As I’ve stated before, I am a firm believer that you must ultimately learn to be your own best teacher.

If you are too dependent on vocal coaches or instructors to dictate every little action and adjustment, you are only learning dependence on them, you are not learning how to sing especially not with your given instrument. 

Think about the ratios for a second.  If you have a vocal coach and a vocal instructor, you spend approximately 2 hours with them almost every week.  Now, how much are you practicing or rehearsing? The total number of those hours should far exceed the 2 hours you spend with your instructors. If it doesn’t you’re wasting your time and everyone else’s as well. 

Now, what do you do in those hours when you rehearse on your own? Hopefully you try to implement the corrections and suggestions you have been given in your lessons!

What about when you don’t know what to work on, but you know you’re not a finished product?

What about when you understand the concepts presented to you, but you aren’t sure how to put them in to practice? 

How about when you have absolutely no idea why something isn’t working and neither do your instructors? 

That’s where the real work comes in, the fundamental concepts and principals that are not attractive, or flashy, or even interesting most of the time.  In short, the kind of practice room work that gets YOU work out in the music world. 

Ok, neat, that’s great.  What in the world am I talking about?  

Well, we’re talking about the ability to self-diagnose and analyze what isn’t working with your voice because you know it better than anyone else, or you should, anyway!

In this series of posts entitled Vocal Diagnostics, we’ll examine some of the ways you can better learn to be your own best teacher and learn what to listen and watch for in the practice room so that you can make the most out of your lessons and coaching. 

The first exercise to which I’d like to introduce you is the “good smell breath” to help you achieve optimal backspace. 

Give the short video below a watch and let me know if you have any questions or comments. 

What do you do to find that elusive “singer back space” ?