Brooks Peoples Academy and Arts

Growing up singing in choirs, I learned very well how to sing as part of a group and sound the same as everyone else. I learned to match pitch and mimic runs. I learned to understand when to sing loudly and when to sing softly. But I never learned which voice was my own. I never learned how to use what I have already because I was so caught up trying to sound like everyone else, I never embraced my own sound.

My thinking has prevented me all this time, from growing as a singer. The ability has been there, the desire has absolutely been there, but with a clouded mind, the greatest of any talents becomes average, at best.

Both of my parents were leaders in church, singing traditional black gospel music, filled with soul. Lots of runs, lots of modulations and key and tempo changes, lots of drawn out vowels, extended breath holds, stratosphere-level bridge notes... but most of all, they always had emotion. There was passion that lead them when they sang. I remember saying, "I'll never be able to sing like them, so I hold back a lot because I can't do what they did."
In our first session, her reply was simple: "You CAN do it. And you will sing even BETTER than they did."

Just to have a positive voice to trust more than my own negative thinking, that alone would be worth my time. But she's taken time to help me understand when to use my full voice vs my falsetto, how to project sound in every range, how to shape notes to match my strongest vowel sounds, how to be willing to make a mistake and learn from it.

And whereas I used to refrain from allowing anyone to hear me singing, now, it's common for me to sing out freely at work, at church and everyone else, with little concern for who is listening.

I still have lots to learn, but I'm grateful to be learning it in a safe place.