Vocal Coach Advice: How I Went From Being an Average Singer to a Standing Ovation

One of my most thrilling accomplishments in my career as a singer (and a coach) is the vocal technique and performance work I achieved with my singing voice. To go from an average singer to a professional one was only a dream at one point. A dream I worked hard to achieve and had a lot of help along the way. As I look back, I am astonished by what vocal technique brought to my voice. All of the finess, range, power, speed, flexibility, tone, endurance, breath control — all of those things. But the most important thing it brought me was my confidence and the experience of what it means to be a world-class vocalist. So much so that led to a standing ovation at Town Hall in New York City. As much as I wanted that, and dreamed of it, I never thought it was actually possible.

The most important thing for you to know right now – to really absorb — is that if I can do it, so can you. Because the journey and technique that I am about to share with you and this blog was the secret recipe.

The first most important thing to realize is that your voice is an instrument inside of your body. Singers are athletes of the small muscles of the voice and breathing. Just like an athlete needs training to improve their skills, the same is true for singers. The voice excels and expands so much with professional training. The benefits of the right technique and training are nothing short of extraordinary. I became so impassioned by it, that it became my vocation.

Not only did I transform my own voice with this technique but I did so with the voices of thousands of singers from my studio in New York City.

Today I want to walk you through my journey of how I got from being an average singer to getting that standing ovation at Town Hall in New York. I am going to show you the steps I took to get there. It kills me that so many people think success in music is “luck” or “who you know”. Those of us in the trade know that real accomplishments and achievements are not “luck” at all. They happen when hard work and preparedness meets opportunity.

Bear with me as I go blow by blow through my journey. Feel free to skip over parts or skim, but I didn’t want to leave any out, because each were pieces of the puzzle. This is my particular story – yours will be unique to you (and should be). I am sure you will find some similarities and I am hoping you might even get inspired to fill in some of the gaps or missing pieces in your own development. Many times I had to loop back to fill in missing parts. That’s the important part. I never really thought of myself as a singer. I thought of myself more as a musician and a songwriter. I didn’t take singing lessons as a kid. I just kind of stumbled upon it.

But what really stuck out to me, is that if I was ever going to find out who I could become it was going to take some serious muscle. And that was something I initially was afraid of, and then became obsessed with.

Here’s the story and then I’ll roll out some of the highlights below:

• Started playing classical guitar at 6. My mother was a classical pianist (prodigy level) and taught me how to read music and to play the guitar (baritone ukulele). She wrote out all of my charts by hand.
• Started flute lessons at 7. My flute was my first teacher of breath control.
• I wrote my first song called “Tell Me Why” at 7. My mother (a classical musician who couldn’t imagine ever writing a song when Beethoven already had… ) looked at me like a deer in headlights saying “that’s nice dear”… as in why try?
• I sang for friends for years at friends parties and sitting outside by the fire at night. It taught me about the power of music and friendship.
• Started practicing yoga (after a car accident left me with neck pain). It taught me about how to destress and keep my body and mind healthy.
• Moved to Hawaii, played at juice bars and coffee shops. I struggled with stage fright from little experience in public – was pretty traumatized by some bad performances but kept plugging away with my dream.
• Moved to NY, joined a rock band and started vocal training. I started losing my voice singing over the loud electric guitars and cymbals. I later was grateful because it pushed me to train and was the start of an entire new chapter becoming a professional singer.
• Started studying pranayama (yogic breathing). This was key to unlocking the tension in my breath. We all breathe backwards until we relearn belly breathing.
• Studied Alexander Technique. This was another huge piece to freeing my voice. Alignment is everything.
• Went to music school. NYU New School night classes and the NY School for Commercial Music run by Stan Persky. This was another huge piece for me. I realized I really need to study theory, sightsinging, composition, to really understand it (hard for me since I had a natural ear and it was faster to just skip over this, but my commitment to being a professional pushed me knowing I didn’t want to be caught not being fully literate in music. Education is the bomb. I also studied jazz guitar during this time and sang a lot of jazz covers. This really helped my improvisation and I loved singing jazz. I also worked at Bradley’s (NY’s biggest undercover late night jazz bar/restaurant) where all of the famous musicians played and would come after their gigs. It was a huge education in who’s who and several jazz musicians ended up playing on my stuff and Ronnie Matthews played at my wedding. It was an epic immersion into the heart of real jazz.
• Massage training. As I was training in voice, the tension and constriction in my neck led me to study massage. I was trained by Cathy Thompson who trained with Ida Rolf herself (Rolfing). She had developed a technique to use on singers and was working with Sting and Bruce Springsteen among others at the time. The techniques I learned there helped me to free my voice and led me to be able to do a high level of vocal massage on my clients — sometimes completely recovering their voices in just one session. I talk about this in my Vocal Resource Library where I give you some “self-massage” techniques that Cathy and I created for singers.
• Started recording. I got a 4-track recording machine and a Moog (LOL it was the early 80’s) and started recording my songs. It was an epic step forward in improving my ear and musicianship. It also helped me finish and “hear” my songs and voice. Big improvements here. I also started experimenting with production and it helped me develop the skills of listening and hearing.
• Started teaching. One day my vocal mentor asked me if I wanted to train to teach and potentially teach for her studio. Initially we both thought I should focus more on my music and career, and then a year or so later, I took her up on it. The training was intensive and quite thorough. I started teaching at her studio a few years later and became an instant success as a teacher. It was really exciting. I taught Donald Fagen of Steely Dan within my first year as a teacher!
• Playing local venues. My band was playing in local venues so I was getting more experience. My producer asked me to step up to sing lead (I was still singing backup in the band). My experience was improving – confidence was still in the trash, but my voice was getting stronger and that was encouraging me. I started getting a lot of comments on my singing ;).
• I got invited to sing jingles. It was a pivotal moment in my career. I was invited into this special group of singers who were making a fortune singing “jingles” — commercials for TV in the 80’s in New York. Thank God I’d been studying sight reading in school – I was able to rise to the occasion. I sang an American Airlines commercial on one of my first jobs. Never would have happened was I not prepared.
• Then I was invited to join a choir. Choir director David Brown had this amazing diverse choir based out of Metro Mass church on Park Avenue. We sang modern songs of all kinds (back then it was more a deal to break from traditional choir repertoire.) I was always given the “Sarah McLachlan” or “Jewel” songs to fit my resonant clear mezzo-soprano.
• Soon after I got married and my then husband was a designer and record producer on the side. He pressed me to record an album.
• I closed my studio for almost 2 years and became an artist full time. It was one of the most exciting times of my adult life. I became obsessed with music. From sun up to sun down I wrote and studied and recorded. I began connecting my spiritual life and interests and my music songwriter life and it was nothing short of revelatory for me. I became a real artist.
• During this time I met don Miguel Ruiz (author of the NY Times bestseller The Four Agreements). I ended up going on spiritual journeys to the pyramids with Miguel and studying the Toltec mythology. The songs that burst forth were the beginnings of writing my debut album the Circle of Fire. I started circulating demos of these “heart awakened” songs to the community.
• On Sept 11, 2011, one of the teachers in Miguel’s tribe, Rita Rivera, got called out of a prayer circle to call the publisher of Miguel’s books to tell her about the music I was writing.
• I got signed off of those demos
• I made a record
• Won awards
• Debuted “Heaven” from my record at Carnegie Hall
• Got a standing ovation at Town Hall

The point is, none of which would have happened if I hadn’t put in the countless hours of becoming a musician and a singer to meet the moment.

What amazing future are you going to manifest? And wouldn’t it be amazing to wonder what your 100% looks like?

Nothing is more powerful than when an artist is prepared to meet the opportunity of a lifetime.

Come join an amazing community of artists reaching for their best.

The Vocal Freedom Circle: Free Your Voice