Right to Sing: Stories, Research & Reflection

  "Vulnerability is the soil of every safe space. Teaching asks us to hold that delicately - knowing we may cause harm, and still choosing to stay present, because healing and growth live in that very same ground". There isn't a single lesson where I don't observe vulnerability in my students. Voice work is vulnerable work - deeply exposing. It often unearths memory, doubt, fear and identity. Creating a safe space for this work is my intention - but to do that with integrity, I first have to ask: what does a safe space truly mean? What does it look like, feel like, and require? I once had a mature female student - a former professional singer - who had returned to lessons after many years away from performing. Mid-lesson, she broke down. Her voice trembled as she admitted to me how hard it had been to reckon with her changing voice, her confidence, her sense of self. My job was not to cheerlead or rescue her in that moment. It was to hold her admission with compassion...

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...