Singing Analogies | Singing and the Automobile Transmission
Something that comes up a lot in the artist community, be it for painters, singers or dancers, is that some feel that training is “uncool”, or stifles creativity in some way. This is usual an excuse born out of laziness or a fear of dedicating oneself to what amounts to a lot of hard work.
When we begin to train our voice we must bring all the things we have up to date been unconscious of, into our consciousness so we can know what we are doing. We do this so we can know what to work on. It can be a frustrating process.
When we are very aware of all our issues with singing, it is like driving a car with a manual transmission. And, I’m referring to the changes we have to make as we climb in pitch to navigate our difficult passages. These changes are like the gear changes of a car. In the beginning, we must make them “manually”.
As we get better at our vocal training and our vocal technique improves, we build new muscle habits. It can take some time, but once it comes into being, it gets easier and easier. One might say it becomes “automatic”. So, the difference can be compared to that of driving a manual transmission compared to an automatic transmission, which is what we’re after in the end.
