Self Discipline

I received quite a few .wav files from you this month with samples of your singing and I've made some observations I'd like to share with all of you.

While I haven't listened to all 612 of you out there practicing, I have formed some sense of how some of you are approaching your practice sessions. I would bet the farm that most of you ran right past the breathing exercise and dove directly into the making of the sound, got a taste of what was there and skipped to the next part, and then the next. Even though we say, "DO NOT GO AHEAD" until you have mastered this part, most of you do it anyway. And I think I know why.

What you are building here, students is not just the strength of your voices, and muscle memory, but your own self-discipline, and believe me, this is not an easy task in a world where instant gratification is perceived by many as an entitlement.

So, why do I think that you may have skipped over the breathing exercise? After I listened to your .wav files, I heard that most all of you run out of air fairly consistently, or breathe before you need to, or are not taking in enough air in the first place.

I've since decided that this is not so much a result of your bypassing the Breathing Drill. It's a result of your not being able to link up the exercises with the song you're singing.

What usually happens is that you do the drills just fine and everything is working great! The you decide to sing a song, and it's the SONG ITSELF that pulls you into a performance mode so you forget everything you were doing in the drill and revert back to the way you always sing.

Well, not to worry! The trick is to sing the song AS A DRILL, and NOT AS A PERFORMANCE until your body's cell memory has the message that you wish to sing songs using these techniques. Once that happens, you will perform ALL your songs using the correct techniques. You will breathe correctly because it will have become second nature to, see?

So what's the message here?

PATIENCE! and PERSEVERANCE! That's what!