A Love Letter to the Singer Who Hasn’t Sung in a While
Let me start off by saying, please shed any guilt or “I should’ve’s”.
Your singer card does not get revoked because you haven’t uttered a note in a while.
(And it’s likely that you HAVE sung, in the car or the shower or while you’re vacuuming, but you’ve decided it doesn’t count because it’s not “serious practice”)
You’re a singer because it’s something that calls to you, something that keeps reeling you in.
Because it’s one of the ways life is growing you, teaching you valuable lessons about yourself.
Because when the mood is just right and the volume of your inner critic is low enough, it feels AMAZING.
And your voice doesn’t disappear on you because you haven’t used it on the regular lately.
Will it feel like getting back on a bike when you haven’t ridden in a few years? Wobbly and awkward?
Yeah probably, but like remembering how to ride a bike, you’ll be speeding off in no time
(even if you get hand cramps like me because you’re gripping the handlebars too tightly, holding on for dear life).
I’m not interested in berating you for “giving up on your voice or your dream” because I know that’s never what it’s about.
I’m interested in why you hung up your vocal cords in the first place.
Let me take a stab in the dark that it’s one of these reasons…
✨ life got in the way
✨ you lost your love for it
✨ someone crushed your love for it
✨ you got frustrated because it wouldn’t do what you wanted it to do
✨ you convinced yourself it “wasn’t for you”
Here are your bite-sized pep talk/horoscopes for each of these (very valid) reasons.
LIFE GOT IN THE WAY
Firstly, this happens my love.
There are other things that drag your attention away from your passions, things that require a tremendous amount of your energy. People, situations and projects that are important and worthwhile.
Just because you feed those spaces with your time and energy. doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve stopped being devoted to your voice.
It can mean you’re simply in a season where your priorities have had to shift.
And when you have a moment to breathe and rearrange, you’ll welcome singing back into your days.
Secondly, we unfortunately live in a society that doesn’t often reward our artistic endeavours (financially anyway).
More often than not, we’re earning money doing something else and that’s how we provide for our basic human needs.
So we tend to prioritise what will pay the bills over what nourishes our soul (blame capitalism for this brutal truth).
Again, please don’t beat yourself up for something that is less about your passion and drive and more about the systems we live in.
YOU LOST YOUR LOVE FOR SINGING
Ooof, this one feels heavy.
That your feelings changed so dramatically from being wildly in love, wanting to spend every waking minute singing - to avoiding it like the plague. To feeling disconnected, saddened, despondent.
Take a second to ask yourself how this happened.
What is it that tarnished your relationship with singing?
Is it that you lost your sense of play, that you started taking it too seriously and it began to feel suffocating?
Or that you put too much pressure on yourself with sky-high (kinda cruel) expectations and then crumpled into a heap on the floor when you missed the mark?
Is it that you weren’t making the kind of progress you desperately wanted to?
(in which case, please reach out for help or advice, that’s what I’m here for)
The cure for this is to remind yourself why you used to love it in the first place.
Peeling off those layers, rules or expectations that made it feel heavy or left you defeated.
Begin with baby steps. Take your voice out for coffee. Something light and breezy.
Put your favourite song on in your headphones and sing along. Hum along to something in the shower. Sing something with or to a child in your life.
Make your way back slowly and outside the pressure cooker of “shoulds”.
SOMEBODY CRUSHED YOUR LOVE FOR SINGING
I am so so sorry. I wish I could say this is uncommon (but I’d be bending the truth) and it breaks my heart every time a singer shares their gut-wrenching story with me.
AND I want to remind you that nobody can take this away from you permanently unless you let them.
Please don’t give them that power.
Singing isn’t about reaching some end goal where you have a flawless voice that can do absolutely everything (even though that’s the narrative we’re usually being force-fed).
Singing is about learning how to find your voice and get more and more comfortable expressing yourself in a way that hits your personal artistic sweet spot (how you want to tell the story your way).
It’s a JOURNEY which means we’re constantly learning, tweaking and stretching. You can teach your voice how to do something in a month that felt impossible yesterday.
So please don’t let someone cut that journey short (otherwise you’ll never know what you were capable of).
And singing/performing is one of the most fertile teaching grounds when it comes to learning about being seen.
And a very uncomfortable (but extraordinarily useful) part of that is building resilience.
You get to learn how to strengthen your backbone in a way that means you can receive criticism, wallow in a tub of ice cream and then keep going because it’s important to you.
Nobody can take your sense of belonging from you if you cultivate it within yourself.
As Mary Oliver wrote “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
The answer to that is never “to let someone else’s anger, jealousy, disdain or opinion about my voice cause me to give up on something that used to bring me so much joy.”
Yes they hurt you, but please don’t let them veer the course of your life in a direction you wouldn’t have chosen otherwise.
YOU BECAME FRUSTRATED WITH YOUR VOICE (and what it can’t do… yet)
If you haven’t reached total frustration with your voice at some point, congratulations you’re in a very small, exclusive club.
Most of us have had those tear-our-hair-out moments, usually when we’re stretching into new territory, pressing up against the edge of our capability.
It’s almost never about “your voice can’t do that” it’s that your voice is waiting for an instruction that allows it to create that with ease.
I had singing lessons for ten years with two different teachers when I was young and I never got close to the full, free belt that would allow me to get through a three to four hour Motown gig without losing my voice.
It wasn’t until my third teacher that I made any progress on that front (and even then, there were pieces missing). I think I had lessons with over a dozen different coaches in total.
All that to say - the way something is explained MATTERS.
If there is anything vague or confusing about the way a teacher communicates a technique - ask them to explain it in a way that makes sense to you.
There’s far too much jargon floating about (like “sing from the diaphragm”) which singers feel they should understand but nobody has explained what that actually means and what it feels like in the body.
It’s not that you’re not clever, it’s that it wasn’t explained in human language.
Find someone who can translate in your mother tongue.
(and hopefully I’ve been able to help you with this with my free training videos and workshops).
YOU CONVINCED YOURSELF IT “ISN’T FOR YOU”
If this is where you’re at right now, it’s likely that you got here because of one of the other factors above (so please make sure you read the ones that apply.
But here’s a little something extra just for you.
You are a singer because the desire to sing is woven into your DNA.
It feels like singing chose you, not the other way around.
When you watch someone singing at a live gig or in a music video or even on one of those singing competition shows - one of your heartstrings is given a little tug.
Too often we believe that unless we’re “the best” we should just give up.
That for some reason that means that it’s not worth pursuing.
Singing is not just a skill to be developed, it’s a journey of self-discovery, of stretching into a more fully expressed version of yourself.
Which makes it (in my very biased opinion) one of the most worthwhile pursuits of all.
Singing is one of the most remarkable catalysts of change and courage building I’ve ever witnessed.
And it continues to take my breath away in part because none of us have to do this.
None of us have to eagerly learn how to tell more compelling stories by accessing all the colour and texture the human voice has to offer.
None of us have to challenge ourselves when it comes to vulnerability.
None of us have to learn to love the pieces of ourselves that make up our inner critic.
None of us have to get more comfortable being seen.
But we do because we CHOOSE it.
Because we can’t imagine not doing it.
Because it helps us discover more about ourselves and who we want to be.
To heal old wounds. To let ourselves be witnessed fully.
And that, my dear, is why it is (and will always be) very much FOR YOU.
And finally…
Getting back on the horse and dealing with the shaky ‘beginner again’ energy and the doubled volume of your inner critic/self-doubt takes guts.
I’m so proud of you for venturing back in.
For reclaiming such an important piece of who you are after a stumble, a period of questioning or a season of alternate priorities.
Welcome home.