I'm Taking Vocal Lessons and I Feel Like a Kid Again

One of my goals this year is, “Be Too Good to Be Ignored.” In an effort to uphold that goal, I started taking vocal lessons. For the last month I've been working with Maureen Murphy at Green Hills Guitar Studio. This is the first time I have ever taken singing lessons and I am having a blast. I know from experience playing guitar how much lessons help. After years of teaching myself guitar, I knew I needed more. I needed an extra push, some extra focus and a new approach to playing. I took over a year of guitar lessons and the rewards were beyond my expectations. Knowing this, the first thing I had to do this year was to sign up for vocal lessons.

Seeing that I have never had any training before and consider myself more of a songwriter than a vocalist, I’m going into this experience with a “beginner's mind.” I’m shedding whatever ego I have (when it comes to vocals I don’t have one really) and pretending like I’ve never sang before. I’m willing to keep an open mind, take chances and ask ALL of the questions. I feel comfortable stepping outside of my comfort zone and maybe sounding really bad a time or two. I’m hoping this sense of vulnerability will help me to lose my bad habits and start good ones. It will help me go back to basics and create a stronger foundation than I have now.

With the basics in mind, I am hoping to really work on losing bad habits, getting familiar with proper techniques and then incorporating these into a stellar live performance. I’m really interested in working on things like expanding my range, clearing up my tone and “finding my voice.” Ultimately, performing is the reason why I’m taking lessons. While performing I am always striving to make a connection with the audience. I want you to feel it. I think making this connection will be a lot easier if a have the tools to put it together. Nailing down the basics will help me become more comfortable on stage and hopefully open up my performance.

It has only been one month and I already feel like I’ve learned a lot. I’ve noticed the benefits of these lessons in every aspect of my day. I’m becoming more relaxed and loose as I sing and play guitar. I feel more comfortable being vulnerable and taking chances. I’m starting to give up the feeling that I need to be in control of every little thing. This has really opened up qualities of my voice that I’ve never found before. We started working on a falsetto voice, which has always intimidated me, but not anymore. All of these things have already found their way into my songs and my live performance. There is more texture to my music now and it feels really rich and really deep. Hopefully it's good enough to not be ignored.