My Unconventional Singing Journey & Singdaptive

My professional music life took a really weird turn last year, as I’m sure it did for ALL musicians, what with the pandemic and everything. I had been working as a freelance musician and sound artist, with gigs booked and a trip planned to go to Budapest, Hungary, for several months to do an artist residency at the Spatial Sound Institute, when BAM! The pandemic hit and many of my creative pursuits came to a screeching halt.

Luckily, I was fortunate enough to land a gig with a singing education company called Singdaptive, allowing me the opportunity to continue working in my field. One thing Singdaptive had me do was test out their new asynchronous learning platform, Exchangely, but what ended up happening was much more groundbreaking and unexpected than simply testing the site as it granted me the rare chance to up my singing game.

So I’m here to talk to you about what’s happened with my singing since I started with Exchangely. Ok, guys I know what you must be thinking.. “But she works with the company so this must be some sort of paid promotion..” but no! That’s not the case! I have actually been USING Exchangely now for 7 months.

I’ve personally been singing for as long as I can remember,

and I’ve been a singer-songwriter now for many years, but one thing that I have not done, until now, is dedicated myself to consistent vocal lessons for an extended period of time. Sure, I’ve taken some vocal lessons here and there throughout my life, but my seemingly “natural” singing abilities I think have largely come from my devotion to playing music for most of my life. But once I started on lessons with Kim Greenwood at Singdaptive, I began to realize just how much about singing I didn’t know.

At the heart of Singdaptive’s approach is a personal exchange of videos between a singer and a Lead Instructor at Singdaptive. The Lead Instructor gives feedback, insights, exercises and tasks which are targeted directly at the singer’s goals. They also connect singers to the insights of the multidisciplinary team at Singdaptive. Exchanges happen at the singer’s own pace and on an innovative learning platform featuring an easy-to-use way for singers to connect with the Singdaptive Team as well to experience quizzes, actions and progress tracking.

One major milestone for me was working with Kim to prepare for a vocal recording session I had about a month ago. It was the first time that I was able to prepare for a recording session with a vocal coach by my side every step of the way, to help me really get into the song and deliver my best performance. The results were just that! I can confidently say that it was the best vocal recording session I have had to date - it was super easy to execute all the parts because I had worked through them all with Kim. My pitch was on point and I was able to focus on delivering an emotional performance. My producer was super happy and was raving about my vocals! But most importantly, I felt fully confident and that I knew what I was doing, and was honestly surprised with how well I executed my parts! The song, to be released later this year, is about my late grandma and so I really wanted to capture the emotion of losing her and memorializing her with this song, and Kim knew exactly what I needed to do to achieve this!

I want to also stress that just because you’ve been a singer, or a musician, for many years, like I have, doesn’t mean that lessons can’t be for you. I personally feel that being a musician is the most humbling of professions, because even if you were to keep learning on your instrument 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, until you die, you would STILL not have learned everything there is to know about music.

One thing I like about how the way the platform works is that you can work on it anytime of day, for however long you want, totally at your own pace and according to your schedule. As a busy musician who is also working on electric and double bass, and guitar, this format works best for me to allow me to have complete control to fit in all the things I have going on. Therefore, I would highly recommend giving it a try if you already have a lot on the go, like me, but are still looking to improve your singing.

Music is infinite in this way and therefore, lessons are NEVER a bad thing. Learning in other areas of music I find is great too because I find it compliments all the other areas I am working on. So what I learn with singing can compliment my bass playing, and vice versa. The one thing singing lessons have taught me is, the further I delve into the world of singing, the more I realize how much MORE there is to learn! And so from that perspective, even though I’ve been singing for my whole life, I feel like I have barely scratched the surface, and am so excited to continue on this journey with Exchangely. Seriously, give it a try! What have you got to lose? You only stand to gain more singing confidence, more technique, more joy, more happiness, and more music in your life!