My interest is starting to stress me out

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For a long time my special interest has been singing. I like doing it as well as researching it.

Most of the internet is full of crappy information about it, shared by people who really don't know what they are talking about. Even professionals will share misleading or even totally false information.

Recently, however, I found a teacher online who actually does know exactly what he's talking about. I bought his program and I am going to start getting online lessons with him soon.

However, now it's like I have the opposite problem as before. Instead of having to search endlessly for accurate information, I now have a huge book of information and exercises, and it's frustrating to me because I want to use it, but for some reason I am having trouble. It's like I'm just very slow at processing the information, because my mind needs to make sure it all fits in its proper place.

And on top of that, there are many exercises and variations, and when I try to get started on them I get overwhelmed trying to figure out all the details, especially the issue of fitting it into my schedule. I need to have a set time to do this every day, but right now I'm still worried about getting an apartment. But then when I get an apartment it's probably going to be impossible for me to practice at all, since I will likely be living very close to others.

And as for the teacher, I've had the program for almost 2 months, but have barely practiced any of the actual exercises in the book. I have my first lesson on Saturday and I'm afraid he is going to think that I'm not really serious about it since I haven't practiced the exercises.

I don't really know what I'm asking here. I just wanted to rant I guess.

Speech pathology is a very good field for people whose special interest is singing.

Many singers prove to be excellent speech and language therapists.

Maybe I could even become a vocal coach for singing. Or both. I could have a regular day job as a speech therapist, and do private singing lessons in the evening.

I really want to be in a band, but I don't feel like I'm good enough for that yet. I will be eventually I'm sure. But then there's the trouble of actually finding/forming a band. I'm not going to worry about that until I'm at a near-professional or professional level with my vocals though.

Why not go to a face to face teacher? That way you would have a schedule for the lessons, and going to them might make you more motivated to practice at home. You could still use the online stuff you bought in addition to the actual lessons too. It would probably help as well. I'm sure you can find a teacher in the phone book that's near you.

I'm so glad you posted about this topic. I've been dealing with this a lot, too.

My special interests are foreign languages. I'm really good at learning them when I dive in head first and come up for air hours/days/weeks later. I spend all my free time absorbed in it and love every little obscure part of it.

But as soon as my compulsive brain starts trying to organize and plan how I'm going to learn it -- it all falls apart. I get confused. I don't know what I'm doing. And I stagnate.

I've come to the conclusion that I need to learn my own way, even if that process is messy. That being said, outside structure can be great, because doing the required assignments inspires me to jump off and do my own thing in my spare time, "rebelling" against the structure but doing it my way in my free time.

So I think, It's a special interest, keep it a hobby, too, even as you're getting professional.

By the way, I'd love to know who the clever teacher is. I know I usually research an interest to death so that I can spot a true expert a mile away and weed out the chaff. If you're doing that with singing, I would love to benefit from your knowledge.

Even the "professionals" are often misleading or just not good teachers. There aren't many around here to begin with so I'm not sure what I'd be getting. Plus, out of all the teachers I've had up to this point, none of them have really taught contemporary styles, most teach classical. I don't hate classical singing, but that isn't the sound I'm going for.

I've noticed that some teachers using classical technique actually kind of despise contemporary styles, and claim that classical technique is the best. Classical technique is probably less likely to cause damage to your voice, but that's mostly because there is a lot of misinformation in how to do contemporary styles. People will say screaming vocals destroy your voice, but unless you're using crappy technique or screaming all the time without resting (both of which can injure your voice even just by singing anyway) you most likely will be fine. I could literally do it all day and not have a single problem. I'm not really good at it yet but at least I know I'm doing it right.

Anyway, my point is that it's hard to find a good teacher, especially in a smaller city where my options for types of voice teachers are limited. If I could find one that teaches contemporary styles maybe, but that might be impossible.

dryope, the teacher I found is Robert Lunte, his product is called The Four Pillars of Singing. There have been a couple other programs I tried that didn't help me at all, so I was a bit wary. I decided to ask him some questions on his forum, he responded very quickly and told me the problems I was having could be due to a lot of things including [insert list of accurate information about the physiological and acoustical components of the voice]. Some of this stuff I knew, but it had taken me years to figure it out, and I still didn't know how to apply it, and he already had that information and more included, in detail, in his program.

Understanding how the voice actually works has always been infinitely more helpful than teachers who only tell you to "visualize this as you sing", at least for me. Without knowing fundamentally why "this" made a difference, they might as well have been telling me, "You just gotta believe!" Not helpful. Maybe for some people, but I think anyone can benefit more from knowing the actual facts, however complex some of it may be, and THEN using visualization techniques.

Anyway, he is the only teacher to my knowledge with a program that is this in-depth and technically accurate. There are lots of teachers who probably have the same knowledge as him, but none of them have made a program like this one, and private lessons with them are very expensive. A lot of them run or teach at vocal academies. That's where all the really good teachers are, so it explains why I've never found any before. Even with Robert his lessons are 100 dollars per hour, but at least I know I'll actually be learning something.

You're paying $100 a lesson for online lessons?? How do you even get feedback that way? Is it through skype or something? That honestly sounds to me like you are about to be ripped off pretty bad. I'd check this out in much more depth before I paid anything at all if I were you. I think that's entirely too much to pay for singling lessons, even if he does teach the technique you want to learn and even though he did say the things you were looking to hear.

Seriously, check this out before you start paying. You don't want to get ripped off.

I'm not doing a lot, I only paid for one lesson so far. It is through Skype, and when I asked him about it he said as long as I have a good internet connection there shouldn't be any problem as far as giving feedback.

But, believe it or not, that's actually a decent price for what I'm getting. I've met other vocal coaches who charge $150 or more per hour. Granted, they are very good teachers (one of them I met is David Archuleta's vocal coach), but this teacher's experience is definitely on par with those others I've met. Honestly I'd be shocked if he was doing it for less than what he is. The cheapest I've ever seen personally was $40 an hour for private voice lessons, done by the UCM choir director (even then it was a bit of a discount, as I knew him personally).

I've also talked to Robert and others who have used the program on the forum, and read reviews on his site, Amazon etc. and I have yet to see a single complaint.

It is still a lot of money, I know, but I am pretty serious about it. Other than the reasons I've already stated, I'm pretty sure he isn't trying to rip me off, because he said the reason for the lessons is to make sure I'm doing the exercises correctly and to give me real-time feedback before I get too into it. If not I could possibly wind up doing it wrong and not making slow or no progress, which is definitely a concern with vocal training of any kind.

But if I think it's not helping at all after this first lesson I just won't pay for any more. It's too late to get that money back anyway, since my Skype lesson is tomorrow. But to put it to a percentage, I'm 99.9% sure he isn't going to rip me off.

A little a day is just fine. Don't underestimate how much just 30-60 minutes a day of making sure you understand what you're reading can add up to in a few weeks or a few months.

Awesome! I appreciate it.

Update:

I just had my first lesson, it went a lot better than I expected. He said I am a lot better than most people who are just starting out with his program, and even better than he was at my age, as I was able to do some of the harder exercises in the program pretty much right off the bat. I guess it makes sense, considering how much I practice, but still, I only thought I was a bit better than most. For some reason I tend to think that anyone else could easily do the things I can do after just a couple tries.

He actually grew up only 13 miles away from where I am living currently too, so that's kind of interesting.

I'm just a bit worried about this new apartment. I will only have one neighbor as my apartment is on the end, but I don't know how sound-proof the walls are. I don't want to end up not being able to practice because it bothers the neighbor. Maybe there is some way I can sound proof that wall on my side.