hey chris liepe here with how to make the most of your mistakes
and failures in the moment so that you develop the habit of leaning into your insecurities
and learning from them instead of shying away and missing opportunities for vocal development
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help going deeper with your own voice including these mind tricks and psychological overcoming
psychological challenges with singing click the link below and join my free voice course that's
the best place to start and there's lots of ways we can work together from there a couple videos
ago i released one on my favorite way to practice and in that video i demonstrated singing over
nursery rhyme type songs in order to really focus on how singing emotionally and connected doesn't
have to be and in some cases it's better if it's not connected to another emotionally connected
performance this is a way for us to invent our own way to do something without having someone else
looming in the background who may have already done it better so that's one way i like practicing
the way i outline in that video as i was editing this video and watching the performance i did
of row row row your boat i realized and i felt it too when i was demonstrating i made a huge mistake
i wanted to go somewhere with it and i blew it but i leaned into it in the performance and actually
learned something and made something cool happen at the same time so i'm going to play this for you
and i'm going to react to my own singing and it's important to understand that what i'm doing here
is observing my own voice and with full knowledge that i remember how it felt and and what i was
thinking when i went that direction and then how it felt to go okay i'm not gonna shy away i'm not
gonna shut up and redo the take i'm gonna lean in and see what happens spitting all over the place
letting different things come out in your voice being different characters
okay gently down the stream
merrily merrily merrily merrily life is
what kind of in-between notes can we do okay i meant
that is what i wanted to do but you can clearly hear my voice crack and and screw up
and then instead of stopping i let it happen and i continued with the phrase and then i
asked the question what kind of in-between notes there's two ways my mind went right
when i felt my voice crack up i decided well i'm not gonna go for what i originally wanted to do
i'm going to lean into that crack and get a neat sort of distorted scream thing happening and then
the other way i started asking the question what other in-between notes can i explore
my voice or my mind i'm sorry did not go to up i screwed up stop
roll it again now if i was really going for the perfect recording i probably would have done that
but this is experimentation and practice how many times have you started to lean into something lean
into a performance and then your voice cracks and then you go up i can't do it or up i just doesn't
how many times have you done that i know when i work with private students that's the first
thing everybody does when i ask them to start experimenting with their voice if you can't
get the it get past all the voice cracks it did something you didn't want it to do
if you can't get past that and learn to sing through it and see what comes out on the other
side it may not be great but in the process of developing the discipline of singing through
unexpected things that happen with your voice i had no control over my voice at that point
it was doing something that i did not want it to do i did not think it would do but i kept going
and there's all sorts of other examples in my in my singing and my practicing and even
in my recording where when my voice starts to feel a bit squirrely and i lean into it
some really neat things can happen and in this experimental performance here that i was doing
that happened over and over and over again a lot of times when i go into a gritty note
sometimes i don't mean it to go as gritty as it goes but then my voice starts to crack
a little bit lean in or sometimes i try to go and push into a note that's higher
and i my voice doesn't feel like it's quite gonna go so i do an articulation and go up into
my head voice for a minute and then ease into that note but these are all things that i've learned to
do by leaning into the sensation of uncertainty by leaning into i wonder if my voice is going to
do this okay it may not let's just see what happens i figured out how to artistically
manage unexpected things that happen with my voice because i'm not afraid to lean in and i don't just
go up my voice cracked i sounded weird my voice just isn't doing what i thought i was going to do
that's a there's a place for that but it's also unhealthy if you never learn to work
past it so here's what i encourage you to do the next time you're practicing and even the
next time you're recording when you're working through challenging material and stuff happens
with your voice and you're trying to learn how to access your mixed voice or you're trying to
work through a particular tough portion of a song when your voice starts to crack when you start to
do something that doesn't sound that you don't think is going to sound right or that doesn't
sound right lean into it here's a few examples i'm going to say the words i'm free but i'm going to
go up on free and that eval is hard to do when i go up i am free doesn't sound very good but
i'm gonna lean into it if i had stopped i am free oh stop well that sounds way worse than i am free
i push past that initial tiny piece of discomfort or not discomfort in terms of pain but that
initial insecurity and lean into it i leaned into it with support i leaned into it with my mind and
it turned out to be pretty good this is a constant exercise in singing you don't start something
right that's okay finish it well constant on a word basis on a phrase basis on a song basis don't
give up and shy away if something starts to feel or sound a little weird lean into it i am free
i'm free i am free i am free
i found a neat head voice tone there even though i was squawking a little bit let's
go again i wouldn't have discovered that at the end of free had i not let my voice
go where it was going to go i am afraid
i am let's let's reverse that i am free
that time i was able to start with my head voice getting the sensation of when i cracked put it
in the front and then ease into the more powerful note and it sounded great so take these examples
from row row row your boat and i'm free and all the other things that you experience where you're
about to maybe have a breakthrough even though you don't think you're having a breakthrough and
then you shy away you you approach something and you fail or you feel like you're gonna fail and
you go oh excuse me i'm sorry let it out lean into it see what happens we'll see you for more