Here's something I hear all the time from my clients:
“Is THAT what I really sound like?”
“It doesn't sound like me!”
“I hate hearing myself on a recording!”
“I hate the sound of my voice”
Does this sound familiar?
Do you ever wonder why everybody seems chocked when listening to their voicemail message for the first time?
Have you been recording yourself on your phone to practice but you can never get it quite right because the sound you hear on the recording doesn't match what you think you should sound like?
Or perhaps people tell you that your voice is too nasal, too breathy, too thin, too dark... But to you it seems just fine. What's going on? Then when you actually listen to a recording of it you realized that...
You were WRONG and they were RIGHT! What a disaster... How are you going to fix it?
This situation creates a negative mindset from the get go because you listen to yourself and you don't like what your hear. It feels like you have such a LOOOONG way to go in order to sound decent! It's discouraging... And mindset is EVERYTHING!
You go back and forth recording and listening and still the voice you hear live is different from the voice on the recording. Not being able to rely on your ears to assess the quality of your voice affects your confidence as you're not sure when you're practicing whether you are improving or reinforcing bad technique. It feels like if you cannot TRUST your voice, you can certainly not RELY on your ears either...
You are wasting so much TIME trying to figure out what is the correct way to sing.
If you don't fix this, you risk developing tension, limiting your range, experiencing vocal fatigue and even losing any motivation to sing to begin with... Your passion will start fading...
The reason this is happening is that we hear ourselves differently than others do and therefore how it sounds on a recording too. That is a fact... Now you can breathe; it's not you... You're not crazy!
We hear our voice from within our bone structure. Where our resonance is focused impacts our personal perception of the sound while it reverberates in our face and upper body. For example, when the resonance is focused too forward in the face, the intensity of the vibration is quite nice for the singer who thinks his voice is loud and vibrant when in fact, it only appears this way because the sound is contained in a small space: more vibration in a small space is not necessarily beautiful nor louder once it comes out!
But after the voice does come out of our mouth, the sound reverberates in its immediate environment bouncing back and forth against other people, objects, walls, etc... It is from that perspective that others hear us and that sound is recorded. This is basically the true sound of your voice and not the one you hear from within.
When you listen to your voice on a recording for the first time; you don't recognize it. That's what triggers the negative response.
This is the only way to fix that problem:
1) Learn correct technique from a professional vocal coach: stop relying on your ears alone to decide what sounds good or not. It just doesn't work. Your personal opinion is misleading and slowing down your progress.
2) Once you understand correct singing and your vocal coach or someone else you trust to give you an honest opinion (as opposed to what you'd like to hear) confirms with positive feedback that you've got your technique down, accept your new voice as it is. Learn to LOVE your voice. Record yourself often an get used to what it actually sounds like.
You will get your confidence back in addition to the benefits of using correct vocal technique. You will start recording yourself more often and proudly share your music with others. Someone IMPORTANT might even notice you and present you with the opportunity of a lifetime!
I have a very simple process that I use every day with my clients to help them perform at their best and LOVE their voice! You can learn about it in my masterclass "5 Shifts To Uncover Your Best Voice". Follow the link below to register:
See you there!
Val