Happy New Year!

I was thinking this week about what to share with you, and someone asked me “do you do New Year’s Resolutions?”.

This got me thinking that many of you may be wholly on-board with the New Year’s resolutions pattern, and others may merely like some suggestions on what to focus on in a new year.

So here are three simple things I suggest that you focus on this year to hear progress with your voice. None of these are complicated, in fact, in many respects it’s about doing less and working smarter. Continue reading “Three Singing Tips for Results in 2025”

But seriously, how DO you get better at singing?

It’s not about quick hacks or sudden bursts of effort. The answer is the same one that drives success in investing, athletics, and business: consistent effort over a long period of time.

With this in mind, I was watching an interview with author and investor Morgan Housel, and one line struck me as gold for singers. He said:

“My strategy is to be average, but for an above-average period of time.”

He explained that while short-term “winners” often burn out or fail the next year, those who keep showing up for an above-average period of time end up in the top 10% of results. The lesson applies perfectly to learning how to sing well.

It’s all about sustained consistency in singing

Although the original conversation was about investing, the principle holds true in music, athletics, and entrepreneurship. Sustained singing practice habits are what breed results, not shortcuts.

Trying to rush ahead may give initial improvements, but it usually feels frustrating, unsustainable, and often causes setbacks. For singers, this can appear as sudden vocal malfunctions or inconsistent performance — leading to even more frustration.

Lessons from building businesses

Over the past few months I’ve spoken with several business owners about how tough those early years were. Back then we worried that some super-talented newcomer would arrive, steal all our clients, and expose us as amateurs.

Fast forward 10–20 years, and that fear has vanished. Why? Because we’ve stayed consistent for an above-average period of time. We built solid skills, showed up through thick and thin, and let the results compound. That kind of foundation can’t be cheated or undercut — and the same is true for becoming a professional singer.

The upside and downside are the same

The upside is clear: if you’ve put in the work, it never disappears. It’s the bedrock for everything you do next. The downside? For beginners, there’s no shortcut but to build that bedrock. If things feel shaky or inconsistent, that’s reality telling you the foundation isn’t solid enough — yet.

To improve your singing you must remain consistent over time, and commit to the work for an above-average length of time. Most people lack the discipline to stay the course. Those who do end up standing out.

Consistency is your superpower

How fast or how slow you progress is individual, but truthfully, speed doesn’t matter. What matters is that consistent singing practice becomes your super-power. The key is to stick with what you can manage and keep applying it at a sustainable pace.

If this is something you’d like to build into your own practice — to get on the right track and make your training sustainable — book a session with me here. We’ll focus on consistency and habits that last.

Last time I wrote about how some songs are more favourable than others to sing. I also mentioned the three I suggest the most for clients to help begin to figure their voice out.

I’ve also written previously about unsingable songs. But this time I thought it might be helpful to give some examples of songs that may well be singable, but are really not that helpful for developing and figuring out your voice.

One way to categorise such songs are as wide-range songs, narrow-range songs, and sudden range-jump songs.

Wide-range songs – All I Want For Christmas

Now, I have clients who sing this song, and sing it well… but I also meet a lot of singers who attempt this way too early in their development, and to say they butcher it is an understatement. Continue reading “The Least Helpful Songs for Working on Your Voice”

When people first start, we have to start building their voice from the ground up. This is true no matter how long someone has been singing, or how advanced the material they want to sing happens to be.

Once we have a reasonable technical foundation laid down, we can start to deploy that newly built facility on song.

One of the hardest things to grasp is that not all songs are equally favourable for the voice. Three songs could have the same notes and same range, but the nature of the melody is such that one may feel exceptionally easy to sing, another a bit more difficult, and another may seem impossible. I’m sure you may have even experienced this ponderance first hand…

“This song goes EXACTLY as high as this other song which I’m doing so well on, yet I feel like I’m killing myself trying to sing it… what on earth is going on?”

How easy/hard a note in song is depends on many things: what was the note before, what was the note after, how fast or slow is the piece, how intense are you singing, how staccato or legato is the piece, etc.

It means that some melodies are extremely favourable for the voice, and others less so. It then follows that there are some songs that are amazingly favourable for the voice, and provide a fun playground to start to build your voice and figure out how it works.

With that in mind, I’m going to share the THREE songs I suggest most often, for male singers and for female singers: Continue reading “Three Great Songs to Figure Out Your Voice”