On Practicing – Words of Encouragement from John Bayne – JaimeVendera.com

On Practicing – Words of Encouragement from John Bayne

What follows is a post from one of my best students, John Bayne. He wrote this in the Cool Singer’s Clubhouse, my private Facebook group that’s exclusively for my students. What he talks about is what many students experience. I know, I’ve been there too. It’s easy to just say “I’ll get to that tomorrow.” Don’t let yourself fall in that trap.

Here’s what John has to say.

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A word of encouragement…..

While I’m sure I’m not the only one who falls off the wagon about every two or three weeks, I think it is important to realize why it is that we keep losing track. For anyone that is like me and does a vocal training binge for two or so weeks then goes without training for an embarrassingly long amount of time… consider why this is! PractiSING has awesome content on this issue so I really recommend that everyone picks that up.

I’ve had a bit of an epiphany in regards to figuring out a key reason that I keep stopping and starting. My primary thoughts when first getting into Jaime’s material (7 years ago, though I only really started about a year back!) were “right, in a couple of weeks I am going to be singing with grit and not feeling any pain at all” guess what; I still can’t sing with any comfortable grit!

Heh, this hasn’t really been encouraging so far, but here it is. In the last two weeks I have been offered three paid musical theater gigs. I’ve had a recall for a great role in an Am/Pro production and I’ve had one of the best choirs in my city get in touch to ask if I can join them in their concert in a couple of weeks. I don’t say these things to blow my own trumpet (I’m not even a brass player  but to encourage you all to take a moment to consider all the ways that your voice has blossomed, even if you haven’t accomplished your primary goals. Maybe you have always had a nice vibrato or falsetto quality. Has it become better? Can you sing earlier in the day than before and sing for a greater deal of time when you started? I really think a lot of us would do well to take a step back and make a list of ways in which our voice has grown and then give yourself some credit, be encouraged, then get right back into the work.

Luck really does seem to be where preparation meets opportunity. So let’s all get busy to get lucky  I’m eternally grateful for this community and do not think I’d be where I am today as a singer or performer without it. All the best to all of you.

P.S…… yes I still desperately want to figure out grit 😛

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Just reading books and watching videos alone won’t make you a better singer. But, with consistent practice, you really can accomplish big things. For some singers, it takes a long time to get the results you want, for others, it can happen pretty quickly. One thing is for sure though. If you don’t practice, you will never develop your voice. That’s just a fact.

Thank you John for sharing your experience 🙂

Your favorite glass-shattering vocal coach,
Jaime Vendera

PS: You can listen to the Singer Spotlight interview with John Bayne here. In this interview, John shares some of his warmup and performance tips, as well as the results he’s experienced using my training methods.

PPS: If you want to pick up the book that John mentioned, you can click here to get it for just a few bucks 🙂

About the Author Jaime Vendera

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