4 min and 7 sec to read, 1029 words

Today I want you to ask yourself one simple question: what if learning to sing were easy? I know that might sound crazy right now. Especially if you’ve been working on learning to sing for awhile now. Weeks, months, even years, we all need to ask ourselves this.

What Would Change if it Were Easy?

Learning a new skill is hard. It can feel so foreign and stressful. Like an uphill climb. But if you’re excited about something some of these difficult feeling can feel more like excitement and possibility. You can’t get somewhere new doing the same things you’ve always done.

I think especially with singing. We overthink it and usually over do it too. That’s where starting to think about this simple question can start to be beneficial.

We tend to go into learning a new task with a sense that it will be difficult. That we’ll have to work very hard. And while this is somewhat true, we have to allow for natural tendencies too. After all, we are already voice users in our everyday life. We’re kinda half-way there!

I am by nature an overthinker. I would overthink something and make it 10 times more difficult than it had to be. Learning to sing can feel like someone saying, “okay today we’re going to learn to walk.” And you’re thinking to yourself, I’ve already learned that and I do it on a daily basis.

Well we also talk every day of our lives incorporating many sounds, pitches and rhythms in to our speech without thinking about it. Yet when we start to sing something, all of these mechanics can turn stiff, forced and strained.

But we don’t strain in our every day speech if we are using our voice in a natural and easy way.

After studying voice with two of the world’s most beloved and in demand vocal coaches for a combined 25 years, I finally learned that singing in a free way has much more to do with allowing than working.

We Really Don’t Have to Work so Hard

As singers, we can really feel like we must work incredibly hard and deliver big emotions, volume, and drama. But all we really have to deliver is the words we are saying in the story we are telling.

That can be mind blowing to a singer. I know it was to me. I remember my coach asking me “what if it was easy”? Seeing what I would put myself through learning to find the voice I was looking for, my natural easy voice. He saw how hard I was working and asked me that simple question.

He would tell me that all of this stuff is in fact incredibly easy, but we all make it more difficult thinking that we have to work hard. What we have to do is let go. Which, I have to say is very difficult especially in the beginning of our singing journey.

Think about it. I think we psych ourselves out when learning to sing, or any other difficult task. We expect to have to work tirelessly at it, but what if that wasn’t the best way to learn?

Just telling a simple little story in a conversational volume is what we’re looking for. Yet it can be such a dichotomy to think that something so simple can take years to learn how to do.

We’re All Learning to do Less

But most of what we are learning to to is how to ‘undo’. Peeling back layer after layer trying to get to that simple center of vulnerability to tell a simple story in a simple way.

It feels foreign. It feel wrong. It feels like cheating. It feels vulnerable. But we all have the ability to do it. And yes, it can take awhile to get there. All I’m asking you to do this week is to ask yourself “what if it were easy?”

Ask it before every practice session. Everytime you sing along with a song you love and feel like you won’t be able to hit that high note. Before we conclude the episode today I do have a gift for you for spending some time with me today. For the singers….

for the guitar players….

amyhailstone.com

What if it was easy?

What would change in your approach and attitude? It won’t happen with the muscling up, big volume, or forcing or willing anything. Stip your song and excercises down to a simple word or sound, made with just enough air (no bit breaths) and just tell a little story. Or perform your exercisise in a low volume like you can’t wake the baby in the next room. You’ll be surprised how easy things start to feel.

You don’t have to ‘kill it’ every time you sing. Take it easy. Let’ things grow as they will. But you have to create that space for that organic growth. If you’re always at a volume 10 with a big breath trying to sing to the back of the theater, you won’t find that sweet and easy place.

Do you believe it can be easy? Ask yourself this question daily and try some different, less aggressive and more allowing approaches and see what happens. Really try, see what happens. I hope you start to believe that yes, it can in fact be easy. Little by little you’ll start to trust it. It will take some time. Go along for the ride. I believe in you!

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In the mean time, keep on singing and we’ll see you on the next episode of groove sing and all the things.

All the Best,

Amy

If you’d like to book a lesson with me please visit:

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