Calling out to all singers! (Songstuff Vocal Coaching Academy)

Mahesh · November 6, 2020

Hi y'all,

Hope all of you are safe and well. I wanted to address all the singers on here today.

Besides being a full time musician, I'm also a vocal coach who's had the pleasure of working with indie singer-songwriters, professional voice artists and hobbyists from around the country in discovering their own voice. I've spent the past few years developing an approach to singing called REWIRE which is all about discovering comfort and freedom in your your own voice through a combination of body awareness, modern scientific understanding and mind visualization techniques. You can find more info about it at http://mahesh-music.com/rewire

Anyways, I've seen two kinds of vocal training approaches out there

The singer is offered a set of exercises and are advised to practice for a certain period of time until their voice somehow gets better. (or)
It is assumed that the student already knows how to sing and they are immediately introduced to music theory and associated concepts and are asked to execute them with their voice and learn along the way.

I find both these approaches to have their short falls.

The first approach simply assumes that the exercise is perfect in itself but the reason why some notice results and some don't is because practice doesn't make perfect, practicing perfectly does. It rarely sheds light into what the exercise is doing, how it affects the voice and most importantly, how the exercises are needed to be 'felt' in the body so you can repeat it exactly and build muscle memory. I find this blind dependence on vocal exercises to be inefficient and unpredictable.
The second approach does not take into account how the voice functions at all and instead jumps to doing 'tricks' (musical movements) with the instrument right from the outset. A singer is an instrument as well as it's performer. It is only fair for us to understand how the voice manipulates sound and build our connection and control from there.

That's what REWIRE is essentially about. How cool would it be for you to break up any sound into its essential ingredients - volume, pitch and tonality to achieve how to produce that sound exactly and predictably!

Any hoo, the reason why I'm explaining all of this is because it's been in my interest to create a community of singers who are strongly connected to their instrument in a way that empowers their creativity and expression. In this regard, Songstuff and I have been working away on a series of singing products based on REWIRE and while it's on the way, I wanted to gauge your interest for related activities that we can probably organise much sooner.

It could be anywhere from

vocal challenges and contests on the SVCA Club (which you should totally join) https://forums.songstuff.com/clubs/29-svca/
AMA sessions (Ask Me Anything) for specific singing problems
Group online vocal coaching/work out sessions via Zoom (Free and Donation based)
One on One coaching and mentoring (paid)
to anything else that you can think of.

Would you be interested in participating in any of these? Do you think it can help you on your music and singing journey? Would love to hear from you!