Body Singing by Breck Alan

Nashville and Online Vocal Coach

Top 5 Reasons to Fix Singing Mistakes

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Top 5 Reasons  to Fix Singing Mistakes

5.  To sound professional

4.  To compete in the competitive music business

3.  To make more money

2.  To impress the world with our abilities

1.  To limit the distractions from the magic and perfection that already exists in all of us……….

Because that’s really what a mistake is….a distraction.  Not just to the listener, but to you, the performer. One of my favorite expressions is, the two most important notes in music are….the first note, and the first note after a mistake. So don’t be distracted by your mistake!  Mistakes, are not the point.  And even when you make mistakes, don’t make it the focus.  Move on, keep reaching for the beauty, and make that the point, the whole experience will be so much better for us and the listener. 

What does Singing have in Common with Driving ?

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On the Old Ludwig Kit at Snacky Time Studios Nashville

On the Old Ludwig Kit at Snacky Time Studios Nashville

 

 

Everyone thinks that the drivers in their town are the worst.  I hear that all of the time from people all over the place.

So assuming people can get better at driving how would they go about doing it?

There’s been a common myth associated with singing for as long as I can remember, which is, all you need to do is sing a lot and you’ll get better.  It’s been my experience with singers that this is not necessarily so.  Have you ever heard a singer multiple times that has some obvious weaknesses that never seem to go away?  In fact they often get worse.  Then there goes the theory of just doing something over and over will make you better.

Now apply that same theory to driving a car.  Most of the people that freak you out on the road with their less than great driving skills, probably drive every day.  In fact many of them probably drive at least a couple hours a day.  And they’re still bad at it.  Why is this?

Because, as one of my favorite saying goes, “practice doesn’t make perfect, perfect practice makes perfect.”  If you keep doing the same bad habits over and over, you’ll basically just get really good at those bad habits.  And the longer it will take to reverse them.

Every musician secretly wants to be a drummer and I hacked away at drums for several years.  I’ve always been obsessed with them for years and wanted badly to actually be good at it.  Someone once suggested to me that all I needed to do was play along with songs I liked and I’d get good.  Well……..not exactly.  I certainly learned some things and got past the initial obstacles of what it is to have four limbs doing separate things.  I even thought at times that I was getting pretty good, because it felt so right when I was playing along to a song I liked.  But then I would record myself playing over a song, listen back and wonder, “who is that guy drumming, and how can he be that bad at it.”  So finally I bit the bullet, bought some drumming books, took some lessons, practiced with a metronome, and saw things take a whole new form as something that actually sounded like a real drummer.  And I’m having more fun with it than ever. The better I get, the easier it becomes to get even better and open up new possibilities.

Like most thing in life, you have to step outside of yourself, figure out what isn’t working, make a plan of how to address those things, roll up your sleeves, then go back in and and get to work.  And repeat that process as much as you can stand it.

Now only if most drivers could see a video of themselves scaring everyone on the road silly with their crazy and dangerous driving habits, then maybe they’d make some efforts to get better at it.

And as a singer, you have the power to see progress happen, and it takes not just practice, but intelligent practice.  Learn “what to learn,” so that your time is well spent and will take you where you’d actually like to go as a singer, and not just someone that resigns themselves to their limitations.

So…….what do Singing and driving have in common?  That you can do something everyday of your life, and not necessarily get better.  Unless you make a concerted effort to actually see improvement.

Happy driving.  And happy singing.  And if you sing while you drive, keep your eyes on the road.  🙂

What building a studio has in common with building your voice

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I just want to plug in some mics and start recording.  I haven’t hit the record button in over a year since I took down my studio in NYC.  Without my own personal studio, I feel like I’m stranded on a deserted island.  Does that feeling seem familiar?  I just want to be able to sing well?  I just want to be performing now?  Believe me, I get it.

Over a year ago I packed up my studio in NYC, moved to Nashville, put the studio in storage and started on the journey of building a house with studio in it.  I was planning on remodeling a little house I bought and building something out back for the recording studio.  Well……the house was just too far gone, so I knocked it down and started over.  How hard could it be?  It’s a pretty intense project, I’m here to say.  A house that was supposed to take less than 5 months to build took almost a year.  So I got very far behind my goals.

I put in an incredible amount of time and energy, not to mention life’s savings, just getting the house finished.  So, what did that leave me when I could finally move in?  I had an empty studio space.  What to do then?  I have to tell ya, it was all I could do to stop myself from just grabbing my gear and sound treatment materials out of storage, throw everything up in a couple weeks and just get to work recording, writing and teaching.

And the rewards would have been immediate.  But the results?  Well lets just say, they would have been less than I know they could be, and far less the kind of quality I’m shooting for.  After having four different studios in NYC over 11 years, I know a lot of the pitfalls with a recording environment.  They say “God’s in the details,” and that is so often true.

So here I am, over three months since I moved into the house, and I’m still working on the studio construction and assembly.  My gear is still in storage, and I’m just trying to get the tracking and control rooms built correctly before I tackle the the huge job of getting my equipment and re-wiring for this space.  I’m hoping I can remember how to plug in all those whacky interfaces that are involved in a serious recording rig these days.

So yes, I’m now way behind schedule.  And I’m very, very tired.  Weeks go by and all I do is build things and install things and wonder if I’ll ever get this thing done.  But in the back of my mind I know something that rings true.  I’m bringing all of the experience I have from the previous four studios I had in NYC and infusing that into this space.  I’m spending the extra time on the front end, so that this wonderful space will be as great as it can be, and I’ll love the work I do in it.  I know enough to know that If I’d just listened to my tired voice, and thrown everything together when I first moved in, that I’d end up being very frustrated with a lot of the results.  Because I’m solving so many issues ahead of time, my focus can be spent in more creative ways with far better results than from a mediocre recording space.

What does this have to do with building a voice?  Or anything else?  It’s exactly the same thing.  The time you spend assembling things correctly on the front end will save you years of frustration in the future.  Remember “The Art of Body Singing” credo:  The voice is an instrument, assembly required.  For those extra 100 miles in the beginning, you’ll get years of service.

So remember, when something seems horribly tedious and requires a lot of inner strength, you might just be in the right place.  Please share some comments with us about some grueling task in singing (or otherwise), that you feel really paid off.

So…..I’m off to build stuff.

Until next time,

Breck