Learning How To Sing
The central theme of this podcast episode revolves around the significance of harmonies in singing and their broader implications for personal growth and confidence. I elucidate that while many individuals possess an innate ability to discern melodies, the skill of singing harmonies often requires dedicated practice and self-assurance. Through my experiences with students, I highlight how traditional church music has been instrumental in nurturing this skill, fostering not only musicality but also emotional resilience. We delve into the psychological barriers that inhibit individuals from pursuing their singing aspirations, particularly the fear of judgment stemming from early negative feedback. Ultimately, I encourage listeners to embrace the discomfort of trying new things, as this is where true confidence is cultivated, reiterating that the journey of learning, whether in music or life, necessitates patience and perseverance.
Takeaways:
- The process of learning to sing requires significant practice and self-confidence.
- Singing harmonies can serve as a therapeutic method to regulate one's nervous system.
- Individuals often feel intimidated by music competitions due to the curated nature of such shows.
- Each person's journey in music is unique, requiring a willingness to embrace discomfort.
- Progress in singing reflects the broader challenges of personal growth and self-acceptance.
- Starting to engage with music or any new skill necessitates overcoming initial discomfort and fear.
Transcript
Hello.
Speaker A:Welcome back to music is my mantra.
Speaker A:Today is going to be a little bit of a shorter episode.
Speaker A:Last night, I was sitting, and I was like, what do.
Speaker A:What do I need to share with the world?
Speaker A:One thing I've.
Speaker A:I've realized when I am working with students who are just learning how to sing is that they might have a good ear for latching on to the melody.
Speaker A:But not everybody has practice in, like, hearing where the harmonies are and singing the harmonies and that, like, singing traditional church music really helped with finding those harmonies because, you know, I grew up with, like, the book of music and singing along with, like, my mom and my grandma, and even if I wasn't so interested in sitting through service, I just always loved singing with them.
Speaker A:It's just like a trio with harmonies, and I love harmonies.
Speaker A:And fun fact, harmonies are a really amazing way of, like, regulating your nervous system with the people that you're singing with.
Speaker A:When you're just starting out, it can be really hard to sing your own part because you have to have so much confidence in yourself that you're gonna hit the notes.
Speaker A:And that just takes practice.
Speaker A:And I think that so many people are so afraid to sing because they expect to be as amazing as any person that goes on to American Idol.
Speaker A:But the truth is that American Idol is curated, and most people who get on that show have years of experience and a story.
Speaker A:You know, it's all about the drama, the reality tv, that's not a good benchmark, or the voice.
Speaker A:Like, this is generically speaking to all of those shows.
Speaker A:There's just so many different types of voices.
Speaker A:I gave a voice lesson last week, and I.
Speaker A:This story came up because I think it's just.
Speaker A:It's still so important.
Speaker A:This is like a metaphor.
Speaker A:Like, singing is a metaphor for how we live in the world of life.
Speaker A:So this student had made so much progress.
Speaker A:They had trouble sort of finding the right pitch.
Speaker A:But we worked on it, and their voice got stronger.
Speaker A:You know, the more that you sing, it's a muscle, so you can work on the airflow, the projection, the tone, all of these things.
Speaker A:But matching pitch is really important.
Speaker A:I was so proud of this person.
Speaker A:But they had somebody that they loved tell them basically that they weren't a good singer when they gave their first performance.
Speaker A:And it, like, broke my heart because of course they're going to listen to this person, but it was a harmless joke, and it really impacted their desire to want to keep going and to keep working on it.
Speaker A:Every time that you're trying something new and you're learning how to sing alone.
Speaker A:It's like the first time that you go out to dinner by yourself.
Speaker A:Like I go out to eat all the time by myself.
Speaker A:And sure, I would love some company sometimes, but it's not weird to me.
Speaker A:Whereas I know some people really have a hard time like sitting by themselves in a community setting like that.
Speaker A:You know, it's.
Speaker A:Maybe it's uncomfortable at first, but the more you do it, the stronger of a person that you become.
Speaker A:And the more that you practice singing harmonies or improv and holding your own melody, the stronger and more confident you get in your own voice.
Speaker A:I was also reminded of this concept yesterday.
Speaker A:I went on a walk with my girlfriend and you know, we were talking about marketing and putting up websites and I was like, it's so easy.
Speaker A:Like, just do it yourself.
Speaker A:And I have to remember, like, it's not easy for everyone because I've been making websites since I can remember.
Speaker A:I had a WordPress like 12 years ago and then after that I had a wix site and then Squarespace and I've used like Shopify and all these different platforms for myself and for other clients that I've had over the years.
Speaker A:So for me, like navigating the back end of web provider is super easy.
Speaker A:And I don't code.
Speaker A:I've just seen a lot of how they work.
Speaker A:A lot of it is like asking questions and Google search to figure it out.
Speaker A:But that's kind of like the world we're living in today.
Speaker A:It's like there's always a learning curve to something that you want to do, like learning how to build a website.
Speaker A:Sure.
Speaker A:Now maybe it's not gonna look like you imagined it when you first do it.
Speaker A:The more that you try these things, the easier these things are going to get.
Speaker A:This is the word of encouragement for today is that trying new things is hard and scary.
Speaker A:But the more that you try new things and you sort of step out of your comfort zone or you push your edges of comfort, that's where you get confidence.
Speaker A: I remember during: Speaker A:This was like I'd been performing for several years up until that point.
Speaker A:I think what it had been four years of playing my own music and playing with bands, but I still got nervous, especially when I would play other people's songs.
Speaker A:It was never really nerve wracking to play my own songs because I knew them like I wrote them.
Speaker A:But to perform other people's songs, I just feel like there's so many layers to it, you have to get, first of all, the basics right, the words and the.
Speaker A:The chords right, to just hold the song and the rhythm and the melody.
Speaker A:But aside from that, there's, like, a whole realm of emotion and storytelling that goes into performing somebody else's song.
Speaker A:Some songs I like naturally relate to, and of course, I would always choose covers that I loved, but after playing them for a while, it's like, do I love them because I actually can connect to the storyline and the emotional performance that comes with it, or do I just love it because it's popular and it's easy to play and it's fun to sing?
Speaker A:You know, like, those little elements will make the performance so different.
Speaker A:When you're playing cover songs, you really want to make the song your own, because otherwise you're just another person playing the same song that you've heard.
Speaker A:And people are always going to compare you to the original artist.
Speaker A:So.
Speaker A:So whether that's, like, changing up the key to fit your voice or maybe adding a little bit of switching up the style from the original way that the song was produced, that's probably the easiest way to make it your own.
Speaker A:There's a lot of tricks to it.
Speaker A:Performing originals was so easy, and I just did me.
Speaker A:And then as I was working with my mentor, Chris Kopeca, I.
Speaker A:I learned more about how to bring, like, vocal warmups into the performance and do all these things so that, like, I could kind of take away those nerves.
Speaker A:But part of it was really just like, getting used to playing covers and getting used to the idea that it sounded good.
Speaker A:Like, I.
Speaker A:I was being super harsh and critical, you know, because that's who I am.
Speaker A:I think as an artist, we.
Speaker A:It's okay to be critical.
Speaker A:There's a line like, you still have to put stuff.
Speaker A:Stuff out there.
Speaker A:Word of advice.
Speaker A:Like, you know, Mel Robbins has a lot of different podcasts on confidence, and she's a great speaker.
Speaker A:Her podcast is awesome.
Speaker A:But she says the definition of confidence is the willingness to try something new.
Speaker A:Whether you are just starting to sing or you're just learning to play an instrument, or you just want to feel better, and you're like, how can I use more of music and, like, singing in my.
Speaker A:My body and wellness to.
Speaker A:To make me feel better.
Speaker A:Like, it's gonna be uncomfortable at first.
Speaker A:It's gonna be weird.
Speaker A:It's gonna be awkward, especially singing in front of people.
Speaker A:Like, I remember I sang at our eighth grade graduation.
Speaker A:I was so nervous.
Speaker A:Like, luckily, I practiced enough that you couldn't really tell I remember we did like a practice round of singing for students and I was shaking and my voice, like, my mouth would always get so dry.
Speaker A:And then it's like you for sure can't sing because your mouth is dry.
Speaker A:So it's like you just like literally can't.
Speaker A:I mean, sweating and like dry mouth and just so uncomfortable to be seen.
Speaker A:But the more that I practiced and the more that I did it in front of people, like, it slowly got easier and easier and I just felt more confident in myself.
Speaker A:Just to reiterate that any kind of wellness or any kind of music is like, it's awkward at first.
Speaker A:I'm going to really kind of come back to the drawing board and give myself permission to like, to sit down and think about what I love from these songs.
Speaker A:You know, like, I want this album to be a little bit more upbeat and dancey.
Speaker A:I think it's there, but I've, I've, I've really.
Speaker A:In the demos, it's going in like a very much like one dimension rock feel.
Speaker A:That wasn't my intention initially.
Speaker A:Maybe this is the thing that I've been like, waiting for.
Speaker A:The inspiration to, to jump back in is even doing yoga.
Speaker A:You know, there's certain poses that are so uncomfortable and then after a while, all of a sudden it's easy one day.
Speaker A:I've been really fortunate that I've always been an athlete my whole life.
Speaker A:So, you know, the first time I did yoga was in high school and I was running cross country and I was pretty flexible.
Speaker A:But there's.
Speaker A:After my sciatica adventure, I couldn't even do a forward fold.
Speaker A:I've always been able to touch my toes and I couldn't even bend over halfway.
Speaker A:So, you know, everything comes back to grace and just trying and letting go of that, like harsh critic until you reach a certain level and then you kind of have to bring it back a little bit.
Speaker A:Bring it back and be like, you know, I could do better or like, maybe I did hear something that was a little bit off or what I'm hearing isn't quite there yet.
Speaker A:So, like, how can I find other inspiration to bring in to add to the project that I'm working on?
Speaker A:Being here in la, I see everything amplified because having friends that are healers and work with energy, you can go see a cambo practitioner or like do a past life regression or breath work or yoga or sound healing, there's just, there's so many options.
Speaker A:And I think that the thing is you just have to choose one and start somewhere.
Speaker A:I encourage you if you're having a hard time, like knowing where to start with music or healing is just to choose something.
Speaker A:And when I was just starting out after college, I was given this advice.
Speaker A:We're so afraid of messing up.
Speaker A:Or that like what we do with our life won't match what we did in college, like what we studied in school.
Speaker A:But I studied retailing and consumer science and marketing and now I'm doing marketing.
Speaker A:So it all kind of came full circle in the journey of figuring out what I was meant to do.
Speaker A:Like, I have probably had 17 different jobs in the past 15 years and or more like catering, babysitting, bartending, hostessing, waitressing, bussing, tables, nannying.
Speaker A:I worked at a tech agency, I worked at a marketing agency.
Speaker A:I ran a community art space.
Speaker A:I was a project manager for TOMS and then for Skechers.
Speaker A:And then I have had like many different clients in the spectrum of marketing, digital marketing mostly.
Speaker A:I feel so grateful that I'm that I have something stable now when it comes to work so I can pursue my music.
Speaker A:You just, you have to start somewhere.
Speaker A:Once you know where your starting point is, like, it's easier to go out and try different things.
Speaker A:If you've been curious about music and how it can help you to feel better, just start somewhere.
Speaker A:If you're noticing that you keep playing the same song or the same album over and over again, that that's okay.
Speaker A:If you're enjoying it, go for it.
Speaker A:But if you're realizing that maybe you're feeling a little stuck, maybe try listening to a new record and see what that brings you.
Speaker A:If you took away any nuggets of wisdom or even just felt entertained, please like and subscribe on my YouTube channel.
Speaker A:And if you're listening on any podcast platform, you can also save my channel.
Speaker A:You can subscribe, Share this episode.
Speaker A:You can leave a review.
Speaker A:I don't know if I have any reviews yet, but please leave me a review.
Speaker A:Tell me what you liked.
Speaker A:You can email me DM me.
Speaker A:Tell me what you want to hear.
Speaker A:I'm so excited.
Speaker A:I have reached out to my very first guest and she'll be on the show soon.
Speaker A:So coming up, I'll probably do at least two guests a month that will sort of inform the rest of how the year will unfold.
Speaker A:So thank you for listening.
Speaker A:Until next time, I hope you stay healthy, wealthy and wise.
Speaker A:If you don't feel any of those things today, don't worry.
Speaker A:Music is here to help you with your wellness.
Speaker A:So God bless.
Speaker A:Bye.
