One of the most difficult things about the emotional journey of a creative is that sometimes there are simply no logical explanations for your experience. (Kind of like dating. Super fun!) Especially if we are prone to placing the value and acceptance of our work in...
I remember when I was a brand new mom. Oh man, I was having a devil of a time. Personally, I was splintered in a drastically unrecognizable way. I couldn't recognize any rational thoughts from the irrational kind (which were abundant). Enemies were everywhere. And my...
The other day I was in the local library with Adrian, and I discovered the book, The Lost Words, by Robert MacFarlane.It's a poetic-artistic-literary response to the decision of some editor somewhere in the UK to remove a few certain words from a popular children's...
For a very long time, habits have been my nemesis. I have read many books on the topic, chasing the "good" ones and disdaining the "bad" ones... When we are young, we have no capacity to discern between them. And so they settle in, for better or for worse. We follow...
I am taking some time away up on the coast of Maine with my family for two weeks. (Two weeks. It seems like two years!) It's such a vital reflection point, taking the space and time to remove yourself from the regular comings and goings of life and work. It seems like...
It was over dinner the other night that Adrian, my darling six-year old, eagerly reminded my husband and I that we hadn't yet asked him what happened at school that day. Well, it wasn't pretty. In a nutshell, he became so frustrated with himself that he couldn't spell...
I remember that time like it was yesterday: it was a frigidly cold January day, and I was equal parts Ready-To-Kill-It and Scared-To-Freaking-Death. For years I had taught singing at Washington National Cathedral, occasionally singing here and there as needed. I had...
How long does it take to change your voice? We are conditioned to think of this process in terms of hours, days, weeks, months, and years. There is an element of playing the long game when we envision the process of unfolding that is our voice journey. This is...
I'll never forget the time when this man laughed in my face when I was just about to sing. Or looked down at his desk in disappointment after I had just started to sing. Or spent 45 minutes telling me why I wasn't up for the job. And then asked his personal assistant...
I used to pride myself on being able to manage a million things at once. I'm a MultiTasker! It's on my resume! And lemme tell you, my mind is quick and agile and bouncy, and while this may seem useful (it can be), it is also a major complication to actually, well,...
Because I recognize that my mistakes are borne of my fears. And when I can shed light on my fears (even teensy ones), they are transformed into feedback. Feedback that can help me change my habits and undo those tendencies that irk me the most and hold me back. Feedback that can help me heal.
"We are meant to shine as children do." - Mariann Williamson When do singers lose our joy of singing? When we do we become fearful of being heard? When do we become terrified of making mistakes? Last year I had the eye-opening experience of sitting on a panel with...
I was up against a wall. Literally. My tongue was valiantly trying to poke out of my open mouth to formulate some semblance of an "ah" vowel whilst singing a downward scale. 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1. The teacher was attempting to have my tongue stay politely in place when I...
Well, it depends on which voice you mean. Is it the ego voice? Or the Sacred Voice. The "ego voice," based in your mind, is terrified of something: rejection, judgment, punishment. It craves validation and acceptance. The ego voice is fed by the External. It allows...
