Solo singing is best understood through shared experience
Understanding grows through experience, repetition, and what you notice
I always read feedback and reflections that singers generously share after we’ve spent time working together, whether that’s a full weekend like Love Your Voice or a shorter workshop day, because for me, that is not an add-on; it’s a wonderful part of the process.
As a teacher, I will have led the day, shaped it, and responded to what was needed as we worked. Still, it is sometimes only when I read those reflections afterwards that I begin to see what has actually been absorbed, and that the true value is often not where you might expect it.
What has become very clear to me, reading through everything this last time, is that solo singing is not always understood in advance, however much preparation someone may have done, but through the experience of being alongside other singers, listening, noticing, and allowing things to fall into place in their own way.
I recognise this very directly from my own singing life, because so much of what I have come to rely on has not come from trying to get everything in place beforehand, but from being in situations where singing is happening around me, where I am hearing other voices, responding, adjusting, and gradually making sense of what I am doing from within that shared experience.
And this is exactly what comes through in what singers themselves choose to mention.
One person writes about hearing something in another voice that suddenly clarifies their own, another about recognising a difficulty they had assumed was theirs alone, and seeing it more clearly because it is happening in front of them rather than inside their own singing, and someone else about the difference it makes to sing with an accompanist, where listening becomes more immediate and where the sense of being part of the music changes in a way that cannot really be recreated on your own.
None of these is a grand statement, but they are telling.
They show that understanding begins to grow through contact, through hearing, through being part of something where singing is not happening in isolation, and that changes how everything is experienced.
This is why I am always keen to say that you do not have to arrive ready to sing - that there is real value in coming to share the workshop experience as an observer.
Sitting with us, listening, watching how things are approached, seeing how singers are guided and how they respond, gives you a way into it that is both manageable and, for many, far more helpful than trying to jump straight in. It allows you to begin, to be included - without the added pressure of having to produce something vocal yourself if you don’t feel ready.
From there, the next step tends to feel much more natural.
And although there is something very particular about being physically present with other singers, the same principle applies online, because what matters is not the format but the fact of placing yourself within something that is ongoing, where singing is happening regularly and where you are not left to work everything out entirely on your own.
That is often where things begin to develop. It becomes less about trying to manage your singing in isolation and more about understanding it through experience, through repetition, and through the gradual assimilation of knowledge.
And this is why the post-workshop reflections matter so much, not simply as a record of what has taken place, but because they open someone else’s eyes to recognise what is possible.
It is often only a line or two that stands out, something simple and honestly observed, but that can be enough for another singer to see themselves in it and to realise that they do not have to wait until they feel perfectly ready.
They can come along. They can observe. They can begin where they are.
And from there, understanding tends to grow in its own time, not through preparation alone, but through the shared experience of singing itself.
If you find yourself recognising something here, or wondering how this might look in your own singing, the Voice School Portal Notice Board is the natural place to begin. I’m beginning to shape up a few options/ideas for the summer there, for those who would like to stay connected.