awaken you into being a better person?

When you know who you are, what the song is, who you are when singing the song, and how its story is one with your own, you are ready to start thinking about the arrangement (instrumentation and style) and energy you want to portray. A parade of people will come into your life whether you are a major label artist, record for a small indie label, or have a recorder in your basement, who can assist you and give insight into how the song can be recorded. Ultimately, how you sing your song is up to you. Hopefully, you’ve thought about what you’re doing.

If you need a performance coach who can help you find the silver lining in that song you’ve always loved, we recommend calling the Singing Lesson Expert.

Each and every artist who you idolize did not get there overnight. Just the making of their CD took a year or more and it probably wasn’t their first recording. They’ve had coaching, very specific training, and usually a group of individuals helping to lead them to that successful location where you and millions of others noticed them. They have worked hard to reach that height and it usually hasn’t come easy.

So when you commit to a dream, to a lofty goal, let some realism in. Create a timeline that is doable. This is not the stuff of Fairy Godmothers and magic wands. It is the result of voice lessons, performance coaching, dance lessons, maybe some acting lessons, and not for just a few weeks, but over a significant amount of time. I’m talking about years not months. It is a lot of work. It is also worth every minute of it.

Along the way, however, you’ve got a job that is more important than all the hard physical work. It’s harder than daily vocalization and technique training, working on body awareness and gesturing, or learning how to project yourself out in space to fill a room and become a larger-than-life presence on the stage. During all your hard work, assuming you don’t believe you are going to daydream yourself to success, there is one consistently challenging element you will face, and please don’t minimize it. That element is yourself, your mindset. We’ll call it your self-talk.

What you truly believe about yourself is more important than any work or training that you do. And when I say believe, I don’t mean what you attempt to talk yourself into, but what you really believe at the core level of your being. If your dream is to be a music performer and recording star but down deep inside you don’t believe you could possibly accomplish that, then you probably won’t. Your self-talk will trump a hope or dream every time. So what do you do when your dream and your belief are out of alignment with each other?

One of the interesting things about how our beliefs are wired is that we are very susceptible to demonstration. Each time we slightly exceed our belief or expectation, that belief or expectation stretches or grows. That gives us an amazing opportunity to blow through our limiting thinking, but it probably can’t happen overnight. While there are situations in voice training and singing lessons where a student had no idea how incorrectly they were doing something and a minor correction created an almost immediate improvement, most breakthroughs are earned through hard work. Slow and steady wins the race.

The important point here is to give yourself room within your self-talk to grow through an apparently limiting situation. Your biggest enemy is the thought, “I can’t do that.” Almost everything that a human being can do, we didn’t do as well the first time we tried it as we did the 100^th time, or the 1000^th time. The more we try it, the better we will get, especially if during our trying we incorporate some very specific and focused training. Our singing teacher will show us the best way to do everything related to singing, and if we have the talent, the hope and dream, the positive self-talk, the drive, and the willingness to work, everything is possible.

If you are looking for a teacher who can help you coordinate your talent, dream, motivation, and self-talk, we recommend contacting the Singing Lesson Expert.