When I was a little girl, I have this memory of getting into a quarrel with an elderly neighbour whose kitchen faced ours. I remember myself as a feisty little girl with a loud voice, and apparently rude, because I was told off by my mother and grandmother that I should not have spoken to the elderly neighbour that way. Without the full context, I have no idea whether I reacted because she was teasing me (as some older people do, pressing children's buttons just to get a reaction), or whether...

I chanced upon this ‘live’ performance by Billie Eiish and thought that it’s such good classroom material to dissect for singing students: Disclaimer: I am neutral about her; I do like her songwriting abilities and how she emotes herself as a recording artiste. This is strictly an objective analysis from the angle of a vocal teacher: Timeline BreakDown 0:08 When she started singing the verse, you may observe that she was slouching (and hence closing her body). It sorts of still works for the...

This is a concept that comes up all through my whole life - be it putting myself out there as a singer-songwriter back in the days, or coaching vocals to my students over 2 decades. It can come up as: - not wanting to present certain looks (eg. without makeup on social media), or sounds/concepts ("is this really what i want to let the listeners hear and feel about me? The secret ugly part of me") - looking into a mirror (straight on to our singing faces) - feeling the cringe while watching...