Why Singing Lessons Don’t Work

What this episode covers

Instead of giving you a synopsis of this episode on Why Singing Lessons Don’t Work, I’m including a transcript. It’s that important. So here it goes! Introduction I’m going to get a little controversial with you and probably step on some toes, and feelings in the process. But hey, maybe I’ll help some people at the same time. And that’s the important part. To me it’s worth a few hurt feelings and squashed toes. Today, I’m going to tell you why most singing lessons don’t work. I’m going to start off with a little mental demonstration. Image if you will. You’ve just boarded a small plane in Miami or somewhere on your way to Barbados for a vacation. You’re about halfway there when the pilot and copilot come walking through the cabin and then jump with the last two parachutes. Well, obviously somebody’s gotta land the plane. And that somebody is you. But all you have to rely on for training is a video game flight simulator you once played, or movies you’ve watched where a passenger ‘magically’ lands the plane saving everyone on board. You think ‘Ok. I’ve seen snakes on a plane, how hard can it be right?’ So, without any understanding about taking off, landing, how the controls work, the navigation, gauges, wind speed, surface speed, approach speed, angle of approach, how to put on the brakes etc., basically all the necessary fundamentals on flying, you’re supposed to land this plane safely. Right… That’d be terrifying. Well, for some it’s just as terrifying to sing on stage in front of a live audience. And that is simply due to poor singing fundamentals or no fundamentals at all. The Why A LOT of vocal coaches skip the fundamentals. Most of your most popular online singing courses do as well. They go straight to the sexy shiny tips and tricks. Or they skim the top of the important stuff giving you just enough information to be dangerous so to speak, using the airplane example from before. Or even more disastrous, you take these lessons, think you have it all under control, go out and sing, fail a little bit, if not miserably, and then give up singing for good. For the rest of your life. You decide that you just can’t sing. That you don’t have “it”. And it’s over before it even starts. They use catch phrases like “Better Vocal Control”, “More Accurate Pitch”, “Improving Tone”, “Improved Power”, “Vocal Agility”. Ok fine. Let’s take a look at a few of those. Marketing Catch Phrases Better Vocal Control – How about vocal control at all? How about knowing exactly what vocal control is? What IS actually doing the ‘controlling’? More Accurate Pitch – Of course they’re assuming the student can even sing in tune to get more accurate from. Better yet, what IS singing in tune and why is it important to understand what pitch even is? Improving Tone – How can you improve tone when you don’t even have a knowledge of tone to improve. What is tone? What are the mechanics behind it? How about we learn how to create tone before we try to improve it? Huh? Vocal Agility – This one is a funny one to me. Ever have a spouse, partner, parent, friend, teacher, anybody chew you out for something? In the middle you usually hear a phrase like ‘and another thing…’ or something like that. Context aside, think about what their voice was doing throughout it all. Goes something like this. “I can’t even BELIEVE you would even think about doing something like that! Seriously? What in the world were you thinking? Obviously you weren’t or you wouldn’t have done it in the first place!” Going up and down, and loud then soft, then jumping high then low. That’s some serious vocal agility there. But it certainly isn’t singing. So how about we teach the student how to sing notes first before bunching them all up and attacking vocal agility? Tips and Tricks Now as you know it’s true.

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