Watch Esi's student testimonial
My lovely vocal student Esi talks about her first year of singing lessons with me; developing confidence in her voice and geeking out about music!
Thank you so much to Esi for speaking openly about her experience of singing lessons as a disabled person, and for helping me understand how to make my teaching more accessible.
Click on the thumbnail to watch the full testimonial:
Esi says: "I can really tell that Jules has adapted her style to suit my disability. When I came, I remember talking a lot about 'oh this is because this happened to me' and 'this is because I can't do this' and Jules really nicely helped me realise that that doesn't have to be a barrier."
Esi runs an incredible business Celebrating Disability which works with companies to develop disability awareness in the workplace. I encourage you to check it out: Celebrating Disability
To book your free consultation with me, visit my booking page.
Let's get singing!
Jules
Here's the full transcript:
Why did you want singing lessons?
Hi I'm Esi and I started singing lessons at the beginning of the year. So, it's something that I've always wanted to do but never really had the confidence and people would always tell me that I couldn't sing - even singing teachers at school - so I decided, at the beginning of the year that it would be one of my kind of New Year's resolutions that I did for myself; something fun, as a hobby.
What were you hoping to get out of it?
I don't think I had a specific goal in mind when I started.
I wanted to think that if I decided to do karaoke or sing at somebody's party that I wouldn't be thinking halfway through the song "Oh my God that probably sounded awful." And for me that I just wanted to confidence to know that, if I wanted to do it for fun I wouldn't have to be embarrassed about myself.
What's been your favourite thing?
My favourite thing is just going for it. None of the oh let's do scales for 45 minutes and let's do boring stuff. It's like straight in and then, when we're in, we'll see what we need to do and we'll do it around the song as well. I mean there's so much more that I could talk about.
How has your voice changed?
I've developed so much more confidence. I remember on my first session I was scared to even look up when I was singing. And I refused to open my mouth without a backing track. And I made it like the loudest song deliberately so that I could hide.
Also I've found that my pitching has got so much better. What I'm noticing is that I can easily flip between the chest voice and the falsetto voice in a way that even like six weeks ago I couldn't do.
I'm learning like techniques to get my voice ready do that as well so I'm think I'm doing it a little bit unconsciously as well which is really exciting.
What did you find most helpful?
You know another thing that I really like about the way that Jules teaches is that she knows that I'm a really visual person so quite often she shares the screen and she shows me the notes.
So, in the middle of the lesson sometimes, we call it like 'geeking out' and I'll be like "Well what does that note mean?" and "How does that look on a piano?" and then Jules will be like "Well this is this" and "This is how you know that this happens like this" and it's really interesting.
And you know whilst I don't think that everybody would be interested in that for me adds because I think I learn when I know why I'm doing something.
So it's really helpful to see it and, when I can't quite place the note or place the pitch in the right place, it's really helpful to see where it should be and then I'm like "Ok I just need to be a bit higher."
When you're not musically attuned it really helps to kind of visualise something.
Were the lessons accessible to you as a disabled person?
So, I have a disability called cerebral palsy, which is a neurological condition so all of my limbs are affected and I have limited dexterity in my hands.
So, quite often I think that, when people are learning to sing, they use their hands quite often to maybe feel their chest and to feel their throat and also to hold - I'm trying to do it now - to hold kind of their cheeks and their face in a certain way. Can't do any of that.
And also, although I can stand up, I sit down a lot so, what I notice really quickly about Jules is she wasn't like "Oh we can't do this, you'll just have to do it my way" or "you'll have to find your own way to do it the way I'm doing it" kind of thing, which is a lot of teachers do, not just singing but across the board. A lot of people are like "I can't be bothered to even think about how I'm going to adapt so you can just work it out for yourself."
What Jules did is she sits down with me as well. So I'm sure that she stands up for the majority of her other clients but, for me, she sits down. And I can see her thinking about ways to adapt a technique and a style to suit the fact that I'm sitting down.
But I can really tell that Jules has adapted her style to suit my disability and so, when I came, I remember talking a lot about "oh this is because this happened to me" and "this is because I can't do this" and Jules really nicely helped me realise that that doesn't have to be a barrier.
What surprised you about your lessons?
I don't think I expected to have so much fun!
You know I wanted to find something that I could do inside so that I didn't have to go out and get cold when it was cold and I didn't have to get wet and, if I couldn't be bothered to leave the house I didn't have to. And also that fit in with straight after work because i work from home anyway. So I didn't have to stop working early and then go somewhere.
But it's just been really fun. It's been an hour that I've really looked forward to every week.
Would you recommend lessons with Jules?
If you want to do singing lessons and you're worried about... first of all you're worried about your confidence, I would say that you don't know until you start so it's worth giving it a go. I think the most important thing about starting anything new is to remember that you don't have to stick to it. You know, if you don't like it you're not making a lifelong commitment, you can just stop doing it.
So I would say if you're thinking of taking singing lessons I would definitely go to Jules because she will make you feel confident and comfortable and valued as well.