The High Performance Singer

(How to Become the Best Backup Singer Ever) My name is Kristin, and I am addicted to harmony. As a singer, I intend for this statement to be interpreted musically. But as I find daily, as I go in Music, so I go in Life. So, let’s start, as is my wont, with a story on a seemingly unrelated topic… I have a student who works with a Myers-Briggs life coach. This ideology reaches far beyond the personality assessment that you took at work, or that adorable quiz that pops up on

On any given morning, I may be in my yoga class at the Y, awkwardly arranging myself into some nice, juicy, seated asana in celebration of having arduously completed my standing poses. With a sense of relief, I close my eyes to settle in. Without fail, my wonderfully aware teacher immediately hollers out, “Eyes open! This is a householder’s practice!” I sigh, open my eyes, and pay attention. He is referring to the concept of the “Householder” in Buddhism, the term that distin

This is a bad year for the flu - and I'm sure that's not news to you. As a vocalist, you need to be extra careful with preventive care - you can't cancel a gig just because you're sick. I've had to perform long gigs while sick more times than I wish. It's not fun, and you risk losing your voice because of it. (I have injured my voice because of singing a 4-hour pop/rock gig while sick. It took about 9 months for my voice to heal.) But when you have a gig commitment, you h

Question: What do Florence Foster Jenkins, Virtue Epistemology, and a Major League Baseball game have in common? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. And yet…? These three completely unrelated items came together this week in a meaningful way in the dark and murky corners of my hypomanic mind, as I was considering a question that nags at some of my students: How good is good enough to sing? Like, out loud? For actual people? (Spoiler alert: My answer is Yes.) Allow me to set the

Well, that’s got to be a typo. Kristin is clearly on the hooch. She obviously intended to write an article on Breathing for Singing, but she got the title of her own blog wrong. Did I? Oh, did I? One day, I had a first lesson with a new student. I was having him vocalize on raspberries, an exercise most of my students claim that I employ as a special sort of sadistic torture against them. While I admit that I do in fact find their discomfort to be one of the exercise’s many

One evening recently, I received a text from one of my students. It went along the lines of, “There’s something that’s been really upsetting me lately. Could we spend some time at my lesson discussing it?” Being a Philadelphian by birth and temperament, my mind instantly conjured up the worst possible scenarios that could involve a male college student. Had he been hitting the keg parties too hard? Was he in over his head with some love interest? Had he committed some sort o

by Kristin Henry I was recently engaged in the annual joyful task of preparing my band’s tax forms – whoever decided to hand the financial responsibilities over to me was clearly a lunatic – and as I proudly penned a whopping “$1,000.00” on line 7 (Nonemployee compensation) of my own 1099-MISC, the person I was with did a double take. “That’s what you made with the band last year?” he asked. “Yeah, that’s 10 gigs at $100 each.” I was happy. It was up a little from the prev

OK. Yes. It's been FOREVER since my last newsletter. First reason: I asked a question in the last newsletter that I had to ponder myself a lot over the last few weeks. It took me a while to be able to answer my own question, even though honestly, I've been thinking about it for years. Second reason: Been very busy getting my band ready for our next gig, with a new lineup. (That gig is this Friday, if you're in Colorado's Front Range.) To remind you - or if you just sign

What do you believe you can't do? Can you not write songs? Can you not play guitar? Can you not be the lead singer of a band? Can you not land a nightly house gig in Dubai? If you've been on my email list for a while, or you know me in person, hopefully you know that the belief you can't do something resides squarely in your own head and nowhere else. (Where else is a belief going to reside?) Even if you feel like your negative belief is justified because you tried something

There was a girl who wanted to be in a band. She had performed singing before, but never with a live band. And she had never used a microphone in her life! She answered a few Craigslist ads and ended up trying out for a band. But in the audition, hearing her voice through the microphone totally freaked her out, and she bombed. She didn't know how she would ever get good enough to be the lead singer in a band. She thought it was too late, now that she was already in her

In high school, my best friend and I planned the most exciting trip we could imagine: we were going to drive the six hours from Phoenix, where we lived, to Los Angeles to see our favorite artist play a concert. We had recently turned 16, so we could drive, and we felt free and excited. This was one of the first "dreams" I can remember getting really excited about. Well, of course our parents didn't go for the idea. Maybe it was just a concert and a trip, but it was the fir

Singing well takes work. Playing an instrument well takes work. Writing songs takes work. Honing stagecraft takes work. Pulling together a band, booking a band, creating buzz... You name it, whatever you do in music, ad however much you love doing it, there is also a part of it that involves WORK. To do WORK, you need MOTIVATION. Where does your motivation come from? From doing the work for yourself... AND doing it for someone else. Work for yourself... Of course, you must h

Are you dying to get into a band? Would you take a position with almost any band, as long as you could get on stage? Think carefully about your options... not all opportunities are the right ones! ... Recently, I met up with a musician friend I hadn't seen in a while. I'm keeping names secret to protect the innocent, so I'll call this person Daniel. Daniel used to play in several different bands at a time, some of them for joy and others just for the money (and most defini

Last weekend I spent with Rene Marie, jazz singer, at a workshop she ran for a few women looking to access more emotion in their singing. Many pearls of wisdom came out during the 17 hours we all spent together, but here's just one I'd like to share today: A single song can help you find your voice. Find one song that you really connect with. One song that moves you. One song that opens the door for you. It might be old, it might be new... it might be from your teenage year

Imagine you're back in your first apartment. (Or, just look around, if that's where you're living now.) Do you ever dust? Are there holes in the couch? Empty pizza boxes? Unmade bed? Have you done anything at all to decorate? What if your dream date called you and wanted to swing by in a half hour to pick you up for a night out? Would you have time to make the place look presentable? Or would you wish that you had kept it looking at least decent all this time? You c

I went for a run/walk along Boulder Creek yesterday. First springlike day I've seen around here this year. People were out playing chess in the grass, feeding ducks, tossing sticks into the creek for their Retrievers to... retrieve. Up just past the kayak course on the west end of town, I saw something strange: cairn-like piles of rocks within the creek. Tons of them. 30 or more precariously balanced piles of four, five, six, or more rocks. Some of them looked impossibl

Those of you who know me personally, know how I can get carried away with trying to accomplish too many things at once. And I know that some of you are the same way. We are the kind of people who get so obsessed with making progress, that we don't make enough time for rest. Because of the new year and its attendant resolutions, this seems to be a time of the year for many people when we get too busy trying to get things done... make personal changes... improve ourselves...

I wish but one thing for you for 2010: That you know without a doubt what you most deeply desire out of life. It's easy to know what we should want. It's easy to set achievement-oriented goals that look good on paper. It's easy to set goals for "shoulds" because we feel like we "should" achieve this number or that status or that goal. But more important is that you KNOW YOUR DEEPEST DESIRES. Once you know what that is, everything else will become easier. Decisions will

Do you ever feel like you're never going to be a great singer? Do you find yourself wondering, "Who would ever pay to listen to that?" Do you ever feel like your voice... well... it sucks? Yep. So do I, sometimes. It's totally normal. Here's what to do. Think of a spiral, like a Slinky or a DNA helix. A spiral goes around in a circle, right? But instead of returning to the same point, it returns to the same point at a higher level. This is the way many things in natur

The following are some of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite books - Free Play: Improvisation in Life and Art, by Stephen Nachmanovich: “The ego wants to be right, but in the dynamics of life and art we are never right, we are always changing and cycling.” “It is when we are trying to sound brilliant that we stumble, and when we stay within ourselves, we sound better.” “Effort gets in the way of great playing.” “You must surrender the need to sound good. Otherwise,