This voice teacher literally received an apple from a student today! I couldn’t be more pleased – yes, with the softball sized organic apple from Troutdale – but I mean with my student’s progress in his speaking voice!
If you want to segue from great vocal technique in your speaking voice to your singing voice, here’s the same assignment I gave my accomplished and generous student.
The only difference between speaking and singing? Singing is speech/vocalization sustained on the breath. Just pick one note you’re speaking and sustain it…suddenly, you’re singing!
Lake Oswego’s Transformational Voice® Teacher (Transformational Voice® is a registered trademark of Transformational Voice® Training Institute, LLC, and Linda Brice.)
The holiday season is in full swing here in the States. The cars on the road, jammed parking lots at the grocery stores and customers piling their carts to the hilt prove it.
If you celebrated Thanksgiving, how did you spend your day? Let me know by commenting on the blog; I’d love to hear.
George and I initially thought we might be spending the day at a winery with friends. When that idea didn’t pan out, we decided to spend the day at home; just us and Lady Jane the cat. What a lovely Thanksgiving Day! We made a simple and delicious meal of chicken cordon bleu with bearnaise sauce (from a packet), Uncle Ben’s long grain and wild rice, and grilled asparagus.
And we decorated our home, simply, for Christmas.
We expressed our gratitude for all we have.
If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you…that will be enough.- Meister Eckhart
I have realized when gratitude is part of your daily practice, life flows more smoothly. One day a year for thanks-giving simply isn’t enough.
I’m grateful for my partner, George, our personality-plus cat, Lady Jane, and our newly holiday-decorated home. I’m grateful we have clean drinking water that comes out of several faucets in said home every day. Many people don’t have this luxury. Thank you to the grocery stores where I got the food for our dinner, and the farmers and suppliers who got this food to the stores. To the animals who gave their bodies for our meat. I’m grateful for my voice teacher, Linda Brice, and my apprentice colleagues who will soon (February!) be graduating as certified Transformational Voice® teachers.
That is truly just a start. Let me know on the blog what you’re thankful for. Again, I’d love to hear.
Here’s one more thing I’m extremely grateful for this year. The Speak Up! workshops I developed with my beloved colleague, Katie Ramseur. Together, we’ve taken Speak Up! to alternative schools like Columbia County Education Campus in St. Helens and women’s organizations like Dress for Success.
Katie is a Certified Hypnotist and I’m a Certified Transformational Voice® teacher. I initially interviewed her on this show, via TV Toastmasters. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFEVW_31CUo Yet I know the higher powers brought us together for a reason.
We’ve received phenomenal feedback from our work together. When teenagers are able to voice themselves powerfully, in front of their peers, they develop more self-confidence – a really big deal at that age. I haven’t forgotten!
Speak Up! workshops help students:
-Control their breath and posture to reduce anxiety and increase confidence
-Be mindful and identify authentic gifts and strengths
-Feel more comfortable speaking up and being heard
Katie and I bring the curriculum, energy and expertise while the teachers can take a break or participate.
It’s magic!
Please keep Speak Up! in mind for schools or women’s organizations you know.
I’m grateful you’re taking the time from your full day to read what I’ve written.
Please spread the love and pass this along to a friend!
I would totally recommend this class to my friends. It helped me relax and gave me confidence to do public speaking. -Jimena J.
This class helped me speak up with confidence. I think it’s good for your mind and self-esteem to do these exercises. -Emilee J.
Come back soon! -Trinity T.
Lake Oswego’s Transformational Voice® Teacher (Transformational Voice® is a registered trademark of Transformational Voice® Training Institute, LLC, and Linda Brice.)
I needed another self-help book like I needed another hair on my chin.
It started in college with Dr. Wayne Dyer’s Your Erroneous Zones, which I snagged from my father’s bookshelf, then M. Scott Peck’s The Road Less Travelled, recommended by my good friend, Valerie.
Since then, I have become an inspirational/spiritual book junkie. I really didn’t need another one.
Yet, there I was, in Soft Surroundings, www.softsurroundings.com, where I work a few hours most weeks (because it’s my favorite store and I get an amazing employee discount), picking up this book called YOU ARE A BADASS: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life by Jen Sincero. https://jensincero.com/
I randomly opened up to page 103 and promptly started laughing out loud.
For me, one of the most exciting and on-purpose times in my life was when I was the singer-guitarist in a band called Crotch. I use the terms “singer,” “guitarist,” and “band,” all very loosely because we in Crotch weren’t concerned with things like learning to play our instruments or any of that snooty musicianship crap. We had bigger fish to fry, like talking in loud voices about our band and checking ourselves in plate glass windows as we walked by with guitars strapped to our backs.
Electric ones.
(My note: From there, Jen goes on to describe how she started Crotch with another emotionally needy, semi-musician named Paula, and how they eventually landed a demo deal with Columbia Records.)
Keep Being the Beginner
One of the best things about starting a band when you have no idea how to play your instrument is that you don’t care if you stink because you already know you do. Then once you learn how to play, you get all serious, you become overly critical and hard on yourself and don’t let yourself have nearly as much fun anymore. The trick is to let the Beginner live alongside the Expert, instead of pretending you don’t know who she is when she tries to sit with you and your new, cooler, more experienced friends in the cafeteria. The Beginner may be an idiot, but she knows how to party, and if you don’t let her play with you anymore, things risk getting droll around here. So hone your skills, take your craft seriously; learn what you need to learn; invest in yourself; practice your ass off; fall down; get up; keep going: get really really really good at what you do, but don’t lose the fun in the process.
There’s nothing as unstoppable as a freight train full of fuck-yeah. – Jen Sincero
I admit it…a couple years after I’d begun training with the Transformational Voice® Training Institute, my critic set in big time and I let the fun of singing leave me for a while. Carla (as I call my critic) and I have come to an agreement and singing is fun again, just like teaching!
Which makes me want to share a fun singing story. I was a little famous in my high school, part of a trio called “The Cadets.” Ruth, Lee Ann and I sang quite a bit of Andrew Sisters type music. After I moved to Oregon, I re-wrote the lyrics of Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company B to Santa’s Comin’ to Willamette Valley. I asked two other women, Marcia and Linda, to perform it with me in the SAIF Corporation Holiday Choir. That was ballsy! And great fun. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHFod5snl3M&feature=youtu.be
You do the same, will ya? Keep being the beginner, as Jen recommends, and let the expert befriend the beginner.
Please spread the love and pass this along to a friend!
In only a few lessons with Laura, my voice quality improved tremendously, both for singing and speaking. I’m noticing more resonance, clarity, and range. Laura has a great ear, and her teaching and coaching style feels safe, friendly and professional. She is supportive and stretches me. Her acting, singing, and speaking backgrounds blend beautifully to support presence and confidence in her students, as well. I’m excited to continue studying with her, and highly recommend her if you want to improve your voice. -Cricket W.
Lake Oswego’s Transformational Voice® Teacher (Transformational Voice® is a registered trademark of Transformational Voice® Training Institute, LLC, and Linda Brice.)
Here’s me being raw and honest…I almost missed writing this post. I looked at my calendar and went “Whaa?…it’s time for a post?”
WHY did I almost miss it, you may ask? After all, Laura is usually pretty regular (laughingly not talking about toilet habits, which are also pretty regular, by the way) …
It’s because the on-line public speaking class I offered didn’t go anywhere.
I was bummed.
I had a good cry.
I read a lot of good fiction in bed with Lady Jane the Cat that weekend.
And after I got done crying and talked with other people, I realized the class is great – this just wasn’t the right time for it and I hadn’t yet reached the right people.
Here’s what went great.
My colleague, Katie, and I had two successful Speak Up! workshops – at a school in St. Helens and at Dress for Success in Portland. Awesomeness teaching piano at Lake Music. Working with my mastermind partner, Karen, and learning the tapping techniques of EFT. Walking outdoors, stretching indoors, having a chiro adjustment with Doc. Singing three different songs.
Whether in business or learning to most highly and effectively use your voice…there will always be ups and downs. The great thing about voice work is it helps with everything.
Humbly,
Laura
Lake Oswego’s Transformational Voice® Teacher (Transformational Voice® is a registered trademark of Transformational Voice® Training Institute, LLC, and Linda Brice.)
Speaking/performing in public can mean different things to different people.
Yet one thing most people agree on is we want to make a connection – whether you’re the person on stage speaking or in the audience. We’re all in community, even if that community is virtual, on our laptops or pads.
The speaker wants to reach their audience, even if the speaker is nervous, and the audience wants the speaker to succeed; they want to be inspired, touched, informed, educated; otherwise, they wouldn’t be in the audience in the first place.
This is why I do what I do as a voice teacher.
My free webinar is coming up Friday already! I would love for you to join me and ask any questions have about your voice.
