Voice Vibe Podcast
Your host: Philippe Hall
Special guest: Gregory West
Episode 01 The secret to my singing success:
"Finding & Indulging Mini-Singing-Obsessions"
00:00 Introduction and Welcoming Greg West
00:24 How the Philippe and Greg
01:53 Greg's Journey into Singing
02:17 Greg's Struggles and Breakthroughs in Singing
04:05 Greg's Transition into Teaching
06:43 How Singing Changed the Greg's Life
08:39 Philippe's Personal Journey and Challenges in Singing
10:14 Importance of Mindset and Resilience in Singing
17:28 Greg's Approach to Learning and Teaching Singing
22:28 Value of Failure and Seeking Help in Singing
24:11 Practical Advice for Singers
37:11 Closing Remarks and Invitation to Join the Vibe Singing Community
https://www.singingrevealed.com/vibe-singers-community
Introduction
Hello. Good morning. Good day. Good evening around the world. And welcome to the Voice Vibe podcast. My name is Philippe Hall. I'm your host and I'm excited to welcome my guest speaker today.
Greg West. Welcome, Greg. Hi, everybody. Thank you for having me, Philippe. My pleasure. First of all, I just want to introduce Greg, as I know, Greg, we met, I don't know, it was about four years ago, five, four or five years ago. And Greg drove from California to Las Vegas to take a voice lesson.
I didn't know who he was. I remember we just got together in a friend's living room and sang for, I don't know, a couple of hours.
And since then, it's just been reconnecting over the years, right? Greg’s come out and stayed with me and the family. And I visited him in LA and we've worked together and collaborated on a lot of things. One thing I really appreciate about Greg is, he is a perfect example of. How amazing progress can be made through many little steps over time.
And it's pretty amazing. I think one thing, that's one thing I do appreciate a lot about Greg is his relentless pursuit of knowledge about singing. And also just willing to be wrong and have disastrous fails and learn from them and figure out the right way to go. So why don't you tell us a little bit about how all of this came to be.
Tell us a little bit about your story.
Speaker Greg West begins...
Sure. Yeah. So I got interested in singing in some acting classes that I was taking on a scholarship. I was very lucky to have that opportunity. The acting teacher Bethany Price told me that she was directing a musical and she asked me if I could sing. And up to that point I was probably about 17-16 somewhere around there.
I thought that I could sing Because I had heard little offhand comments here and there oh, yes, you have a nice voice when I would sing, you know something along to the radio but And then I liked the feeling of singing so I thought surely I must be able to sing so then I went to the audition and it was just it was children's theater, it was a children's theater production and I Was very sorely I was in for a rude awakening.
Let's put it that way, I could not sing. I had a hard time Following along to the accompaniment of the piano. And, I was stubborn. I was not used to starting things and feeling behind on them especially when I thought that I was good at them.
So up until this point in my life, I'd be like math, yeah I'm good at that. I was used to doing well at things I didn't do well when I first tried to sing and that bothered me So it you know Got under my skin and I wanted to figure out how to do it and one of my first frustrations with singing Was just my range, it was because I could You know, we would go up the scale in these warmups and I just remember having this huge break In the voice that I just couldn't get rid of and I would start to struggle hard around e flat four or so just a very difficult zone now, appearing in the voice and I remember hearing the other, singers you know in some productions, that I would was doing musicals and I would hear them go higher and they would just hit the notes and it was like I was supposed to be able to hit the notes You know be written there in the score You got to hit this G in the song, hit this F and I would be like, why can't I do it?
And then I would hear somebody else doing it and be like, what - what is wrong with me? What is wrong with my voice? Why can't I just do what I'm supposed to be able to do? So that kind of started my search into improving my voice from that point on. It was really because I, Lacked the natural ability to sing high and I was pestered by it and that was the beginning of it and it evolved so many times over the years of you know eventually figuring out how to do high notes and coordinate that then to changing my priority into priorities into caring about different things, but you know that was what happened along the way During the first three years, I would always record these little clips of me singing.
So I would record little like tests, I started recording 10 seconds of me singing something to listen back as feedback to see, did that sound right? Did that sound like how I wanted it to sound? I would be mimicking singers, for example, copying them, seeing if that was the right sound, so I would. I would do that and then eventually after about those three years had passed I took all of those singing clips and I made a compilation Of those three years and I annotated that video and I published it to youtube So I just wrote here's what I was working on in this Part, this is what happened to my voice Here 10 minute video.
I published it on youtube called three years singing transformation and it went viral And that was really what started my then my journey getting into teaching Because at the time I was just you know a singer trying to improve my voice and interested in Information that could help me do that but then people started asking me how did you do that with your voice and I was also involved in online singing groups so and also just in classes, like in person that I would be taking at schools, I would freely explain to people, Oh this is what I did because, I just did it like last year.
I just figured out how to do this thing, so it's like fresh in my mind. Here's the steps that I took. So through that, I, that was how I started teaching very naturally, very gradually. People started just wanting to know how I did something and I would explain to them. This is, I did. A, B, C, and D.
And then, here we are, got that result. Through the singing transformation video, a lot of people started asking me, can you teach me how to do this? How did you develop your mixed voice like this? So I, that was how I really got started. Then becoming a professional teacher was people interested in some of the skills I had acquired and wanting me to teach them.
So I began to teach more and more. And then over the last now. Probably it's been the last three years I've been doing this full time, which is cool. And yeah, just always a learning journey, always learning more and, figuring out more sounds in the voice and becoming a better singer, becoming a better teacher.
How has this changed your life? Gosh I think I used singing initially, actually as a. Positive coping mechanism to deal with depression. So it changed my life. It probably helped me in a lot of ways. I can only imagine where Things would have gone without that because singing is such an intensely stimulative activity It demands a lot of focus and a lot of concentration and it's so there's so much happening so many sensations happening So it's hard to be depressed when you are engaged in an activity like that, you know So when you're zoned in and you're in the moment, it's like it's hard to be depressed snowboarding down a mountain you're trying not to fall you know, so I think that and having something that I could work on routinely and make little progress with was exciting And it really helped me actually, with managing depression.
So that helped me in a huge way as far as Learning to sing I think I never really had the belief that I couldn't do it, you know so I think it just affirmed what was already there mastering learning to sing it was just like I think i've always thought you can do anything you can be anything and that kind of Mastering that also helped me Cement that in there that belief as well So I think that's giving me more confidence as a person that yeah You know could do this and then I could probably I could take on other endeavors, you know I want to do so i'd say it's affected my life that way.
God, I think working with so many different people as a teacher has really affected how I See people and how I can talk to people and how I understand how like learning works, you know So, when I learn something, you know Now I think about it differently when I learn a different subject, you know I would say a lot of a lot has changed in my understanding of people and how And myself of how you know how learning works in general Yeah that's a wonderful mindset.
I guess we have that in common. I think it's really important. Everybody's going to deal with self doubt, right? And I always… Okay, you know me. Maybe not everybody that watches this video or listens to this podcast knows my story, but I was not planning on becoming a singer I was not at all what I thought when I was young it shifted when I was about 18 but up till then it was you know, medic medicine becoming a surgeon I was really into To airplanes and thinking about becoming a pilot.
And then the singing just happened, but I felt a pull towards that, like this was what I was. meant to do. And I never doubted either that it was possible. But a lot of people doubted me along the way when I was at the university and I had a great education. I loved the experience there.
But I remember very clearly one of them. I was really bad at acting in the beginning. I was just so bad. I was so stiff. And I remember the acting teacher professor, they're saying, I just don't think this is for you. I just don't, I think if you've got in a show, you do a good job, but your auditions are terrible.
And I remember just just having defiance not aggressive, just this internal defiance no, I'll just work on it. I'm going to work, I'm going to work and I'm going to make it happen. Just this natural defiance of no I'm going to do this because I firmly believed all my life.
If you put in the work, the results come and the progress happens over time. And then, I think I graduated two years later and. And sat down with her and I had booked out an entire season as an actor. And I was studying, singing and musicals. And that was great for me to experience.
And then I went on and I went around the world and I performed. And I performed in all kinds of different genres. And then I decided at some point after I was very well known, at least in Europe, as a musical. I did a lot of musicals. I decided that I wanted to become an opera singer. I don't know, I just always loved it.
And then I went back to school, and a lot of people were just saying, why are you doing this? Why? What are you doing? And teachers and professors also just not being, maybe you're not a tenor, maybe you're a baritone, maybe it is. And I'm like, you guys, this is ridiculous. And while I was in my second year of the master's program, studying opera, I was already booked out for the full season as an opera soloist.
But a lot of people in the musical world at different theaters didn't want to hire me for opera because they knew me as a musical performer. And I went and auditioned for people that didn't know me as an opera singer and I changed my stage name. And they hired me. So you run into a lot of crazy stuff in this phase, but that it was just resilient.
So I think I'd like to communicate to the audience. It's so important that your mindset as a singer, and I know I have seen incredible transformations with my clients. So I really appreciate you sharing how this has changed your life. I've seen similar things, people go from closet singer to singing the national anthem at a sporting event. People tell me they feel more comfortable socially. There's just so many things that change when one's confidence improves with your own singing.
Yeah, I think singing is regarded as one of the like top fears that people have, right? So it makes sense That learning to sing and then also learning to perform like that imbues you with some confidence because you're doing something that very few people have the chutzpah to take on, and to conquer, so yeah, it's empowering.
And I love that story of having to overcome. Through some internal defiance that you said and I didn't have anybody tell me I was a terrible actor Luckily, I got that acting scholarship because I had some natural affinity towards acting that didn't extend to the singing bute ith acting it was there.
I never really had anybody tell me you can't do this, but I did have people say for sure you're a baritone. What are you doing? Trying to sing high. And I definitely had a real spark of defiance there. I was like, no, I was like, what? I was like, I'm going to figure this out. It's I'm going to figure out how to sing high.
And it's just very funny now because when I sing most people now recognize me. As a tenor and they say, Oh, you're a tenor. And now it's funny. The spark of defiance goes the other way. And I'm like, how do you know I can't be a baritone?
So it's backfiring now, basically, it's like saying don't walk on the grass, it just lights that under me and I go, no, I'm going to figure this out. I have encountered that along the way of “how to”. A voice teacher tells me, your voice just isn't meant to do that....
Or your voice specifically doesn't do that sound, oh, I hate it when people, when I hear that, I just hate it when I hear that. So I was like, Nope. I was like, I'm going to work on this. And you know what? My voice does do that sound years later, years, it took a while, but it does do that sound, yeah, that's what I try to share with people is yeah, but you're right that tenacity that drive that work Towards doing it, and that resilience I think is the word you said. Yeah, it's so key Yeah, it can be frustrating. We've talked privately. I've had my frustrations I'm sure you've had a few frustrations along your way, right?
And some I mean I used to say literally there's a whole different pressure level when you established as an artist you have to live up to your own reputation. I'm singing this Saturday I'm mildly nervous, but I'm only nervous because I have to now live up to my own personal expectations of myself.
And people are coming and people see me and see me saying, and so the expectation level set. So it's you can't go and just screw up. You got to go and give a performance where people are like, Oh my gosh, wow. And if you don't, then you didn't live up to your own reputation.
It's a different stress level, but let's talk about that as well, because this way we can segue into what you wanted to. Share today, but it's really important to me that people hear that this did not happen overnight and their resilience is not, it can sound like, oh my gosh, it's so hard.
It's going to take forever. It's not that you are going to run into frustration, but it's just about putting time in the game. It's just time in the game and enjoying the process. And that over time produces incredible results. Yeah, I love that. Enjoying the process because I really did enjoy this process.
I really, yeah. And you enjoyed it. You didn't have any moments where you're like, this is not going to work. I hate this. Yes. Yes. But I enjoyed so many moments in the process and overall, I enjoyed it a lot. Otherwise I wouldn't have kept doing it. So I think you have to make learning to sing enjoyable or you're not or you're not going to do it and it's something that I tell people when they're practicing too is like it needs to make sense to you on some to some degree what you're doing and you need to be you need to be curious and want to Practice and want to figure it out.
Otherwise there's not going to be any motivation, I read on Reddit like probably a month or two ago, somebody saying, how do I motivate myself to warm up? And I just thought, wow, what a question. Like the whole paradigm here is messed up that, that you need. Oh, it's my video frozen.
No, I'm good. That you would need to motivate yourself to do your warmup. Like I'm always motivated to warm up because I want. To sing I want to make my voice. I want to find the sounds that I'm interested in using in my songs. I want to shape my voice for the day And make it start to work, right?
It's like I want to tune up the machine So that I can take it out onto the track and, and go and have fun and play, I want to stretch before my game so that I can feel like I'm going to be at a hundred percent. So the fact that they need motivation and they're not motivated tells me there's something wrong with the warmup.
There's something wrong with the exercise, which to me is what I want to talk about a bit today, linked to it. I wanted to say that A lot of singing learning to sing and what you're practicing should be like is finding little mini obsessions with the voice finding little things that you can hyper focus on so it could be all sorts of things It could be a specific type of sound a specific quality of voice That you're looking to make like you really like breathy sounds, so something like, are you done me and you bet I felt it so this sounds a lot of air maybe it's maybe it's a vocal effect, like you've got a creak in the voice And you want to sing with a whoa And you like the sound of it you're like what is that sound what are they doing become pick a thing You know a sound that you're drawn to and you get obsessed with trying to Do it yourself find it in your body feel how it works but it doesn't have to be a sound it could be something like What is relaxation in singing like you want to relax, you want vocal freedom Maybe it's this like idea vocal freedom.
Maybe you become a little bit obsessed with that and you try to figure out How can I relax? Can I relax fully what needs to be relaxed, what needs to be engaged what needs to be tense so you start to really investigate that you need to and when you do this You really take singing and your own singing journey Into your own hands you decide, you know You can decide what these little mini obsessions of yours are and this is really how I made The progress that I made is I jumped from one thing to a next to the next as it interested me Oh This person's got so much air.
How do I do that breathy vocal? Oh, vibrato. How do I do vibrato high notes? The high notes were the first thing, but they certainly weren't the last, yeah, how do I do high notes? A mixed voice, okay. What's belting? How do I belt? You explore what's, what these different sounds are that people are doing and different things that people are talking about and you try to understand it and you focus on one little zone of your voice.
At a time and when you do that you and you dive in deep you go deep into it You learn so much about how your voice works, even if they're not necessarily sounds that you plan on using I've explored for example opera sounds, we've had some opera lessons together and I don't plan to sing opera So let me go.
Why are you trying to sing? You know these opera arias you know for fun and because I got a little obsessed with, How are they making that sound how do I shape my You know voice to be able to do that. What are they doing? That's helped me especially as a teacher because I understand a wide palette of sounds and i'm able to help people That are interested in things that i'm not necessarily interested in but even as a singer Something that is remarkable about great singers that maybe people don't know necessarily is that they're excellent mimickers If you give somebody like ariana grande it's a copy x singer.
They're actually she's actually going to do a pretty good job Singers have really good ears and they have so they can hear sound really well hear little subtle differences And they can control their body to copy it a lot like voice actors and singers share a lot of crossover in that They have a control over their body and an understanding of sound that they can hear something and go I know where that is in my body.
So when you explore with your little mini obsession into a certain Direction with your voice and try to understand how this specific zone works. You really develop skills that are translatable because even if you don't want that specific sound, the process of learning how to create it. Translates into learning how to do other things because yeah, it's one voice in a holistic sense, right?
There is one voice there's many different things your voice can do and you could say there's many different voices But it's the same mechanism to create sound Fundamentally obeys the same principles and laws of physics. So when you learn one thing it translates into being able to do other things because It's the same system producing it.
So yeah, I gotta jump in on that. That's so because one of the things - just a tip from me we're going to get back to this, it's a really important tip for me. I, a lot of time with my clients, I'll spend time helping them to get consistent. At one thing, because the ability to be consistent at one sound teaches you to be consistent.
And then if you explore another sound, you're going to be looking to how do I stay consistent in this sound? There's little things from, I have people trying to, the singing, ah, simple exercise ma. And inevitably people will be going , and I'm exaggerating a little bit.
But you don't realize if your tongue moves a little bit while you're doing the ah, maaaaaaa ah, that, that whole sound is now fluctuating, it's being distorted. If your mouth's not all the way open maaaaaa, every little thing that moves is changing your overall sound. So when you get good at being consistent at one shape, one sound, it teaches you to be consistent in a way at every sound.
So I really am a big believer in that. And I wanted to talk about, I love this, having Finding and indulging in little obsessions, right? But let's talk about the reality that when you're indulging in an obsession, you're not going to get it right all the time. It's going to take a while to get it right.
And at some point everybody needs a little help. You didn't do this completely on your own. I didn't do this on my own. We have to say, yes, obviously I spent. My 10, 000 plus hours, you've spent your 10, 000 plus hours, but what's the value in failure and what's the value at what point do you seek help?
Give me one second.
Yeah. We got a switch view. I like that. You got a double camera. But this is cool too. It's working. Yeah, I don't know. It just just shut off. It'll pop back on. Yeah, we just got camera view too. Go.
Yes. Okay. Let's see. It may be this that turned off. Let's try it again. You check that out. I'll just share a little bit about my experience. So when I was going, wanting to maybe find a rock sound, right? Yeah, there you go. That, yeah, that's very Is that blurry? A tiny bit, but it'll probably focus in.
It's not automatic, so Ah, okay, yeah. I've got A little blurry. There it is. That's in focus. We'll go with that. Cool. So you were saying about, you wanted to share about your finding a rock sound. Just, when I was looking in having a little obsession, maybe of finding a classical sound or finding this, how is this singer I love listening to making this sound inevitably you're going to make progress.
You have to do it all on your own, right? You have to find this sound within your own body. But we have this wall of perception versus reality. And my perception of how that sound was created. Wasn't always the reality of how it's created. And so you can, you get to a point where you bang your head against the wall.
And I think that's the important point in your self discovery where you're like, you know what? I'm really not getting any further. I got to get some guidance here. I've wanted to say about that as well, that With many obsessions. A lot of that it can be external a mini obsession can be your vocal coach pointing out a hole In your voice a gap an area a deficit of control that you have over your voice So they might say listen, like you said you can't keep a consistent ah vowel, you know you were doing But my fear is ah You know That's probably the most common A very thin people will do That's that is a control deficit.
So if it These obsessions can come from external sources and many of mine did many from just fellow singers or from from reading something and somebody talking about a certain concept getting it from there getting it from a vocal coach Getting it from a vocal pedagogy system like complete vocal technique or a still voice training or sls speech level singing or a classical idea Like what does it mean to open the throat get obsessed on that?
What does it feel like? How does it change your sound if you open your throat right whatever open throat means? That helped me so much of, okay, what is overdrive? You know what I mean? I wanted to understand what is overdrive. What the heck is overdrive? What's the difference between overdrive and edge?
I got obsessed about those little things. There was no way that I could learn what overdrive and what edge were without taking lessons Like there was just no way I tried Okay, so you can Do a lot by yourself you can talk with your friends and you really should have singing friends you should have singing friends and they can be the source of You know some inspiration and of a little obsession because they'll tell you what they're obsessed with Oh i'm working on this right now All you have to say when you communicate to another singer to find out what their little obsession is you say?
What are you working on? That's their obsession. You work on your little obsession. So good singers do that. They have a little focus, you know I'm really working on this tone right now I'm trying to bring more of this into my voice at the moment, you know So you need to find those things and adopt them.
So for you know me i've never been afraid to Ask people I would always ask singers. It started with me. Just asking other singers How are you singing those high notes because I was obsessed with the high notes, yeah How are you singing that? Could you always sing those high notes? What are you thinking about?
What are you doing? That is getting feedback that is getting help. I would ask Singers that I was doing stuff with and I would ask the musical directors. I started to take voice lessons because you know Evidently what I was doing by myself Wasn't working, so you have to get obsessed with something Yeah, but then you really need to find a competent guide.
It doesn't have to be a professional teacher. You can try to get help from a friend. I mean I figured some things out about vocal runs from a friend that was a lot better at vocal runs than me And that led to some epiphanies. So you can definitely learn things from colleagues and from studying with singers.
A little trick, a little way of thinking about something that they explain, that can be it. But, obviously, if you work with a really competent teacher, They're going to be doing this a lot and they're hopefully going to be better at getting you there faster than the trick that your friend uses, your colleague uses to think about it because their way, as a singer, when you're looking for a sound, when you find the thing, the one thing that works, you settle on that.
You're like, cool. I got it. Yay. But as a singing teacher, you usually have an arsenal of things to try to get somebody in a specific direction, because you're used to problem solving how to get, Singers from A to B to C to Z over and over again. So you're very familiar with okay, if we get this pitfall right here, let's try these five things.
If these don't work, we can try these other things. A professional, that's what a professional teacher should do. Which is why it's important on your point of I was obsessed with an opera sound. I bet you didn't go to a rock singer when you were obsessed with a classical sound. And I bet when you're obsessed with a classical sound, you didn't go to a rock singer, which is why it's like the importance of finding a teacher that fits to whatever that obsession is.
That's always what I've done is I've heard. Oh, this singer, this teacher is really good at this sound. I asked them about that. I don't ask them about things that I don't think that they're particularly qualified in. And that's just, that's how it is. Every teacher's got their zones of specialties, just like doctors, everybody's got their focus and their specialties.
I am not focusing and specializing in teaching classical. Sounds, I know some things about it. I know some basics I know some fundamentals, but I'm not going to be wanting to work with people that want to do that My focus is going to be on I want to work mostly with singers that want to be able to do the sounds that I Can do really well and so that would be my advice too for when you are looking for that guidance of With whatever that little mini obsession is you should work with somebody that's qualified If i'm working on those cvt sounds and i'm trying to understand what is overdrive And how I can control overdrive and what I can use overdrive for and how that's going to affect my singing You should go to a cvt instructor.
You shouldn't go to a classical instructor. You say overdrive to a class must be like what? Don't put your voice in overdrive. No only sing middle power, you know Don't sing louder than is beautiful. No, don't overdrive it, You know, they're going to interpret that and go I don't know what you're talking about you got to go to somebody that understands this has been a lot of fun.
We're definitely going to do this again. Just to maybe a finishing thought on how can somebody find, if they find an obsession and they want to indulge it. What's the first step they should do?
I like to I would say to find a mentor for that specific sound. And that may even look like finding a singer that's doing, or a collection of singers that are doing that specific sound really well. So if it's the breathy sound, I can list you like a bunch of singers right now that are really good at breathy vocals, because breathy vocals are something that I've studied, that I appreciate, and that I've wanted to put in my own voice.
You need to find people. Okay. I really like this guy. I really like Jason Mraz. For example, I love the air in his voice So you go I'm gonna just listen to Jason Mraz over and over again I'm gonna I'm gonna listen to Jason Mraz sing one line of the phrase And then I'm going to copy that line of the phrase and I'm going to record it and I'm going to listen back and then I'm going to listen to back to Jason Mraz and then I'm going to listen to my recording.
I'm going to go. That's not quite right. On this line right here on this syllable. It didn't have as much air. You got to really get focused and there's nothing better than this back and forth mimicking. A voice lesson is just you mimicking the teacher. Okay, you see them open their mouth like And not you copy that and they tell you no, don't open your mouth.
Like the only difference is they're telling you're not doing what I'm doing, but when you're copying a singer, you need to do what they're doing without them telling you to do it, which means you have to watch it and focus it, focus in on all those little details and listen back to yourself to get that feedback because you don't have them saying.
You're not doing it. With a vocal coach, you can, of course, if I could get a lesson with Jason Mraz, I would, maybe he wouldn't be very good at it, but I would try. So with a coach, you would find it's another mentor. You find somebody that's doing a sound really well that you like, go and study with them and try to work on that specific sound.
See, I really like this tone. Can we work on, can we work on this technique? How do we do it? So I think that would be my first advice. Find somebody to copy, you know Whether that's a singer and they're listening to the song and going back and forth and recording yourself or whether it's in a lesson And then copying the teacher, doing it.
My second piece of actionable advice would be actually don't just have one obsession So whatever it is that you're interested in with your voice if it's breathy vocals In order for you to actually be practicing a thing, there needs to be things that Differentiate that from other stuff. So if it's a breathy vocal, it means it's not like a tighter vocal.
So if I have ah, this is not breathy. And I know that it's not breathy. In other words, like if something exists, there has to be something that it's. That is not it. So for breathiness to be a thing you have to have not breathy, right? Ah so I have to be able to do both of those things So when you're practicing you should actually not just do one thing only you should be doing comparative tests So that would be another I think really Practical piece of advice would be when let's say you're singing that phrase of a song do it multiple ways, okay?
Desperado Don't do it now do it breathy Desperado Do it both ways go back and forth record it did the change you thought? You made actually manifest in the sound when you got that feedback and that's to your point of expectation and reality You know that's why feedback is so important and a coach is so important But there's a lot of things you can learn yourself and you have to do it that way even with a coach I mean you're going to see them what once a week So if you see them once a week, twice a week or something, you still have a lot of practice to do by yourself.
So you need some sort of mechanism to correct yourself. You need to start to be thinking about, yeah, that wasn't breathing. I can hear it. I could feel it. These are the things that I sense and I feel when it's breathy and I can hear it when I listen back and when it's not. So you should have multiple obsessions in rotation at least because then you can switch between them, which is also another value to doing it is it's better for your memory.
To be Working between different things. It's not good for your memory to be doing one thing only it's if i'm trying to learn vocabulary and you use the flash card method so you have a word and you know I'm trying to learn what does this word mean in a foreign language, okay, this is the word got it And then you just keep repeating the word over and over again Like nobody would do that too if what do you move it to the back of the deck?
You have other vocabulary to look then the next time you get to that card after going through all those cards You've forgotten it. It's not right there at the forefront of your mind Then when you relearn it again in that moment, even though it's difficult and you've forgotten it that actually creates a stronger more durable memory So a piece of advice would be write out your little obsessions put them on each on an individual flash card For you to practice and cycle through them have at least a couple three of them So don't do the same thing over and over and over and over again do these comparisons of well, I did this sound Now let me do this sound.
And that's a difficult process. It's actually in the short term, much more difficult because you lose the sound after you stop practicing the breathy sound, you go, Oh, I tried to find my breathy sound. F…. I lost my breath. Where's my breathy sound. I can't do it. That's normal. It's more difficult in the short term.
It's actually better for your brain in the long term. Just if you were to sit there all day with one word, you would feel great about knowing that one word. But it actually, a week later, you wouldn't know that one word as well as you would have if you had cycled through it, giving your brain a chance to forget it and then re remember it.
Yes, it's better this way because you learn more than one skill at once a B you learn the skills better because it's you're really integrating into your long term memory. I think it's just more fun It's more fun to have a couple of things going than just only one thing. So though you have an obsession, have a couple. Yeah, don't limit yourself.
Yeah, that's great. I appreciate So much that you've taken the time to be here today. And this is a very valuable discussion. I love it. Just remember, find an indulger of many obsessions and don't limit it to just one. Something you mentioned also earlier during this podcast is how important it is for singers to know other singers and interact with other singers.
And that is exactly where I created the vibe singing community. It's a community for singers to get together, to exchange, to get feedback and also learn. So we're going to end this podcast, but if you'd like to connect with Greg and myself and the vibe community, then join our private zoom call.
That's going to be starting now in five minutes. I'm going to, we'll have this private zoom call. It's a Q and a call with all of my guest speakers. We're going to answer your questions. We're going to give you some personal advice and guidance. So you get this connection. You need connection as a singer with experts, with guides, with other singers.
https://www.singingrevealed.com/vibe-singers-community
So go ahead and check inside the description. You'll find a link for the vibe singing community. And thank you so much for tuning in today. We'll see you. Next week with Jordan Mitchell. Have a great day, everybody. Have a good one guys.
