It’s been a few months so I should be “good” at singing by now, right?? RIGHT????
Last month, I had multiple clients let me know that they were feeling a certain way because they didn’t think they were making progress fast enough (I’m paraphrasing, but that’s the gist of it). This is not a new convo in the voice studio–we give a shit how we sound and want to get “better” as quickly as we can. We all want to be able to just open our mouths and be “good” singers (whatever that even means lol).
When asking ourselves this question: “How quickly will it take for me to be ‘good?’” there are a few things that would be helpful to consider:
What is “good” to you?
This matters. A LOT. We all have different ideas about this, just like we all have different singers that we love. My definition of “good” is likely different from yours so having an idea of what we’re aiming for really helps.
Another reason this is important is that we tend to judge our own “good-ness” based on what we hear when we’re singing AND we’re super hard on ourselves. We tend to hold ourselves to a standard of “prettiness” that we actually don’t care about in other singers. I’ve had clients say things like, “well, that didn’t feel very pretty.”
Well, is pretty what you’re going for? Is the original artist singing that song in a way that you’d describe as “pretty?”
Honestly, this happens all the time–clients since these rocking songs that are NOT pretty (in the best way) and yet they’re judging themselves for singing in a “not pretty” way. The underlying belief, even though it’s almost never conscious, keeps us stuck in pretty. And hey, pretty is fine. It’s also usually pretty boring (see what I did there?).
Most of the music I listen to is not, in fact, pretty, but it is powerful and makes me feel something. Pretty perfection is BO.RING. And uninteresting, in my not so humble opinion.
Another question to ask ourselves is:
What is “progress?”
This also matters a lot and can be hard if…who am I kidding? WHEN we compare ourselves to others. We do not have the same starting point. We just don’t. And, like literally any other endeavor in life, there are people who have leg up, for whatever reason.
I have a knack for singing and can learn new stuff pretty quickly. But man, whenever I’m trying to do a creative activity like painting, or learning a sport that requires, ahem, coordination? Yeah, I’m definitely NOT the fastest learner in the room. And that’s ok!
All this to say that progress for me is not the same thing as progress for you in anything so it’s important to to understand this so we’re not such dicks to ourselves when we’re not making the sounds we want to be making (YET).
As I’ve been thinking about this because, you know, I care how my clients are doing, I landed on a few thoughts:
First, every single one of them had made progress, just not in the way that they realized.
Which is amazing, right? Well, maybe? If my idea of progress for them doesn’t line up with their own idea of progress it can feel pretty frustrating for them. And I get it!
An example of this:
For one of them, I know that progress meant that they could just sing with their guitar and it would feel great and easy. Well, yes, that is progress, however, that’s a long term goal. As we work on our voices we’re doing neuromuscular retraining: we’re asking our voices to do things in new ways and we’re strengthening the musculature, and that takes quite a bit of repetition of the new way. It’s a journey!
What they didn’t realize is that while their singing voice hadn’t changed in the way they were hoping, singing is feeling easier for them. And that’s a big deal.
I like to say that we have to start with making sounds that feel easy and then we can do something with them. If it just feels like a slog the whole time, well, there’s not much we can change until it starts to be less “work”.
My last thought on this is that we all have different starting lines and your progress may not look the same as your classmate’s.
AND THAT’S OK.
Sometimes this means genetics. And sometimes it means that folks are dealing with some kind of physical/mental/emotional stuff that we coaches have no idea about and we’re here to hold their hands and create the space for them to work through it.
(Quick side note: We are NOT therapists. A lot of people describe their singing classes/lessons as therapy, and while that’s a lovely sentiment, vocal training does not take the place of getting the help you need from a qualified therapist. I’m a HUGE fan of therapy and I recommend it to folks all the time. I am SHAMELESS about it.)
Singing is like everything else in life: we all have different starting lines, and some folks improve/grow more quickly than others. We all know the phrase “comparison is the thief of joy” and I’m assuming we also know that that shit is hard. We care about how singing feels and sounds so I get it–it’s hard not to get frustrated sometimes.
Here’s an example of how unseen physical challenges can make progress feel slow:
I’ll use jaw tension as an example–I like to say that while jaw tension doesn’t make higher notes impossible, it does make them more difficult. Most of us tend to hold tension in the jaw in a way that’s not particularly useful, AND we hold that tension for different reasons.
Some folks may be able to start releasing their jaw pretty easily (SOME lol), but let’s say another client had an injury in the past and they really needed that muscle energy in the jaw to compensate for a lack of stability in other areas of the body. That compensation was NECESSARY at the time: it was serving a purpose. As we heal from injuries we don’t just stop compensating–we have to learn new ways of doing this. Well, it’s going to be a longer process to shift those kinds of muscular habits.
And the hard part as a vocal coach is that we don’t know those things by just looking at people. The clients don’t know either! How could they know that an ankle injury a few years ago created some instability in their bodies that they had to supplement with their jaw and tongue?? Not only can we not know how our own bodies and voices are likely to change, we certainly can’t assume we know how other folks’ bodies and voices are going to respond, and this can make the beginning stages of recognizing progress particularly frustrating.
The moral of the story. Well, I guess there are a few.
In order to know if we’re “improving” we need to have an idea of WHAT improving means to us.
None of us are the best at ANYTHING so let’s just go for it and enjoy the silliness of the learning process.
It’s not a race.
You have your whole life to work on your singing...
so just sing because it fucking feels good.
Have you ever been hard on yourself because you’re not getting “better” in the way you thought you should be? I’d love to hear about it! Put it in the comments!
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