Everyone sings: How voice lessons have become a new trend and why are they also a great therapy?

When a few of my girlfriends suddenly started going to vocal studios, I didn’t care at all, I just started to worry that the words “let’s go to karaoke” would now be heard more clearly in my life. A little more time passed, and I began to notice that people I subscribe to on social networks – colleagues from the industry, distant friends and acquaintances of acquaintances – began to actively upload their photos with a microphone. And especially the brave ones – even a video of how they sing in class.

Now, after overcoming the PTSD of a music school, I’ve been playing hits by Beyoncé, Polina Gagarina, and Christina Aguilera for several months under the supervision of a teacher. The most interesting thing is that, in addition to overcoming some of my fears about my personal opinion of the sound of my own voice, every time I leave the classroom full of energy, satisfied, and willing to shout (you can’t say otherwise) all the familiar songs to every first person I meet. But for now, I’m holding on.

What is the phenomenon of vocal lessons in adulthood?

I involved a teacher and a psychologist in the discussion to understand how to get real pleasure from singing and what fear has to do with it.

Vladimir Ovsyannikov, vocal teacher, singer, presenter, creator and soloist of the cover group “BalaGun group”

Can everyone be taught to sing?

Yes, absolutely anyone can be taught to sing. Even though I’ve been teaching for a long time, each student is still something new, we go through completely individual moments with each one, but the picture is essentially the same: the student comes unprepared, comes out ready, which means he’s learned something. I always say to all my students: “Friends, if the bears cycled through the arena in our circus, would we not achieve the results we planned?”

Why have vocal lessons become popular?

You may remember a sentence from the movie “The Irony of Fate or Enjoy Your Bath”: “Do you know when people sing? When they’re happy…” This is the ingenious and most accurate answer we’ve never noticed! Many people who cannot sing take a huge amount of emotion from the fact that at the same karaoke, at a party, at a family celebration, they just sing and do not think about it, do not get nervous and freeze. do not compress. And they get 100% pure pleasure. And since the 90s, as our standard of living has increased, so has the palette of tastes, and vocal lessons are one of them.

How many lessons do you need to sing well?

In general, there are absolutely no limits here. And what is decent singing? In any case, appetite comes with eating.

You need at least six months for you to accept yourself, hear yourself, and move on to a more serious dimension. The faster you reconcile with some problems, with virtues, the faster you will have to set up an absolutely correct healthy system in your head.

In general, counting the number of lessons is an thankless task. You can work with a teacher once a week, but each day do what you’ve already gone through or go further. I give a lot of songs to almost all of my students, and songs that they often do not even dream of. We do not sing, we almost do not solfeggio (if there is no such desire), while singing, one feeds and completely controls all emotions within oneself.

How to understand that the teacher is “not yours”?

Every day we make a choice, from a cafe where they make the best coffee for us at a reasonable price, to the choice of our life partner. In other words, we choose the most comfortable and most suitable for us in terms of emotions that make us better. And here the most important thing begins – you should not look at the merits of the teacher, but find someone who will be very comfortable for you as a person. Who takes your taste into account and whose opinion you take into account. If there is no emotion or it is destructive, do not hesitate to change teachers.

How can I distinguish a good teacher from a non-professional?

It is often impossible to distinguish a good teacher from a bad one, because hundreds of graduates graduate every year and the market is full of them. I am absolutely sure that the voice teacher is a psychologist who feels you as much as possible and will never put you under pressure. He is the one who will support you in what you are, the one who will never devalue you. Sometimes the most professional person does at least strange and incomprehensible things, which later turn out to be incredibly necessary. So here you just need to look at your reaction and progress.

psychologist’s opinion

Polina Kashapova, clinical psychologist, psychotherapist from Germany

Have you ever watched children who are about to commit an act that arouses fear in them? Isn’t it fear that chills the soul and completely blocks them, for example, going down to another floor of the house in the evening or going to the toilet at dusk? The fact that some children sing loudly in such situations prompted researchers to delve deeper into this issue. Here is their result.

It is impossible to sing and be afraid at the same time.

The fact is that in the process of singing, the areas of the brain responsible for fear are automatically blocked. What happens next?

• In the process of singing, respectively, the blood is enriched with oxygen, the brain receives an additional portion of O2 and can concentrate better, which is necessary in panic situations.
• Dopamine is produced, which is responsible for joy, improves well-being in depressive states, and also reduces the level of aggression.
• When we sing, we come into contact with our own body, we listen to it. This is exactly the process that we actively neglect during the day. We have a lot of work to do, we worry, we forget ourselves. To get our attention, the body sometimes has to produce a painful symptom (eg migraine or gastrointestinal diseases, although this does not mean that all headaches and gastrointestinal disorders have a psychosomatic basis, you should first of all consult a doctor!).
• When singing in a group, a sense of unity arises, which in itself has a psychotherapeutic effect.

So the answer is clear – we should all sing more and think less.