Episode #0 Solo Episode: An Introduction to Living A Vocal Life
In this first episode, I'd like to share with you how and why this podcast came into being, and a bit of my own story.
So, what does it mean to live a vocal life? How do you define and measure success? Is it money? Fame? How many followers you have on Instagram or Facebook?
In this podcast, you'll get an unvarnished, truthful take from the people who have braved this road before you to create their own vocal life. We'll talk about the inner and outer game of music. Why they got into singing in the first place. As well as practical things, like what they do to warm-up and stay healthy, and how they've navigated the business of music without losing their minds. You'll hear about the mistakes they've made, the fears they've overcome, and how they've learned how to be resilient in the face of failure. Each singer's story will offer you a different lens to look at your life and career as an artist.
There are no overnight success stories here. Those stories don't exist. You won't find any prescriptions or how tos for "making it" either. No special secrets for leveling-up your game in the music business. But what you will find, are the real-life stories of singers: how they've managed to show up to sing, against incredible odds, over and over again to create a life they love.
I hope that our conversations will empower you to create your own unique version of success in your vocal life.
“Every voice deserves to be heard. A singer’s creativity, integrated with purpose and meaning, creates an authentic voice that should be shared with the world.”
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Hello. And welcome!
This is the very first episode of my podcast, Living A Vocal Life, and I am so glad you're here. Thanks for listening!
In this first episode, I'd like to share with you how and why this podcast came into being and a bit of my own story.
So, what does it mean to live a vocal life? How do you define and measure success? Is it money? Fame? How many followers you have on Instagram or Facebook?
Having enough money definitely makes life easier. If you're not struggling financially, it frees you up to do other things — like create. But how much is enough? Studies show that the majority of lottery winners aren't much happier than they were before they won the lottery. Turns out, the amount of happiness we feel levels out after we've earned enough to feel safe, secure, or have attained some financial freedom.
Fame is more complex. What does it mean to be famous? Is there a difference between recognition and achievement? My take is that fame can be helpful. It means your work is recognized. But fame is an external measurement of success. The deeper, more internal form of success is to have a loving, positive relationship with yourself and the music you make. You strive not for outward recognition but to learn and grow.
When I interviewed my friend Moana Wolfgramm, from the 80s band, The Jets, she said this about success: "You'll never be able to satisfy that urge for success if you're looking just for the stars and the fame. It's got to be something more so that it sustains you longer."
That something more is different for everyone, but for me, it's about more than just making a living in music. It's about giving voice to who you are and sharing that voice with others. It's the outer and inner journey. As Moana says later in that same interview, success is "...about being happy in your own skin."
So why this podcast?
Stories are everything. We are entertained by, learn from, and make meaning of our lives through them.
In this podcast, you'll get an unvarnished, truthful take from the people who have braved this road before you to create their own vocal life. We'll talk about the inner and outer game of music. Why they got into singing in the first place. As well as practical things, like what they do to warm up and stay healthy and how they've navigated the business of music without losing their minds. You'll hear about the mistakes they've made, the fears they've overcome, and how they've learned how to be resilient in the face of failure. Each singer's story will offer you a different lens to look at your life and career as an artist.
There are no overnight success stories here. Those stories don't exist. You won't find any prescriptions or how-tos for "making it," either. No special secrets for leveling up your game in the music business. But what you will find are the real-life stories of singers: how they've managed to show up to sing, against incredible odds, over and over again to create a life they love.
I hope that our conversations will empower you to create your own unique version of success in your vocal life.
Sound like fun? It is! I hope you'll have as much fun listening to the podcast as I have in creating it.
You see, what makes this podcast fun for me is that I love to learn. I've always been curious about what makes us who we are — the psycho-biology of being human. What motivates people? Is creativity innate? Does talent exist? How do others create, think, and feel? My favorite part of a video has always been the Behind The Scenes footage, the Making Of section. When the curtain is lifted and the inner workings of an artist's mind are revealed, it gives me a new way to experience their work and my own.
I also love to teach. They say that the final phase of learning is to teach others, and I've found that to be true. When I first started teaching voice, I thought the most important thing I could do was to teach students how to sing. And yes, vocal technique is essential. It's the craft of singing, and it gives you the tools you need to broaden your palette as an artist. But what I discovered over the years is that it's not just technique that counts. An audience doesn't want to hear technique. They want to be moved. To move them, you have to let technique fade into the background and become the song that you're singing.
There are a lot of places you can go to learn how to sing. You can take lessons, and find tips on YouTube or from other podcasts. (By the way, in another solo episode, I'll give you some thoughts on how to find a teacher or coach that you can trust with your voice.) But where do you go to learn everything else you need to know to live your life as a singer? This podcast was created as an answer to that question. By sharing the stories, wisdom, and collective knowledge of those who have created their own version of success, I hope you'll learn how to live your life as a singer.
So what's my story?
I was fortunate to grow up in a house filled with music. Both my parents sang. My father, a physician, had a rich, baritone voice. My mom was a beautiful, talented, tiara-wearing lyric soprano. She sang professionally with the Portland and Seattle Opera companies and filled my life with musicals and Gilbert & Sullivan performances. Her voice was thrilling to listen to. World-class. In a different time, with a different husband, she might have gone further in her career. Years later, I found a newspaper story, from the 60s, about a regional vocal competition that my mom had won. In the end, the prize was awarded to the runner-up because, unlike my mom, she had no husband or children to care for.
As a family, we sang all the time — on road trips, at Christmastime, when my grandparents came over, and my grandma accompanied us on the piano. But I never imagined becoming a singer. My mom's voice was extraordinary, and I was determined to do my own thing.
Flash forward to the 70s. All wasn't as it appeared on the surface in my family. After 7 years of infidelity, my father left my mom to marry someone else. During those 7 years, I felt a tectonic shift, the ground giving way as the foundation of my home life crumbled. So, I created an alternate family elsewhere.
At 16, I left home and moved into a hippie commune in Portland, OR. That's when I met John, who became my partner in life — and in music. While working part-time jobs in restaurants, cleaning movie theaters, houses, and any other work I could find, I accompanied dance classes on the congas. Thanks to an alternative program that allowed me to study music and dance at the local arts high school and community college, I graduated from high school.
John and I plunged into the world music scene and became jazz hippies. I fell in love with Latin percussion, worked with a master drummer from Ghana, and studied jazz at Portland State University and the Cornish Institute of Allied Arts in Seattle.
When John started a 12-piece horn band called Nu Shooz, I jumped at the chance to sing backup and play percussion. Every once in a while, I stepped out front to give our lead singer a break. When he started missing gigs, I became the lead singer by default. For seven years, we gigged two to five days a week, four hours a night, in clubs around the Pacific Northwest. So much for never becoming a singer.
But my career almost ended before it began. When I became the lead singer for Nu Shooz, I had no idea how my voice worked. I had sung all my life but never professionally before joining the band. Starting out as a backup singer and percussionist wasn't too demanding. But when I took over as lead singer, I began to struggle. Because of the strain of performing long hours, in smoky clubs, over a large, loud horn band, I developed nodules — tiny calluses on my vocal cords. Voice teachers and doctors told me to quit singing until the nodules went away. I knew that if I stopped singing for the many months it would take for me to heal, the band would either dissolve - or replace me. It also made sense that if I returned to singing with the same bad habits — the nodules would come back.
I felt terrified about the possibility of permanently damaging my voice. I'd heard horror stories about singers who'd had surgery to remove their nodules. The scar tissue that sometimes forms afterward could change my voice forever. I didn't know what to do, yet I had to do something. Every show became a nightmare. Halfway through, my throat ached, and I had no voice.
But here's where the story gets interesting. You know how sometimes what initially looks like the worst luck in the world ends up being the best thing that could ever happen? The nodules turned out to be a gift. During a gig, a bartender told me about a voice teacher named Tom Blaylock. He knew how to fix the nodules without surgery and started me on a journey toward vocal health. I knew from the first lesson that I was in good hands, studying with someone who really knew vocal anatomy and function. Tom gave me exercises and told me that if I did them consistently, the nodules would eventually go away, and I wouldn't have to stop singing while they healed.
It was life-changing to find out how my instrument really works. The pain I had felt during every show began to subside, and, just like Tom had promised, the nodules went away. Not only was my voice healthy again, I learned how to maintain that health during a time when there were a lot of demands on my voice. Artistically, I also made strides. For the first time, I could sing the sounds I heard in my head more consistently and make sounds that I'd never imagined possible. I even started to sing classical pieces like my mom.
What a tremendous gift! The lack of confidence in my instrument and how it would behave in performance was gradually replaced with a solid vocal technique that I knew I could count on.
Turns out, I had learned how to take care of my voice just in time. In 1985 we recorded a five-song cassette called Tha's Right. We borrowed $2,500 to produce it - a fortune for us at the time. When it was released, a local music critic wrote a review that changed everything. "The album is surprisingly good," he wrote. "But local Top-40 Radio will never play it."
Morning jock Gary Bryant of KKRZ read the review on the air. He said, "Nu Shooz if you're out there listening, come on down!" Our manager hopped on his Vespa and rushed a copy to the station. They put 'I Can't Wait' on the air within the hour. The phones lit up, and the requests started pouring in. It felt like a miracle. We ended up on radio stations across the Pacific Northwest.
Even with radio play, making the leap from local to national turned out to be tough. We were turned down by every major label. Warner Brothers said, "We already have Madonna." So, while we tried to get a deal, we released I Can't Wait as a 45 on our own label. Then came another break. I Can't Wait landed on a record for DJs. A copy made it to Holland, where a young remix artist named Peter Slaghuis remixed it. Copies of the Dutch Remix came back across the Atlantic and into NYC dance clubs, where it took the dance scene by storm. Atlantic Records' Dance department found it, and we finally signed a singles deal.
In a few short months, I Can't Wait was doing so well that Atlantic offered us an album deal. We flew from Portland to New York City and LA to record. Just six weeks later, Poolside was in the can. Atlantic released it in May of 1986, and it started making its way up the charts.
1986 was a whirlwind. We toured the US — 70 cities in 73 days and appeared on national television and radio stations across the country and in Europe. Poolside sold more than a million copies worldwide. The singles from the album landed spots on the Dance, Urban Contemporary, and Pop charts. I Can't Wait captured the number three spot on the Billboard Top 100, and we received a Grammy nomination for Best New Artist in 1987.
We recorded two more records for Atlantic, but neither achieved the chart success of Poolside, so the label dropped us. Our manager asked if we wanted him to try and get us another record deal. But we decided we weren't having fun anymore and that we were done with Nu Shooz.
The business of music and the art of making music are vastly different. My perfectionist tendencies — trying to prove myself and do everything correctly — squeezed a lot of the joy out of the success we had achieved. Even when we had "made it," I often felt powerless in my life. I knew that it was essential to have a strong sense of self so I wouldn't become defined by how others saw me or by chart success — or failure. But when our record deal ended, I was heartbroken and lost. I didn't know what to do, or who I was, or how to move forward.
At this pivotal moment in my life, I was saved again by Tom. He taught me how to teach his vocal method, and I embarked on a different kind of journey, this time as a teacher. For the next 20 years, I worked with anyone who wanted to learn how to sing, from those who just wanted to sound better in the car on family trips so their kids wouldn't make fun of them to singers who were singing professionally in clubs and theaters, to those who were competing in the Miss America pageant, or American Idol.
In 1995 John and I had a son. While we raised him, I taught voice and sang jazz. I got to make a big band record, start a nonprofit to raise money for arts education and recorded and performed with some phenomenal jazz artists. Slowly but surely, my inner singer reclaimed her musical life.
It was a good life. Full of family, creative projects, and a wonderful community of artists, musicians, and those who work to make the world a better place. Every once in a while, we were asked if we would do a Nu Shooz show. We always said no. In 2013, after our son graduated from high school, we finally said yes. We jumped into the 80's revival scene that was sweeping the country and soon found ourselves on stages from LA to Orlando with other bands from the '80s. (Some of whom you'll hear from in interviews on this podcast.)
So that's my story. What have I learned along the way? What do I believe about a singer's journey from this vantage point in my life?
I believe that:
The world needs artists.
Every voice deserves to be heard. A singer's creativity, integrated with purpose and meaning, creates an authentic voice that should be shared with the world.
With the right information, tools, and some perseverance, anyone can get better at the skills needed to become a professional singer, but it's the cultivation of your inner life that will enable you to survive and thrive as an artist.
All people can create real and lasting change in their lives.
I hope the stories you find here on Living A Vocal Life will give you some insight into your own journey as a singer. That the dreams you have for your life and career will come into sharper focus. That you'll be lifted up if you're discouraged. When you've hit a wall and need to change course, you'll be encouraged, knowing that there are others who have been on this journey before you and have not only survived but thrived.
That's it for my VERY FIRST Living A Vocal Life podcast. You'll find complete show notes for this episode — and all the episodes to come — at my website: valeriedaysings.com.
I'd also love to hear from you! Please let me know what you're struggling with as a singer and what you'd like to hear on this podcast that will help you on your journey. Just get in touch right there on my website or on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter @valeriedaysings.
If you feel moved to do so, please share this podcast with a friend. You can also subscribe on iTunes or wherever you go for podcasts. Better yet, leave a review! This podcast is new - so the more reviews, the easier it will be for other singers to find it.
Until next time, be well, keep singing…, and thanks for listening!
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