The Psychology of Booking Your First Singing Lesson

Most singers don’t hesitate to buy a mic, a new guitar, or even a software plugin. But when it comes to booking your first singing lesson, the pause is different. It’s not just about the money — it’s psychological. You’re not just buying a service, you’re making yourself vulnerable in front of another human being.

Here are three common factors that cause people to hesitate before booking their first singing lesson. I’ll also cover how best to frame these in your mind to help you take the plunge.

1) Fear of Exposure

Ultimately, you ARE going to have to open your mouth and sing in front of someone that you barely know.

More than that, by going for a professional singing lesson with a trained vocal coach, you have implicitly said “I invite your critique and judgment” — I’d be worried about someone who DIDN’T find that incredibly scary at first. Even I felt this in my first session, and many thereafter.

But that’s OK! It’s the job of a good and empathetic vocal coach to set you at ease. While we have to exercise discernment over what a singer is doing, it is not a damning indictment on you — it’s not even passing judgment on your voice.

Instead, it’s like taking your car to the garage to get it fine-tuned to be the best it can be. And the best part is, you get to keep what you build. No one can take it away from you.

Yes — it can feel scary at first, but you get over that VERY quickly. And instead, you’ll get hooked on hearing BIG jumps in your ability and vocal prowess with every session. You’ll soon stop viewing your voice as “full of problems” and start to see it as the potential-laden instrument it always was.

2) Sense of Admitting Failure

Another thing that I see – particularly in the modern era – is this idea that if you have to ask for help then you’re admitting defeat.

This is nonsense! If we could learn to sing well entirely on our own, or just reading books or online forums, then we’d ALL have incredible singing voices. The voice is unlike any other instrument. You can’t see it, touch it, or even really know for certain that how it feels to you is how it feels to another singer. It’s so incredibly subjective and borderline invisible — it’s not like trying to learn to play guitar or piano by watching YouTube videos.

Moreover, you are the only person in the world who doesn’t hear yourself the way you actually sound. We’ve all recorded ourselves, listened back and thought “Blimey! That’s not how it sounded to me in my head.”

This makes it inevitable that you need to ask someone else to critically listen to you, and give you structured, objective, meaningful feedback on what needs to change. On top of that, you need to know that the person listening to you is steering you towards the kind of sound that will only continue to get better, rather than something that sounds cool today, but damages your voice tomorrow.

That’s exactly what vocal coaches are meant to do — to be able to hear your voice, and make minute alterations that are easy and implementable for you, so as to slowly but dramatically improve your voice.

If you seek out professional vocal coaching, this is NOT an admission of failure — it’s not POSSIBLE to improve your voice in a vacuum.

3) Realising It’s Only a First Step, Not a Quick Fix

Here’s the hardest one. I get clients all the time come to me for just one session, not realising that’s not where the real results come from.

Don’t misunderstand me, we can do a lot of good in a single session… but that only starts to prepare the foundations. It takes time to build a voice that will allow you to do whatever you want it to do. It’s a bit like going to the gym and expecting to learn how to perfectly execute every major weight-lifting movement in one session.

That somehow you’ll be able to over-ride all the inherent obstacles I’ve just listed above in points 1 and 2 that were working against you, all from just ONE session.

At the start, the first few months you’ll see and hear huge quantitative gains. Range, power, volume, etc will all radically jump up. But it’s the QUALITATIVE changes that take time. That powerful, easy singing where you can soar high and sing low, with no breaks, flips or changes. The ability to have a commanding singing voice with tone that sounds effortless — that doesn’t happen in ONE session. It’s not even in the first few months. It’s in the years spent walking that journey.

Conclusion

I still take regular sessions to work on my voice. I’m still not done.

Even I need expert outside ears to help guide and improve me. There’s no fear, no judgment — it’s all about the process. I love that my voice is never done, because as great as it is today, it’ll be even better tomorrow. And I’ll be able to keep improving until the day I die. It’s not like high-impact sports — singing is something everyone can do for the rest of their life.

If you’ve recognised yourself in any of these fears, it’s a sign you’re already ready to go. Even considering booking your first singing lesson is a sign that you’re ready to commit to acquiring the voice you’ve always wanted. That fear, that worry that seeking help is an admission of failure — it’s totally normal, but you don’t need to worry about it.

The first step isn’t about perfection — it’s about starting. That’s exactly what my first session is designed to do: remove the weight, and get your voice moving forward.

If you’d like to start work on your voice through serious, professional vocal coaching with me, please do book in via the consultation button below. If you’re hovering over the button, that’s a sign you should take the plunge.