What Goes On In A Singing Lesson?
Often times after I teach a first time student who has never taken a singing lesson they say “wow I had no idea that’s what a lesson would be like” and they go on to talk about how it was more exciting and fun than they thought it’d be. So this got me thinking… how many more people would take a lesson if they got to get a sneak peak of how fun and intriguing a singing lesson can be; which is exactly what this blog post is meant to be. So if you are someone who has always been tempted to take a lesson but scared because you don’t know what to expect, use this post as a roadmap and hopefully a ramp to get excited about booking a singing lesson in the near future!
The great part about a singing lesson is that it is exactly that… it is just a lesson. Which entails that you are coming to learn something new and you ARE NOT expected to come in already being perfect. Whether you have been singing for 10 days or for 10 years the goal coming into a lesson is always the same: learn something new and have fun. That is the main goal of every single lesson that I teach and while the actual methods and details that go into each lesson may change from week to week all you ever have to bring to a lesson is yourself with a mindset that you are ready to have fun and learn something new doing it.
Now you are probably thinking “ok ok Kaden that’s cool but I want to know specifics! Give me a detailed outline of what is gonna happen when I step into your studio for a lesson” Well I’m glad you asked because I am about to do just that… sort of. Now because I want each lesson to be tailored to your voice specifically, lessons range from student to student and even your own lessons will change from week to week. Things will ebb and flow a lot but the main structure of your lesson will always be pretty consistent which allows us to build a solid technical base but also try new things that are gonna help you grow your voice fast. So with that being said… lets talk about what that structure behind each lesson is!
When you come into my studio for the first time, we will always take around 5 minutes to get to know each other a little bit but most importantly I like to use this time to get to know your voice from your perspective! So it’s kind of like a fun little interview where you get to talk about your voice and the experiences you’ve had with it and what you wanna do with it in the future. From here we will do a little vocal exercise that will give me information about your voice and let me know what is really great about it and what we could make even better so that I can convey that to you and so that we can build a plan for your voice. This is the most important part to any lesson because how can we possibly work towards being better at something if we don’t know what we are even working towards?!
After we get a our lesson goal and plan set we jump into working towards that goal with some vocal exercises. Notice how I said “exercise” and not “warm-up”; people often get confused and think that doing vocal exercises is just like stretching and warming up before you do physical activity and while this is partly true it isn’t exactly the full story. All vocal exercises are not the same and they work differently for different voices so they need to be handpicked to fit specifically to your voice. Because not only are they warming you up, but they are actually strengthening your voice and your technique; but only if you are doing the right ones and only if you are doing them correctly! So I am there to help guide you through exercises and picking ones that will lead you to the lesson goal that we set. This part is fun because we essentially just get to make a bunch of funny sounds that trick our muscles into doing what we want them to do to make us better.
After we do some exercises to strengthen your voice we then move onto applying those exercises to a song that you would like to sing. I usually have you pick a song you've been working on or one you would like to work on and have you sing some of it; after that we start utilizing what we learned during the vocal exercises to help you sing that song even better and more effectively. After we do this we have reached the end of the lesson and we go over everything we have talked about and we discuss what we think helped you the most that day to reach your goal. We use that to further help you while you practice at home and in following lessons to reach your goals even faster.
And that is all there is to it! Singing lessons are so fun because they are so hands on and they are so interactive. Because of this it is very common that you can see instant growth right there during the lesson which is one of the most exciting and fun feelings ever! If this sounds like something you want to do, don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you would like a lesson. I would love to have you in my studio!!