What do I need for my lesson?
Whether a seasoned regular or coming for your very first lesson, here are a few things you might want to bring or think about to attend your lesson, and to get the most out of the experience.
Music
What have you been studying/learning? Bring that, and bring a second copy to share with your teacher/pianist.
Any music you are performing with your choir, church solos, stage shows. Even if you don’t plan to sing it, it may become relevant for technical or performance reasons.
A pencil
Whether working digitally or with paper music, bring a pencil to make notes and mark your music.
A notebook, or recorder to record the lesson if agreed with your teacher
Either are fine with me, but it makes sense to be able to write down broader technical and performance ideas for your practise later.
An open mind
This is your time to work on your goals - so to help you do this fully come ready to play, work, experiment, and learn. Put aside the everyday distractions for now and enjoy this time to concentrate on your voice and performance.
“You do get better at even the things you’re terrible at, if you practice.”
Before the lesson
What you wear
Think about wearing something you are comfortable in, that allows you to move and work physically. We will be doing stretches, and sometimes use weights/pilates bands and other equipment as part of our work together.
Food and drink
Make sure you have eaten and drunk enough before the lesson to feel comfortable standing and working physically. If you wish to drink water during the lesson, lay it out to bring with you. By personal preference, I prefer not to drink while singing, but I don’t mind if you do.
Warm-up
You may wish to have a short vocalise or warm-up before you arrive, check in with your voice and see how it feels today, if you are experiencing anything different you can bring this up at the start of the lesson. This might also include feeling if you have any tension.
Lastly, a little reassurance. I am human, I have made many mistakes, I have sometimes found practise hard to fit into life or had other things going on that make work/life tricky. Please feel free to let me know of anything that might affect our session together that you think I should know about. I fit around you and your needs.
I do not expect that every pupil arrives a perfect and finished product - that simply isn’t real life! Sometimes the best lessons are the ones that happen responding to the voice and singer as they turn up that day. So please don’t worry that you feel you should have done x, y, or z. Hopefully all teachers feel this way and should be understanding!
perfume
It is helpful to think of and use all our senses when we learn to sing and perform. Perhaps one that is sometimes overlooked is our sense of smell.
There are many songs that describe scent particularly of flowers, but let’s explore some other ways we can use our sense of smell to help us.
Read ‘Surprising Facts about your Nose” in this link:
Memory
If you use a certain scent during studying, it may help you remember those facts later. You could try this with learning words and text, to see if it helps you recall the work you did in the practice room.
Resonance
Your nose and sinuses are used to help your resonance. This is why if you have a cold or suffer from hay fever which blocks your sinuses your speaking and singing voice sounds different, or sometimes it feels uncomfortable to make certain sounds that require resonance in the areas that are inflamed/blocked.
Resonance due to emotion
If you take a breath in when you laugh (let’s call this ‘true emotion’), you make sound resonance from different areas than if you are faking a laugh/not happy. Have a little experiment and see what feels different to you?
One way to access these resonance areas/areas that describe joy or love is through scent/imagining smelling a rose or similar. This may help you to act/sound with your voice a certain emotion.
The science says:
‘Spontaneous laughter is often higher in pitch, longer in duration, and shows spectral characteristics that differ from voluntary laughter; voluntary laughter, on the other hand, is more nasal than spontaneous laughter. Perceptually, spontaneous laughter is perceived as more authentic than voluntary laughter, and as more positive and higher in arousal.’
Performance Practise
When you are performing a song or an aria, try to ground and build your character using the senses including sense of smell. Where is your character? What surrounds them?
Are they by a stream with the smell of wet moss?
Are you singing about a flower with a perfume?
Is your character in a hot dusty place?
Anserwing these sorts of questions and deciding on this in advance will help you more easily create a sense of place and setting from which to communicate your poem/emotion of the character.
Putting this into practise: Smell the Rose
One idea often suggested by singing teachers is to imagine you are smelling a beautiful rose before you sing a passage that is very beautiful/shows love/has warm and legato phrasing. The way we breathe in a delicious beautiful smell will open into different areas and therefor resonating areas than when we smell a horrible smell.
Sometimes I suggest a pupil thinks of something they particularly like - sweets, ice-cream, marmite… whatever helps them think of that nice slow breath in and helps change the resonance to colour the voice differently, and communicate the emotion needed.
As always, feel free to comment below and add your experiences of using smell to improve your singing and performance communication.
grow
growth as a performer and why it is good for us
“Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still”
In our blog today we are thinking about growth. In an attempt to allow balance in my work and personal life I have enjoyed trying to reflect the seasons more. I am learning to accept quiet times and use them for learning/technical work, planning (usually the dark winter months) and enjoy them knowing that busier times always come, particularly in the warm sunny summer months. Some people try ‘wintering’, a sort of modern-day hibernating - is this something you have tried?
So as we are now in spring, I am thinking of growth. What is growth in our performing life? Why is growth important? How can we grow?
What is growth?
We’ve all felt that nagging feeling that we are ‘stuck’, failing to progress, or being given work that does not stretch us - and felt frustration from those feelings! We don't always feel that we are in a position to progress at a pace we are happy with. So taking some ownership is helpful to plan your own development.
So what can you do? It’s a case of ‘Show: don’t tell’. Don't waste time telling people, find ways to do it!
Why is growth good for us?
Having a growth mindset means believing that effort and skill development will better your life.
As humans, having a ‘growth mindset’ is linked with higher levels of wellbeing and better mental health.
Those with a growth mindset are found to have better ability to cope with stress and anxiety.
Have a quick google to read more about growth mindset and how it might help you!
Tips to grow
Choose new repertoire, research something you haven’t yet learned. Perhaps if you are a singer you could brush up your language skills, or learn a new song cycle?
Tackle the technique you have been having difficulty with. We all come to a point where we need to address something that has been causing us difficulty - maybe there is someone who can help you do that or you can ask your teacher to help you find ways to work it out.
Work with someone new. A new accompanist, a new group of musicians, a new teacher, a new coach, a music course… Get a fresh perspective and ask their advice.
Be brave. Challenges help you to figure out the true extent of your abilities. Experimenting in lessons and with teachers is a safe space to try.
Remove the fear of failure. If you try something in a safe space, failure is not a problem, and growth is more likely as you will not be holding back.
reset
A guide to reviewing and resetting your work as a musician and teacher
“You’ll never do a whole lot unless you’re brave enough to try.”
January is a month of making changes, so why not take the time to assess your business as a musician or in the field you work in, and decide what you want to take forward, and what you can let go of.
Goals and Rewards
Make a list of your goals for the year
How brave do you feel? Maybe this list has some simple easy goals and also some amazing and difficult goals, aim big!
Performances, work on languages, new repertoire, new genre you have not yet explored, working with new people, new teaching jobs/pupils, changing your support/additional job that helps you fund your music goals.
Make a list of rewards for reaching those goals
We know we all work better when there is a reward - be that money, travel/holidays, listening to a favourite piece of music after a hard day, or maybe purchasing that expensive score you have wanted for a while (yeah, this is my weakness… they might be a particular shade of blue… and start with a B)
When you are self-employed, build in your work ‘bonus’ to your work plan.
Add detail of the stages you will go through to reach your goals
Don’t just make a list of big goals, plan how you will get there. Some goals will be easy to reach in one stage, some might be a long term project with many stages to tick off along the way.
Assess your Success
What went right last year?
What are you proud of?
It’s time, you have permission to pat yourself firmly on the back, and hold your own personal awards ceremony! Best of all, it’s all about you. List all your achievements and thoroughly asses what you have to be proud of - include financial, emotional, and mental achievements
What will you try to replicate?
Update Ways of Working
What takes more time than it should?
What could you use to improve your work-flow?
Are your accounts taking ages? are you slow on social media? Are you keeping track efficiently of pupils and payments? Are there any tools like apps or software that would save you time? Remember time is money and effort - often spending money is worth it if your life is easier or you are taking less time to do tasks you don’t enjoy.
What can be done more efficiently
Is your teaching scheduled neatly together or taking up random times in your week? Would your commute be easier/quicker if done at a different time if you worked different hours? Could you use fewer paid childcare hours if you moved your work schedule/teaching?
Tidy
Tidy and sort :
Concert/audition/teaching clothes
Sell/post/give away/donate what is no longer suitable or does not fit
Music
It’s easier to find if it is stored in a system you find easy to use.
Desk
Computer Files
Keep old files/photos in folders for their year, and make a new folder for the current files
CV
Website
Your Home
Training
What training did you undertake last year?
What training will you plan for this year?
Where are your weak points and how will you work towards making them your strong points?
Plan
Set out your diary and plan in holidays
It’s very easy to fail to take a break if you get offered work - but it is not good for us or our friends/family. Make sure it goes in the diary even if it can be moved. Schedule work like social media to automatically load while you are taking a break.
Find gaps and decide where new projects would fit in
Know when you are free to take on training
Hobbies
Can you schedule holiday days around work travel to include your hobbies?
Decide on new hobbies or when you are free to learn/do something, particularly if this is a seasonal thing
Buy/plan to buy that new book or piece of sports equipment
Wind up Old Projects
Make a to-do list of old unfinished goals.
Sweep up all the old half finished things into one list. Plan what you need to do to finish them all off, and how you will do that.
If you are choosing to stop something, plan your exit and work towards it
If you plan to change jobs, or finish certain teaching jobs, plan how you will step back and when, build in a change-over time if you are handing a job to someone else.