Episode 8: “Singing with Sarah”
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[INTRO]
DANTE
Dante’s Acting Adventures!
[THEME MUSIC]
Hey everybody! It’s me, Dante, and welcome to episode eight of my podcast! This episode is going to be a good one. My guest for today is Sarah. Sarah is a professional voice teacher. Sarah has 50 students that she teaches every single week! Along with teaching, Sarah is a very talented actress. Sarah’s favorite musical is-
SARAH
Hello Dolly.
DANTE
And when Sarah isn’t performing or teaching voice lessons, she likes to-
SARAH
Read, sew, and go for walks.
DANTE
Let’s get singin’!
[MUSIC FADES]
[CHOIR SINGING]
Hello Sarah and welcome to my podcast today. How are you doing?
SARAH
I’m doing great Dante, how are you?
DANTE
I’m doing pretty good. I have to say that I don’t know how to sew. That’s really cool that you sew things.
SARAH
Oh, it’s one of my favorite things to do. I love to make quilts for my family.
DANTE
Wow, I’ve heard making quilts takes a really long time. Is that true?
SARAH
It does.
DANTE
How long does it take?
SARAH
Usually it takes me a couple of weeks. I’m still learning, so I’m kind of slow.
DANTE
Wow, a couple of weeks. I think it would take me a lot longer to make a quilt. That’s really cool!
SARAH
Thanks, Dante.
DANTE
Well, what do you say we start talking about singing, does that sound good to you?
SARAH
I would love to. It’s my favorite thing to talk about.
DANTE
That’s so exciting. I have lots of questions for you. I’m going to jump right in. Question number one.
[SOUND EFFECT]
How long have you been teaching voice lessons for?
SARAH
I have been teaching voice lessons for seven years, almost eight, this summer.
DANTE
Woah, that’s so long. You must be pretty good at it.
SARAH
You know, I have been learning a lot over the years and I love it.
DANTE
That’s really cool. Well, how many students did you have when you first started teaching?
SARAH
When I first started, I only had two students, so it’s grown quite a bit.
DANTE
No way. Don’t you have almost fifty students now?
SARAH
Yes. If you can believe it. It’s pretty crazy.
DANTE
Wow, that’s really cool. Alright, let’s keep moving. Question number two.
[SOUND EFFECT]
How did you become a voice teacher?
SARAH
I started singing when I was younger and I’ve been taking voice lessons since I was twelve years old. I fell in love with music and decided I was going to study it in college, so I got my degree in Vocal Performance. That’s just a fancy way of saying singing. I got to sing and learn how to become a teacher. I learned a lot about how to teach and how to play the piano a little bit better so I could play for my students and all of the vocal anatomy- that’s just a fancy way of saying all of your muscles and all of the parts of your body- so that I could be ready to teach when I graduated.
DANTE
Wow, that sounds like a lot of work. How long did it take you to get your Vocal Performance degree?
SARAH
It took me four years.
DANTE
Wow, that’s a really long time. That’s really cool. Question number three.
[SOUND EFFECT]
So, what do you do in a voice lesson?
SARAH
So, a typical voice lesson usually starts out with a vocal warm-up. Every teacher has different warm-ups that they like to do but they usually take you through them. They’re just a way of getting your voice all ready to sing and to stretch those vocal muscles and get them ready.
DANTE
When you say warm-ups, what do you mean?
SARAH
Well, there’s lots of different kinds of warm-ups and lots of different ways to warm-up. Normally in my studio, I would have a piano and we would do a lot of warming up with the piano. Right now, we don’t have a piano with us but there are some warm-ups that we could try-
DANTE
Would you mind trying them with me?
SARAH
I would love to do it! Okay so one of my favorite ways to warm-up, that you don’t need a piano, and you can do it anywhere you want; it’s called a siren.
DANTE
A siren, okay.
SARAH
Yes and it’s called a siren because it sounds just like a police car siren or a firetruck. All you have to do is you’re going to take your voice on a nice ‘ooo’ sound and you’re going to go from your low to your high like this, “ooooooo”. [LOW TO HIGH PITCH].
DANTE
Alright. I’m going to give it a try. [STRUGGLES THROUGH A SIREN]
SARAH
Nice. Well done. You can take it even lower [DEMONSTRATES] to even higher [DEMONSTRATES].
DANTE
Oh, that’s really high. Do you think I could do it?
SARAH
Try it! Let’s do it.
DANTE
[CLEARS THROAT AND DOES ANOTHER BIG SIREN].
SARAH
Nice. Well done. And what you’re doing when you’re doing that, is you’re stretching your vocal folds from a nice little short vocal fold to a really long vocal fold, and that stretch is so good for those muscles.
DANTE
Woah, that’s really cool. Who knew that a siren could be so good for your voice.
SARAH
Oh, it’s awesome. It’s one of the best things you can do. Especially if you don’t have a piano.
DANTE
Huh, are there any other warm-ups you could do without a piano?
SARAH
Oh, definitely. There’s lots of sounds that you can make. I like this one, it’s a ‘V’ sound. It kind of reminds me of the engine of a car. [V SOUND]
DANTE
[V SOUND]
SARAH
Yeah.
DANTE
I like that one.
SARAH
I like it, too. It helps me feel really relaxed. Sometimes our throats might feel like they’re squeezing up or we might feel like there is tension somewhere in our throat, and this is great for that. It helps relax my voice. [V SOUND]
DANTE
[V SOUND]
SARAH
Yeah, nice! Well done.
DANTE
So, when you’re warming-up you want to relax your voice muscles.
SARAH
Oh definitely, yeah. We want to get those voice muscles nice and relaxed because if they’re squeezing and tense that might hurt your voice and we don’t want that.
DANTE
Yeah, that sounds not fun. Wow. Cool, thanks for showing me some warm-ups I can do even without a piano.
SARAH
Of course, thanks for doing them with me. And then after that, we usually work on a song. Sometimes students are working on songs that they might want to perform for a recital, or maybe they have auditions for their school musical that they’re working on, or they have to sing for a special occasion, so we then have to work on those songs and make sure that they are super polished and super ready to go, so that they will be ready for their big performance.
DANTE
Wow. So you mean, if I was auditioning for my school musical, I could bring in my audition song to a voice teacher that I had and we could get it all ready to go. That’s so cool!
SARAH
Yeah, definitely, and that’s one of my favorite things to do with students is get them ready for auditions.
DANTE
That seems like it would help build your confidence for your audition.
SARAH
Definitely.
DANTE
Wow, that sounds really cool. You know, sometimes I get really nervous when I have to sing in front of people. Do you think that bringing in an audition song to a voice teacher would help me gain some confidence when it feels really scary?
SARAH
Oh, for sure. I still do that. I’m twenty-nine years old and I still bring my audition pieces to a teacher so that I don’t feel quite as nervous and I feel ready to go into the audition room.
DANTE
Wait, are you saying that even voice teachers take voice lessons too?
SARAH
Oh you know it.
DANTE
Wow, well that’s really cool and actually, it leads me to my next question. Question number four.
[SOUND EFFECT]
Why is vocal training important?
SARAH
Oh, this is such a good question Dante. So have you ever played sports or done anything like dance or anything like that where you have to stretch before you can go play your sport or dance or any of those things?
DANTE
Yeah, sometimes in my P.E. classes our teacher has us stretch before we do our activity for the day so we don’t injure our muscles.
SARAH
Exactly and then probably in P.E. you would also do push-ups so that your muscles get stronger or maybe crunches right?
DANTE
Yeah.
SARAH
That is what we’re doing in voice lessons with our voice. Our voice is so tiny. Did you know that your vocal folds are only about the size of a dime? That’s tiny! And so you have these tiny little muscles and what we’re doing in voice lessons is we’re training those muscles to do what we want them to do. To sing high notes or sing loud or whatever we’re working on. So it’s important to have voice lessons so you can learn that. We call that vocal technique.
[SOUND EFFECT]
That’s knowing how your muscles work and having control over them so that you can get the sound that you really want. And it’s really helpful to have an outside ear helping you with that because sometimes our voice might sound funny to us because we’re hearing it from the inside, but a voice teacher is hearing it from the outside. So they can help us figure out some of that vocal technique.
DANTE
Wow, I learned something new today and that is that your vocal chords are actually muscles. Like the muscles in the rest of your body. Hey, you’re really good at explaining things.
SARAH
Aw, thanks Dante.
DANTE
Yeah. That’s really cool. Must be almost eight years of teaching huh? Well, my last question for you is this. Question number five.
[SOUND EFFECT]
What is the best part of being a voice teacher?
SARAH
My favorite part of being a voice teacher is that everybody’s voice is different and special and unique. I as a voice teacher get to find out what is so special about each person that comes into my studio’s voice. I kind of get to be a little bit of a detective. I get to experiment with people’s voices and since I can’t see your voice since it lives inside of your body, I have to sometimes guess what’s happening and I love that I get to do that experiment and play with other people’s voices and learn what makes them special because everybody has something special and unique about how they sing.
DANTE
That’s really cool. That’s probably pretty important because it can feel kind of scary to start learning how to sing. I know that I feel kind of scared to start learning how to sing and it’s nice to know that voice teachers are there to help find the special part of your voice.
SARAH
That’s exactly right.
DANTE
Wow, thank you so much for coming on to this podcast and talking to us about singing and vocal technique. Hey, before we leave today, would you mind helping me with one fun-fact on today’s episode?
SARAH
I would be honored.
DANTE
Yes! Let’s get to it.
[FUN-FACT MUSIC]
Well Sarah I was wondering if for today’s fun-fact, you had any advice for singing in front of people for me and listeners, because sometimes when I sing in front of people, my hands get all clammy and my legs start to shake and then sometimes I feel like I can’t even sing.
SARAH
Dante don’t worry, you are not alone. That happens to a lot of singers. And honestly my best advice for you is this; practice, practice, practice. It’s always going to be a little scary to sing in front of people. It’s very vulnerable to put yourself out there and sing in front of people. So what I like to do is I like to practice in front of people that don’t scare me. For me that would be my husband because he doesn’t make me feel nervous, so when I’m auditioning, I might sing it for him a few times, and then I might sing it for my mom and dad or for my nieces and my nephew. More and more people so that I get more and more comfortable. And the more you do it, it really will get better. I used to shake a lot when I would sing and it took me a couple of years but after I performed a lot, I don’t shake anymore and I’m able to control it a lot better.
DANTE
Really? That makes sense. Hey I think I have a couple of friends that I could sing some songs for to maybe get some practice to not be as nervous.
SARAH
Perfect.
DANTE
That’s pretty good advice. Thanks for sharing that.
SARAH
Of course.
DANTE
Well thanks again for coming onto my podcast and talking all about singing and voice technique. It was really fun to talk to you today.
SARAH
I had a blast. Thanks for having me.
DANTE
Of course.
[THEME MUSIC]
It was so fun to talk to Sarah today all about voice and singing! If you want to get started learning how to use your own voice, you can check out “The Singing Studio” at jskstories.com, where you can follow along with Carlee Baldwin and start to practice that technique we were talking about.
Tune in next time for episode 9! See you soon!
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