Don’t Do That - Do This

This past summer, at a top-notch songwriting camp, I took a singing lesson from a well-known vocal instructor. This instructor’s usual clientele consists of many famous singers, especially of the country and pop genres.

(No, I shall not name names.)

For each student in the camp class, the instructor (I’ll call him “Mr. B”) took a few minutes to listen to us sing, then he told us what he heard that could be improved and how to do that.

When my turn came up, I was pretty excited about getting such a notable expert to hear me sing. For years, I have struggled with learning to sing “popular” music.

A bit of backstory…

As some of you may know, I pretty much began my musical life in the classical genre: classical/orchestral violin, choral vocal music (think Handel’s “Messiah”) and even a bit of opera. And along the way, I got first-rate coaching from choral leaders in singing this repertoire.

Fast-forward to more recent years, and I started to sing more of my folk/pop/Americana stuff, using the same vocal techniques I had been taught since I was several inches shorter than I am now.

Up to then, I thought singing was easy enough. So I was perplexed as to why I struggled vocally to get the kind of sound I wanted while performing more modern forms of song.

Back at the music camp, Mr. B proclaimed that I was “working too hard” in my singing, and he gave me specific (and frankly, a little weird) vocal exercises to try. I did the exercises as instructed, and when I sang again, my classmates were shocked at the improvement in my voice.

You would think I would take those awesome exercises and immediately apply them to my singing at gigs, right?

Not so fast.

It takes a while to un-do decades of vocal practice. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with the way I had previously learned to sing. It just doesn’t serve my current genre so well. But switching to a new vocal style is not something I can do overnight.

Instead, I am taking this on slowly during the winter months, when I have fewer gigs and more time to do vocal practice. Mr. B’s advice is awesome, and I’m pretty sure it will work for me in the long run, but you may have to wait a little longer until you hear the difference.