I am not your garden variety vocal coach.
I like to think of myself as more like those kooky hybrid vegetables - say a cucamelon or a broccoflower.
I’m not interested in treating you like a pair of lungs and a voice box.
I’m not interested in pretending that your voice is some kind of maths equation to be solved with jargon and rigid technical approaches.
Mostly because that was my experience as a young singer and it nearly destroyed ripped my love for singing and self-expression right out of my chest.
I want to help you to bring songs to life in a way that makes your skin (the good kind of) tingly — and welcomes your thoughts, emotions and backstory into the conversation.
My teaching philosophy was unfortunately not born from a story of unicorns and rainbows.
It sprouted out of absolute heartbreak when the untameable enthusiasm for singing I’d had since I was a kid was replaced by a stifling perfectionism, performance anxiety and frustration.
I followed the mapped out path I was told to.
Shook my way through exams and competitions.
Diligently attended weekly lessons for over a decade.
And yet I felt increasingly more and more like a failure.
I didn’t understand how to apply the instructions my teachers were giving me.
(Half the time it felt like they were speaking in Russian or a Tibetan dialect)
I felt railroaded into songs and styles that I didn’t enjoy.
And I was still experiencing vocal fatigue and felt like my throat had no choice but to squeeze out higher notes.
I vividly remember bawling my eyes out on my parents’ couch during my second year of my Bachelor of Music degree, wailing that I wasn’t sure I could get through it.
Me at about age 20
Then another student in my university program quit.
I found out that his teacher had told him she thought he just didn't have the talent for it.
I was appalled.
No - I was enraged.
The truth was that this young man WASN'T a good fit for an opera degree, but he was PERFECT for a musical theatre degree.
But his teacher didn't say that. She told him to give up.
And the last I heard, he was all suited up, working at a bank.
That was the moment I realised I wasn't the problem.
It was the environment, the culture and the way I was being taught.
I defiantly started performing in musical theatre shows outside of school (this wasn’t technically allowed). First Les Miserables, then Chicago.
I belted out the Motown tunes of Aretha Franklin and Diana Ross at weddings and birthday parties on the weekends.
And slowly but surely, started to heal some of the performance and practice trauma I had absorbed from years of training.
The silver lining was that when I started teaching myself, I knew exactly how I wanted to teach.
I knew I wanted every student to be seen as a human with emotions and fears with a life outside of the studio first - and an instrument second.
I knew it was my job to take complicated vocal technique concepts and translate them into language that was easy to understand and use.
I knew it was my job to remind you that it's YOUR voice and you get to make choices about how to express it.
I wanted to change the conversation around vocal coaching and how teachers “should” be there for their students.
I don’t believe “professional boundaries” means pretending that singing is a purely physiological, technique-driven skill to be learned.
Singing is raw, personal expression.
And you can’t liberate a voice without liberating the person behind it.
Phew, well now you know my ‘origin story.’
Here are some other tidbits about me:
Some of my favourite songs to sing are by Florence and the Machine, Aretha Franklin, Queen, Adele, AC/DC, Whitney Houston and from the musicals The Sound of Music and Heathers.
I wrote a book in 2016 all about the mental and emotional hurdles musicians experience behind the scenes, called The Moderately Tortured Artist.
I wrote and released two original songs under the artist name Arya Kay in 2018.
I created a deck of oracle cards for creatives and artists, the Embody Your Artistry Oracle Deck (because I really am a little woo-woo and witchy at heart).
I'm completing a Diploma in Counselling to further support the work that I do.
I'm currently learning French, how to play pool and how to grow vegetables in my little home garden.
Okay, what next?
Well if you’re on board my ethos but you'd like to take it slow and get to know my teaching style a little, head on over to
watch a few technique videos or artistry/confidence videos
If you're keen to just jump in and start dating (take one of my courses or coach with me one-on-one), take a peek at the Programs page or Singing Lessons page to explore how we can work together.
I'm also available to answer any of your questions even if you think they're silly (which they're not), so if you'd like to contact me, don't be shy!