I hear this so many times; I can't sing and won't sing because i sound awful and have been told I can't sing in tune. I often find that students who have difficulty singing on pitch tend to listen to their favourite song and then just go for it without any awareness of hearing themselves and how they actually sound. Compare this to a competent singer who has honed their craft from a very early age and has practiced mimiking their favourite artists, adjusting coordinations naturally and not being afraid to try different pitches voices and sounds.

Many people who feel they can't sing as adults have developed a fear and a lack of confidence from childhood. For example, being told to be quiet, or your not good enough to sing or join the school choir and as their personalities develop into adulthood so do the hangups and negativity that go with it.

For males often the problem occurs when their voice breaks. Before breaking the voice is very similar to a girls voice and can reach high girly sounding pitches. Once the voice breaks and often at first intermittently, boys tend to go in and out of both a deeper toned voice and their original higher voice and they find it very difficult to maintain control of their voice quality. This then affects confidence as none of us like to feel silly and boys especially tend to then fall in to the trap of talking in a limited range where their voice will stay in a low speaking range and that often is a very low lifeless mundane pitch to keep the voice from changing back to it's childlike quality.

Girls in their teenage years can have their own hormonal issues to deal with as they can go from being confident to feeling social pressures, awkwardness, emotional and self-consciousness among their peers and everyday life which again affects their confidence and voice quality to try things out of their comfort zone. For both males and females these issues can carry on through into adulthood which can ultimately result with a hangup to singing. The good news is with guidance these experiences can be overcome with good vocal training. Learning good technique can help you overcome your nerves and confidence issues to get to your singing goals. I'm not going to say it's easy! Like learning to play any musical instrument, it takes, time, patience and practice and there's no magic wand. But if you have the drive and determination you will get there.

Last Tuesday night I rehearsed with my band for the first time in what seems like forever.

It was great to get back to it and we had such a great fun, productive eve rehearsing new original material. In fact we were still keen to carry on after a 4 hour rehearsal slot. I must admit that I haven’t sung much at all for quite a few months.

The motivation and drive haven’t been there, with no gigs on the horizon. Like a lot of musicians there doesn’t seem much point. But the power of music is so magical and deep that it instantly lifts your spirits and you realise how important it is to transport you away from all this horrible stuff going on. I must admit it took it’s toll on my voice that eve and I woke up a bit croaky the next day. I haven’t been doing any vocal training for a while and It showed when singing in a band situation.

The first hour I pushed through various songs where the damage was done and then my voice warmed up and released and I sang well and felt a bit more like my old self. We have another rehearsal in a couple of weeks and I definitely need to get back to training to avoid any voice throat problems. Like they say if you don’t use it, you lose it! So true!

Online vocal coaching is really successful and fulfilling.

All abilities will benefit from novice to professional. With your first session I add on an extra 15mins at no extra cost so you can see how it all works and you can feel comfortable in the surroundings of your own home.

The lessons are on zoom* and I send all the info of what you need to do to get the best out of your lesson when you book. You can book online here.

*If you've experienced problems with singing over Zoom in the past, it is probably because some of the hidden audio settings had not been changed to work with music. I will send you these along with your Zoom invitation. And don't worry if you do not have an account: you don't need one as it's free to use. Download it for free here.