NOTES FROM A COACH
CHAPTER ONE

Getting Started!

• I Cant Seem To Get Started
• Small Steps Work
• You're Not Lazy You're Just Scared
• Your Possibilities are Endless
• Jam Sessions Make Me Run
• One Being Good To Your Body
• Celebrate Your Victories

I CAN'T SEEM TO GET STARTED!

The amount of real life stuff that gets in the way of our getting started is monstrous. Making rent etc. can already be taking up more energy than we have now, so how can we possibly take on the enormous task of getting our singing careers started?

The fact is that often it's our singing careers that mean the most to us , more to us than all the rest of the crap we do in life. Because it means more to us, we have a greater fear of failing and therefore a greater fear of getting started.

Sound like whats happening for you?

Little steps are the way to go here. Make a list of the ten things you can get started on and do TODAY! (examples below) And promise yourself you will get one item accomplished and crossed off each week..BEFORE YOU GO TO SLEEP ON SUNDAY NIGHT if need be!

After a few weeks you will start to feel the positive charge of having moved your dreams and things will start getting easier to accomplish. Easier to, pick up the phone. Easier to ask the questions of strangers and follow up on the information.

Remember, you do not need to have the perfect situation today, just be working towards it a little everyday.

You'll be surprised at how much further you'll be in just one month!

Example of a List:

• Attend an open mike to get comfortable in the scene and check out what people sing.
• Scout for (and post flyers for ) possible accompanyists at the local music schools, collages and open mikes.
• Visit local demo studio's and find out the cost for future reference.
• Price and interview vocal coaches or teachers who can help you develop your technique.
• Compile a half dozen songs that you want to sing and learn the lyrics by heart until they become second nature for you.
• Put the word out to all of your contacts that you are looking for opportunities to jam and have those 1/2 dozen songs ready in your back pocket to pull out.
• Attend rehearsals or recording sessions of a friends band so you can get used to the flow of rehearsing and recording. (and remember to stay a silent fly on the wall if you want to be welcomed back)
• Attend a concert of an artist that inspires you.
• Makes a daily journal of your thoughts and feelings for possible use as lyric ideas in the future.
• Work on your songwriting skills by offering to co-write with as many people as you can. 

Small Steps Work!

Huge goals are important in a career but it's the little steps that make real changes on a daily basis. I attended an entertainment workshop in Los Angeles shortly after moving here that insisted that in order to get results it is essential to put all of your energy into the forward motion.

If you are only making 2 calls a in order to find a band or a manager or a coach or a label then make it 10 calls a day. The law of averages insists that you will bear more fruitfull results getting on the honker then sitting around fretting about what you don't have accomplished yet.

My fastest learning students are usually ex- athletes who are used to setting short term goals and working realistically towards then. The larger goals are sometimes too far away and we can't feel ourselves progressing towards them on a daily basis.

In fact a lot of times students will ignore the practical daily growth that happens from practicing technique ..complaining that their lives are too stressfull or busy when really they are busy wasting all kinds of energy on feeling hopeless and stuck!

In order to create change it must happen a little every day!

Instead of complaining to yourself about how your not getting enough accomplished get something accomplished today before you go to sleep tonight so you have a little victory to celebrate! It will help change up your interior energies and clear the path for bigger and better victories ahead! 

YOU'RE NOT LAZY YOU ARE JUST SCARED!

Those excuses not to get to work are just your fear keeping you locked in. That straight job isnt holding you back from doing everything that you wanna do..YOU are holding yourself back. Get real about your "distractions".

If I had a quarter for every singer that has said "If only I didn't have this stupid job I would have time to practice, gather material, book a show, finish that song etc" I'd be a rich man!

Repeat after me: "I'm lazy 'cause I'm scared."

Now make a list of all the ways you distract yourself and take stock. If you replaced just one of those activities with a vocal warm-up or work out you would find yourself in real vocal health after only a few weeks. Try it and see!

Your Possibilities are Limitless!

I never make assumptions about a students limitations only the possibilties they can reach for. But I do find its important to target what specific goals can be reached realistically (audition pieces, recording a demo, working live with other musicians etc) and to be willing to push students to help them get there.

This singers life is a tuff one and we need people who we can trust around us, after all sometimes the folks who love us the most ain't tellin us the truth for fear of hurting our feelings. Or parental and partners concerns about the practicality of a life in music keep them in a negative place about our endeavors. I function as friend to your singing dreams and the enemy of your fear.

JAM SESSIONS MAKE ME RUN!

You're at a party. Someone's got a guitar. Someone else says "Lets jam, what songs do you know?"and you freeze and wish you could sneak out the bathroom window.

Your heart is pounding in your throat and all the lyrics have flown out of your head. Your fear of sounding bad is so overwhelming you couldn't possibly enjoy the experience- so you find some way to bow out and let the opportunity to feel good and joyous in your singing pass you by.

Bet you will wake up pissed the next day!

So..go easy on yourself...in the self-sabatoge dept this is a relatively simple one to get over.

Simply learn the words to the simplest songs you know...learn em so well you could sing em backwards. (Stand by Me is always a good one for jamming cause most people know it )

Next jam opportunity walk up to the guitarist or pianist and ask them if they know how to play any of the songs on your list. Then ask nice and see if they will try a little of the tune with you before the whole room is listening. Then you'll have a chance to check the key and and get a little more comfortable with the whole thing.

Jamming is a great confidence building opportunity that you do not want to miss. After all how many bands started off after a few beers late at night in someones living room or basement! 

On being good to your body

Be in the best health you can be at all times because you never know what opportunity might be coming your way!

You need strong vocal technique to tour and record but you also need a strong body to keep up with the rigours of the professional road life ! In fact all popular opinion to the contrary touring is anything but a party and asks us to be fit as athlete's in order to keep up!

Touring with the The Nylons was back breaking work and completly exhausting. A normal week included meetings and rehearsals while in town and then getting up at 6 am on show days to catch a plane a new city where we went right to the venue and soundcheck before eating a quick meal, hurrying to get dressed and warming up for the concert ..then after about an hour of autographs with the fans, trying to unwind in the hotel room and get enough shut-eye before doing it all over again the next day. Add the odd interview or recording session and you've got a crazy making schedual that leaves you no room for illness or a voice that is unpredictable.

Be in the best health you can be at all times because you never know what opportunity might be coming your way!

Celebrate your Victories

Too much of the time we have our sites set on goals that are in reality so very far away (a record deal, a touring band, a hit record etc.) that we don't ever let ourselves receive a sense of satisfaction when we've done something well in the moment.

Like write a good song or singing well at an open mike or jamming with friends and being able to remember all the words for once!

Of course this "joy in the doing" is something that alludes us to often in life in general. The idea that we must have a big carrot that keeps us motivated is built into the way society works and so we've imbibed the message that until we've met our bigger goals we are not successful.

This isn't good for our well being as creative artists in the short or the long run. How can our attention to the present remain unaffected by disapointment when in reality there is just so much struggle in a career?

Celebrate the small victories along the way!

Do you love to sing?

Have you been able to sing well recently?

Do you love the act of making music, are you enjoying a certain direction your music is taking?

This is all worth celebrating. And celebrating your victories will help you feel like the energies around your work are positive and helpful.

Believe me it sounds simple to do but its actually a challenge!