Starting Point:

I first worked with Lucas, a tenor, when he was recently out of musical theatre college. He could sing up to around an F#-A4, depending on the day. But some days, above F#, his high notes could also be a bit tight and slightly under pitch. He also likely had even more range he could access if he could figure out the right approach.

Lucas was preparing for an audition for an Equity production of Blood Brothers, and wanted to work his audition song, and spend some time ironing out his upper range.

Process:

In coachings, Lucas was able to find a cleaner, more relaxed mix, right away. The main remaining goals were:

• Develop range and facility

• Figure out what was causing vocal health to be so variable, day-to-day.

• Build enough confidence and familiarity with the new technique to trust it in high pressure situations like audition and performances.

Developing Mix Range and Facility

When singers, and especially gifted singers, try to improve how they sing, there is often a period, early on, during which the old way seems better, in many situations. The new way feels and sounds clean and easy, but may also feel a bit less powerful and harder to tune, at first. So we just keep strengthening and refining the new coordination via targeted exercises and songs, until, eventually, the new way is more powerful, easier to tune, and offers more range than the old approach.

Troubleshooting Vocal Health

By working with a local laryngologist and going through the usual vocal health checklist, and trying various adjustments, Lucas eventually got his vocal health to be more consistently strong.

Trusting the New Coordination

As we worked, Lucas was actively auditioning a lot. Lucas reported that he would keep deciding—mid-song in the audition, and largely unintentionally—to ‘belt the old way’ more than ‘mix-belt the new way.’ By doing so he felt more comfortable, and being loud was easy, but he could also tell there were tradeoffs with pitch and ease.

Reverting to the old way isn’t necessarily wrong, at first. Sometimes you need to work on the new coordination in lessons and practise, but do what is comfortable for auditions and performances. But eventually you want to be able to capitalize on the benefits of new way—but when and how?

Once the new coordination was about 80% automatic outside of auditions, we used performance psychology tools like visualizing doing the audition using the new technique. Lucas also started going out for more auditions for which the outcome mattered less, so he could feel more free to experiment.

Results:

Lucas worked hard and consistently and changed his health and singing ability significantly, in terms of ease, tone, and range, and nuance.

He started booking more professional theatre and cover band work as he learned to trust his new coordination, more and more.

His first audition where he was able to fully commit to his new high mix technique, he booked a major cruise ship gig, and has now done many contracts as a featured vocalist for several major cruise lines.