Right to Sing: Stories, Research & Reflection

Establishing the Ground I’ve been dancing around this for a while—wondering whether to lay down a kind of philosophical welcome mat for anyone curious enough to follow my writing. Part of me hesitated (I do love to leap straight into the deep end), but I know I use certain terms— shame , objectification , embodiment —that deserve some unpacking. So this post is a beginning. Or rather, a bridge. Over the next few blogs, I’ll share some of the frameworks that have shaped my research and teaching. None of them are fixed. They’re evolving—much like the singers I work with, and like me, as I keep reading, listening, and learning. These concepts don’t belong to me. But I’ve been holding them up to the light, testing them against real experiences. They’ve helped me understand something about the inner lives of singers—the quiet pressures and unspoken hurts—and I think they might help others, too. This isn’t about airtight definitions. It’s about naming the waters we’re swimming in—so we ...

At some point, “fixing” became the entire focus. I had stopped performing professionally, but I hadn’t stopped searching for answers. Every vocal warm-up was an experiment. Every recording was an investigation. I zoomed in on tiny details, listened over and over, comparing myself to old versions of me—trying to catch the flaw, the crack, the thing that needed correcting. I became technical, analytical, relentless. And I told myself that this was discipline. That this was what singers do: we refine, we correct, we improve. But underneath all that effort was something else entirely. It wasn’t drive. It wasn’t care. It was fear. The Masochism of Mastery Shame wasn’t on my radar. At the time, I wouldn’t have used that word at all. I didn’t think I felt ashamed—I thought I was just trying to be better. But looking back now, it’s clear: the obsession to fix wasn’t just about the voice. It was a way to avoid the deeper wound. The wound of not being enough . Of feeling exposed. Of hav...