#singing

3 min

How To Keep Your Students: Cause & Effect In Your Studio

A couple of decades ago, my roommate Shirley didn’t like to deal with things she didn’t like to deal with. For some people that translates to pragmatism. For Shirley it translated to never-ending personal chaos. One day I watched her peel a parking ticket off her car and throw it away. I asked what (the hell) she was doing and found out ignoring parking violations was just a thing she did. Normally. Like, she got them fairly often. In my mild horror I told her, “If you ge

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3 min

THE OTHER TRIPLE THREAT: Singing, Dancing, and Acting Aren't Enough

After a year of working diligently on her skills Carly felt confident that she had a shot. After coaching her, I was also confident that sh

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2 min

If We Won't, Who Will? Hurting Ourselves by Undervaluing Others

If we won't pay one another for our work, if we won't value each other's contributions to the world, if we can't recognize t

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3 min

THE MISSING PIECE IN VOICE TEACHING (Spoiler: It's Your Brain)

The following is an excerpt from Money Notes: How to Sing High, Loud, Healthy, and Forever by Meredith Colby Chapter 4: This is Your Body, Singing This isn’t a biology book; it’s a singing method book. But I need to explain the basics of the way Neuro-Vocal Method works in your body. You have to understand it at least a little bit, or you won’t apply it effectively. I’m going to describe the biology and physiology with as much Regular Person language as possible. I promise I’

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3 min

What is Muscle Tension Dysphonia, and Can it be Treated? (A Crib Sheet)

MTD is especially bad for singers. We’ll only notice it when our voices are “cold.” Once we’re warmed up it seems to go away. That makes it

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How to Start Singing Professionally (part 2)

Meredith Colby

3 min

How to Start Singing Professionally (part 2)

The need to be perfect before you begin, or to happen upon the perfect situation before you perform, might be so normal to you that you don’

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3 min

A BLUEPRINT FOR FAME: How and Why to Fan the Flame

Ideas of fame. How teachers can help students with oversized dreams. Life's journey. The artists' journey.

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2 min

The Secret to Finding Practice Time

Practicing. The thing that makes most singers feel guilty, because most of us don’t do it enough. Or at all. The Rule I have, for much of my teaching career, applied the Bruce Dopke Rule to my voice students regarding practice. Bruce was my student back when I used to preach the gospel of regular practice. Bruce had a family, served on two boards, sang in and soloed for his church choir, and worked more than full time as an attorney. After a couple of months of putting up wit

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Should Anyone Pursue a Degree in Music Theater?

Meredith Colby

3 min

Should Anyone Pursue a Degree in Music Theater?

A fellow voice teacher and I were talking about a quandary that all teachers of the arts face: whether or not to encourage students to pursue their art. It’s a tough one. A few weeks ago, I posted a blog about the Dunning-Kruger Effect, an effect whereby we are very confident that we’re very good at things we know little about. The arts depend on the Dunning-Kruger Effect. If newbie artists really knew: how really hard it is to be successful in the arts how little they really

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2 min

Why You Messed Up the Performance You Were Rockin’ at Home

The Situation You’re performing or auditioning in a space that’s new to you. You’ve never been there before, you may not recognize some of all of the other people in the room. There may be a live band to accompany you, or perhaps you’re singing to karaoke. Doesn’t matter. You’ve never sung here before. The more factors of your environment that are new to you, the more your nervous system is working against you. Baking Bread We’ve all had the experience of walking into a house

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2 min

Reasons To Christmas Carol: How Sharing Song Makes the World a Better Place

...caroling was an excuse to bring humanity, companionship and relevance to those who may have felt forgotten during the holiday season. In

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2 min

Fabulous On-stage, Shy Off-stage: Help for the Prepossessing Wallflower.

Wednesday I watched the Today Show while I worked out. I heard Tamron Hall - the smart, talented, and beautiful co-host - talk about how awkward she feels at parties. She’s shy. She dreads the small-talk that parties and other social events require. It seems counter-intuitive, but that’s actually a common issue for many people who make their living being the focal point of attention; on-air personalities, teachers, actors, and singers, for instance. These people are fine on s

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2 min

The Answer to the Question, "Can Anybody Sing"? Vol. 1

“Can anybody sing”? is a question I’ve been asked many times. I now know there’s always a question behind that question and it can have any number of meanings. So far I’ve figured out a four of them. Here’s the first. Can-Anybody-Sing Question #1: When “can anybody sing” really means “could I (or my loved one) sing better than I (they) currently do”? Answer: Yes Singing may seem like a single action, but really there’s a lot going on when you sing. Your brain is perceiving, d

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3 min

Getting Over Yourself

I’ve written a book. It will be printed next week. It’s called Money Notes: How to Sing High, Loud, Healthy, and Forever. It introduces Neuro-Vocal, a voice method that uses brain science to deliver fast and healthy results to people who sing popular styles. That's my elevator speech. This post isn’t about the books contents. This post is about how the writing of a book made me get over myself. A hundred times. On this subject. For now. Read on if you’re an author, a creator,

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2 min

Here Be Dragons

Map: a two dimensional representation of our three-dimensional world. Historically, a drawing of the world beyond the walls of your village. A drawing of a world unknown to you. In the days before humans flew, maps could be drawn but one way: someone had to travel somewhere and draw what he saw. So maps of large areas were generally put together little by little, and by contributions from several cartographers. Unknown and uncharted areas were often depicted with a drawing

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