Many years ago, I had a client who gave me the most insane excuse I’ve ever heard. Brace yourselves, because it’s a doozy.
They had started voice training with me whilst they were working a normal job. At some point they had decided to change career, but for a period of time chose not to work. So they were free as a bird from a normal 9-5 job. No job, not employed, no kids, some household responsibilities, but nothing contractually obligating them every hour of the day. About as free as one can get is my point.
A bit of context
Before we get into the story, a bit of background about how sessions work. The way sessions work is that I will start someone with a warmup exercise, and how this sits in their voice tells me where their voice is at on that day. This then helps direct me to the next appropriate vocal exercise, and so on. I generally have a strong imprint of where people are at vocally from one session to the next, but what I hear on that specific day is a big part of good training.
If someone’s voice has really moved forward since the last session (generally due to effective practice) then I can move ahead to more advanced tools and improve their voice quicker.
In contrast, if someone’s voice has not moved all that far (sometimes due to lack of practice, but can often be due to the general difficulty of physiological adaptation) then we often have to re-tread ground and refine the work.
The latter is totally fine, but that brings us neatly back to our story. Continue reading “The Most Insane Excuse: Finding time vs making time”