Michael Walker: If you’re listening to this then you likely already know that being an independent musician can be a lonely road. And maybe your friends and your family don’t fully understand why you do what you do, or why you invest so much time, energy, and money towards your music goals. And especially early on, it can be hard to find people who really understand what you’re trying to accomplish and how to make it happen. So, that’s where Modern Musician comes in!

My name’s Michael Walker and I can understand and relate to that feeling. I’ve been there myself, and so has our team of independent artists. The truth is that basically everything good in my life has been a result of music. It’s the reason I met my wife, my 3 kids, it’s how I met my best friends. And now with Modern Musician, we have seen so many talented artists who started out with a dream, with a passion, without really a fanbase or a business. And you’ll take that and turn it into a sustainable full-time career and be able to impact hundreds, maybe even thousands or millions of fans with your music. We’ve had thousands of messages from artists who told us we’ve helped change their lives forever. It just gets even more exciting and fulfilling when you’re surrounded by a community of other people who get it, and who have shared their knowledge and success with each other openly. So, if you are feeling called into making your music a full-time career and to be able to reach more people with your music, then I want to invite you to join our community so that we can help support your growth and we can help lift you up as you pursue your musical dreams. You’ll be able to interact in a community with other high-level artists, coaches, and industry professionals, as well as be able to participate in our daily live podcast, meet these amazing guests, and get access to completely free training. If you’d like to join our family of artists who truly care about your success, then click on the link in the show notes and sign-up now. 

Arden Kaywin: This is a process of undoing. Like most singers, they want training because they want to be shown how to do it, how to do it right, how to fix it. And it's actually the way you fix it is a process of: undoing, uncover, discover, discard. Most of the time guys, your body knows how to do this. Your body was built to make resonance sound.

Michael Walker: It's easy to get lost in today's music industry with constantly changing technology and where anyone with a computer can release their own music. I'm going to share with you why this is the best time to be an independent musician and it's only getting better. If you have high-quality music, but you just don't know the best way to promote yourself so that you can reach the right people and generate a sustainable income with your music, we're going to show you the best strategies that we're using right now to reach millions of new listeners every month without spending 10 hours a day on social media. We're creating a revolution in today's music industry and this is your invitation to join me. I'm your host, Michael Walker.

All right. I'm excited to be here today with Arden Kaywin. So Arden is a professional singer and vocal coach who combines holistic and performance techniques for singer/songwriters. She's been featured in shows on NBC, ABC, CBS, PBS, ABC family, ESPN, MCV, many more, has worked with major label artists like from American Idol, The Voice, X Factor, everywhere in between, and she brings a lot of expertise to the world of vocal coaching. Specifically today, I'm excited to talk with her about some of the common issues or the things that we feel like get in the way of us being a good singer, and she's going to share why some of those things are symptoms of a deeper root level issue, and if you can get to the root of the issue, you can solve all of the other ones. So Arden, thank you for taking the time to be here today.

Arden Kaywin: Hey, Michael. Thank you. You're welcome. Happy to be here.

Michael Walker: Awesome. Kick things off, maybe you could share just a little bit about yourself and how you got started and eventually became featured in all those shows and working with major label artists.

Arden: Yeah. I'm a classically trained singer, so my background is actually having my bachelor's in classical voice, my master's in classical voice, I sang opera professionally. The nutshell is: got very burnt out on that, was living in Los Angeles at the time, got hired to sing on a soundtrack was like: Oh, this is what it's like to be in the studio and do commercial music instead of all of the classical operas and things that I had done.

Had a bunch of opportunities through that and decided: okay, I'm transitioning away from the opera world. I'm going to go to singer songwriter commercial type stuff. And so did that in my 20’s. This is before the days of Instagram and Napster was the thing. I think we're about the same age. I don't know if you remember Napster…

Michael: Limewire, yeah.

Arden: Yeah. Was on an indie label, did two US tours, licensed a lot of music to film and TV, did all that. And because of my classical training, I had always taught some. Enjoyed it, but because of that, a lot of the producers and music industry people that knew me as a performer, they also knew my background, and so I would often get calls, especially from producers and other music creators being like: Hey, I'm working with this artist. Do you think you could come produce vocals? They just need some help. So I would come in and I would do that. And invariably the artist would be like: do you coach? Sure! So I backdoored my way into a coaching studio, but as I got married and had kids and didn't want to be on the road anymore and doing a lot of that, I really enjoyed coaching. So I started to focus much more on that part of what I do and came up with, if I do say so myself, a revolutionary way of being able to get results in singer's voices in a much shorter period of time than traditional training takes. When I say traditional training, what I'm talking about is what most of you guys listening or watching probably think of as vocal training, which is: you have a voice lesson for an hour once a week, and you do that for a year or years and may even be in that place where it's like: Oh, before I record anything, I got to go see my teacher or I got to go see my teacher before the audition, or I got to make sure/I check in with my teacher. That's the kind of training that I was brought up with. That's the kind of training that, ultimately, I wanted to change the paradigm for because it doesn't work for a lot of people; for a lot of singers who have had that kind of training, and yet they're still not seeing the results of all that training and investment in that training. Time, money, energy. They're still not seeing the results of that in the form of a voice that is absolutely reliable, consistent, that they know how to tap into that potential and deliver that every single time it counts, right? If you can shoot a great free throw shot in your driveway, like who cares? If you're going to be like a big deal, you gotta be able to sink it in front of 30,000 people in Madison Square Garden on game 6 from all the way down the court. The ability to be able to deliver when it counts and know you can do that. And so all of those things that just… Those are not the results that a lot of singers were getting from traditional training. And they were in, in their feeling like it's their fault: I'm not talented enough. I'm not good enough. My voice isn't good enough. No! That's not the problem. The problem is that traditional training has been failing generations of singers because it addresses symptoms, not root problems. And so when I figured this out and I started working with singers in an intensive training capacity, we just started getting insane results in a shorter period of time, allowing these singers to tap into that potential and rely on it and deliver it, and then be able to go out and be really successful in whatever it is they were trying to do with their singing. Because at the end of the day, if you're a recording artist, songwriter, like a lot of the people in your community, and you know, I know, I think everyone watching knows, that what you hear on a recording is pure fairy dust. Anyone can be made to sound good on recording, especially if you have a great producer and a great engineer. But, if you can't produce that live, you are missing out on most of the sustainable income that you would have as a performer which is to be able to go play live and have people pay for tickets and pay for your merch and see you live. Also, if you don't have the confidence that you can sustain that, if it's like: I don't know what's going to come out. Am I going to sound like the recording? Am I going to… And so now your confidence is decked and you may not put yourself out there for those opportunities that would get your career to the next level. And so while we're talking about technique and actualizing vocal potential, it's everything because if you don't have the unshakable confidence and certainty that you can do that, then everything that you want in your career is affected because you're playing small, you don't feel confident, you are insecure about what's going to deliver so you're not making and taking opportunities that would otherwise take you to that next level. So yes, it's about your singing, but no, it's not. It’s about everything.

Michael: Wow. That is powerful. Thank you for sharing that. And I've never heard that analogy before about: it doesn't matter if you can shoot the free throw and make it at home, if you're not able to make that same free throw, with a crowd full of people. That is so important. And I think most of the people who are here right now, their goal isn't to be on stage lip syncing to a song that they're singing, that the recording sounds amazing, but like they actually want to be able to perform it with confidence. I'd love to hear, now that you've experienced this breakthrough and you have this perspective of coming from the traditional world of vocal coaching and seeing the underlying issues, maybe you could speak a little bit more to specifically what are some of those symptom issues that are being addressed by the old traditional model and what were those breakthroughs you experienced that helped someone be able to actually solve those at a deeper root level issue?

Arden: Yeah. I wonder, you guys who are watching, how many of you have ever had any of these problems: Vocal inconsistency, unreliability. Sometimes it's the great sound, sometimes it's not. And you don't really know why you get the great sound when you do, why you don't when you don't, and when you do get it, you don't know how to recreate it. So that's inconsistency/unreliability. It's what I call the “cross your fingers and hope” technique. It's not very fun or reliable. Experiencing tension in your instrument, strain, vocal fatigue, issues in your range, issues with high notes. These are the things that most singers will say are the problem. The thing that makes them feel insecure. The thing that makes them question their talent. It's the thing that keeps them at a lower level of impact in their career, in their money if they're trying to do this professionally, right? Because impact equals income. The bigger the impact, the more income. You want to be able to go out and do this. How many performers do you know that might not sing perfectly, but they know how to tap into that impact. And so all of these things, they are the symptoms of the larger problem: that you are not able to feel confident singing your high notes or that you have vocal fatigue or that you're inconsistent. Whatever it is, those are the symptoms of the larger problem and traditional training only addresses the symptoms. And the larger problem here is the mind-body connection. You don't sing with your larynx, as a singer, your entire body is your instrument and traditional training, trained singers, from like the neck down and it forgets, it leaves out the one part of your instrument that can and will sabotage everything else if it's not trained and that's your mind. Because your mind and your body are always interfacing all day, every day. Your mind is directing your body in ways through hormones and chemicals and all the things. You have a thought, it creates fear. Now you send that stress hormone down into your body. Now your body reacts to it and then your body reacts to it and then sends the signal back to your brain. So there's this consistent communication between mind and body all day, every day in ways that you're conscious to, in ways that you're not conscious to. If you are trying to train a singer without training her mind, she will only ever be able to access a limited potential. I should say, a limited potential of her instrument, of her voice, because the mind is the thing that can and will sabotage everything else if it is not trained. Let's talk about high notes for a second. I'm curious, people who are watching, how many of you get a little freaked out when you have to sing the high note? Yeah, and the high notes coming! Yeah. And I'm curious if you've ever noticed, for those of you who don't love high notes/feel insecure on high notes, if you've ever noticed what that thought creates in your body. What we're doing all day long as humans, and it's normal and natural, is we physicalize our thoughts and our feelings. It's part of being human. And that's fine if you are Joe Schmo sitting at a data processing job all day long. Physicalizing your thoughts and feelings, it might not be comfortable, but it's not going to stop you from doing your job. But for a singer whose body is her instrument, it has a massive effect on your ability to do your job, and here's how that works: because that fear now sends… even if it's just like you think, oh, it's silly, it's a high note, but there's a loop here because now your body is in fear reaction and those fear chemicals and stress hormones are now in you and you go into fight or flight. Even if you think: oh, this is not me, trust me, there are ways in which your body is responding that you're not present to and if we don't train you how to 1) get present to it and 2) how to train it so that mind and body are working together for you for the best possible sound instead of against you, you won't have access to the potential of your sound. The high notes will always be scary. I could give you the best technique in the world for high notes. And trust me, we work our singers hardcore on technique. It's important, but technique does not exist in a vacuum. Technique in the absence of that mind body connection that's working for you is only that. It's just ideas. So you will intellectually know what you need to do for that high note to come out, but in that moment that counts, Michael, like you were talking about when you have that free throw and it's game six, right? It's like the biggest opportunity of your career. Let's say you get to do a showcase for a major label or whatever, right? In that moment, the body, even though you intellectually know the technique you're supposed to use, is going to go: no, can't do it. Can't. Because that fear of failure; that fear of losing what I have, not getting what I want now lives in your body and your body is going to go into that fear reaction and it is going to try to over control so that you don't fail. So that you don't experience the thing that you're terrified of, which is that high note coming out bad so that you lose the label deal or you make an ass out of yourself or whatever it is. And so now you are now in that sabotage where your body is going to: make, force, do, push, control, manipulate, and now you have sabotaged the technique that you otherwise understand because the mind is overriding the body from being able to do what it was built to do. So, traditional training doesn't address any of those connections and it's failing generations of singers who quit or give up or just play small because they think that they're not good enough; that their voice isn't good enough. They've been beat down because nobody's ever taught them how to have full capacity of their entire instrument by understanding how to catalyze this mind-body connection, and teach them how to do that in the moment of singing so that you actually are able to make the sound that you were built to make. So that's my soapbox, Michael. That’s my soapbox.

Michael: [laughing] That was fantastic. So powerful. I would love to hear you guys from the chat. How about that? I feel like that was like my mic drop moment. There's a few points specifically that you brought up that I wrote down that I thought were really interesting. One is just about the awareness of the mind and body connection and how, in particular as a vocalist, literally your instrument is your body. And so that connection is so extremely important and how you channel that instrument through you. And it does seem that's something that is the case for, regardless of who you are/what you're doing, your mind and your body is an instrument and it's extremely important. In particular with singing, your voice literally comes through and it's very apparent when there's a disconnect there. So I thought that's really interesting. Another thing that was interesting about the mind-body connection is how you can actually go 2 ways: you can impact how you feel with your mind intentionally, but also you can do things with your body that impact your mind and your emotions. If you hold out your arms and you stand-up and you look up, it literally changes how you feel. Or if you like curl up and you take this posture, it changes your emotions and how you feel. So it is interesting how those two: the mind-body are connected.

Arden: When I work with the singers who are in our intensive training, I call it the body-mind. I'm not separating. At the beginning, you need to understand how these things have worked separately, but it is: it's your body-mind. This is part of your body and there's something… whatever, this might be like another conversation, but in Eastern philosophy it's 1 thing. In Western, the mind is something separate and the body is something separate. And so it's been very interesting to me as I've geeked out on a lot of the Eastern philosophies, being able to help singers to translate that in a way that's not like spiritual or woo-woo, but that's just being able to understand that this is 1 thing. Your physiology influences your mind, your mind influences your physiology. This is 1 thing together, and if we're only training one part of it, we're only going to be half as successful as if we trained the whole.

Michael: Yeah it's powerful. Yeah. They happen together. Joe Eddie just shared his own experience going through that experience of… gosh, let me just read what you just shared, Joe. “I've been a victim to all of those symptoms that you shared earlier. Thankfully, recently, I played a string of shows and practiced a lot for weeks leading up and daily exercise got me to a level of confidence when I hit the stage, still challenges, the strain, et cetera, also entering the song on the proper note and register.” So anyways, it just sounds like confirmation that he experienced some of those same symptoms.

Arden: Well you may feel really good about it until the moment that counts. Until he gets on stage and now the strain comes back. And that's the most frustrating part, which is: knowing that you've got it in you, you see it, you do it in your practice, in your rehearsals, but why isn't it showing up in the same way in the moment that counts when you're on stage, when you record or whatever? And that is the most frustrating for singers. But that's also because the energy is being blocked in that moment, because there are thoughts in that moment, the meaning of that moment, the mind and what it is attaching to in that moment is different than the story that it's telling and the meaning that it's making when you're at home and you practice. And so these things have to be addressed or else Eddie, is that his name?

Michael: Joe Eddie.

Arden: Oh, sorry Joe. Joe, you're going to experience the same thing and it will feel, in my experience of 25 years of coaching singers, that's where the frustration of 2 steps forward, 1 step back, 2 steps forward, 1 step back comes in. Because it's about energy, right? So the link… Think about it, you guys. Sound is a form of energy, like light, like heat, right? Think of like 9^th grade physics, right? And law of entropy: energy cannot be created or destroyed, it just changes forms, right? Again, 9^th grade physics. So sound being that form of energy. Your job as a performer, your only job as a singer is to, like we said, impact that audience. Connect to that audience so that this sound, this form of energy, can move through you and go to your audience in that open exchange of sound in the form of energy. And this instrument of your whole body, if this is blocking that energy in the form of sound from doing that in any number of ways: by fear reaction, by meanings that we make that put us in a different emotional state in one situation versus another, right? All of these things, even simple things. I had a singer. Her old choir teacher made some off the cuff remark about: Oh, you're just an alto. You'll always just be an alto. And she took that to mean that she wasn't good enough, so whenever she needs to go in and sing things that don't match that identity, because she doesn't want to fail. She doesn't want to feel not good enough. So now that. Oh, that's blocking energy and it's blocking your body from being able to use the technique that allows that free flow of energy. So what we're talking about here is being able to train in a different way that's so much more successful because it teaches you how to not do that!

Michael: Awesome! The next question that comes up, related to this specific issue because it feels like you've articulated it incredibly well, that only comes from direct experience of understanding it and working with artists who have been through this and helping them through it. How does someone handle that challenge of their fear coming up, during the actual performance? So, they feel comfortable doing it on their own. Game time happens. Now they're going to go on stage and they can feel the fear start to kick in. How do they work through that to be able to stay plugged in?

Arden: So there's a process of learning how to connect mind and body, and the very first thing that we teach our singers is, and we have a very specific method that we do this, is to connect them to the present moment of their body and their mind. So most of us, when, I would say 90% of the time, not just when we're doing the thing that counts, whether we're performing or whatever, but most of us are not actually in the present moment with our body or our thoughts. And we don't know how to do that and what that means. Most of us are spinning in our mind, either shaming ourselves for the past, reviewing the thing that didn't go well and all this stuff, or future tripping: worrying about the thing that's to come. Whether it's a little thing, like we were talking about, the high note, or future tripping on, am I going to be successful? Am I going to put out this record? Am I going to fail? Am I going to have to go back to my day job? Am I going to fail at my dream? We are totally in the future or we are totally in the past, and very few of us are actually in the present moment. And so the very first thing that we have to teach artists is how to do that. When they can be in the present moment with their body and with their mind, then all of a sudden we get very clear on the stories that they're telling themselves, the meanings that they're making out of things, the ways in which they are aligning with things that do not serve what they actually want, and then how that's affecting the actual technique that they're trying to use, right? It's always 2 things. It's always skillset and psychology. Always. In that sense, it's very simple. Traditional training only teaches skillset. If you want to optimize skillset, you also have to understand and teach people how to engage differently with their mindset, with their psychology. And so with an artist who's getting on stage and having that problem, like you were talking about where it showed up great in rehearsal… How many of you deal with this? It's so frustrating and it's so common. It was great in rehearsal. And then you get on stage, it's never the same. It's never as good. It's fine. It's passible, but you know you have another level in you and that's not what happened on stage. And so if that's what's happening, we've got to look at this and be like: okay, is this a skillset problem? Is this a psychology problem? 99% of the time, it's a mindset psychology problem. And when we address that, the skillset improves. 1% or 2% of the time it's a skillset thing. But in order to address any of this, the artist first has to learn how to get present to witness the sensations in the body and the thoughts in the mind. So I would ask that singer, like you said, it's not the same. What happened in the show? It sucked or whatever. I would ask yourself: okay, what was a story that you were telling yourself about this performance? What's the meaning? What's the meaning that you're making out of this performance? What's the story you've been telling yourself? And the artist might say: it was my biggest show and there were thousands of people there, or the artist might say, I walked on stage and there were like 25 people there and I was really disappointed. Okay, what are you making that mean? Now I have to prove myself. I have to prove that I'm good enough. Boom. There we go. Number one, if you're improving mode now, what are you going to do to prove you're good, to prove your worth, to prove that you belong on that stage, to prove you're going to be a success, that you won't fail? You want to control that outcome because you don't want to fail. You don't want to feel like this is not going the way you want to go. And so you're going to try to manipulate and force and control. Now that lives in your body. You want to know why that doesn't show up when you're on your own? Because on your own, you've made it mean something completely different. And then we teach them how to shift those meanings. And this is through, very process oriented, consistent work on mindset and skillset together at the same time in the moment of performance. So that artist will come into studio class and we'll be working on whatever that song is and we're getting into: okay, what's the meaning that you're making of this? Where does that live in your body? And if the artist does not have that present moment awareness, they're not going to be able to identify that. So we've got to teach that first. So it's a process of unpacking, but at the end of the day, it actually creates results so much faster than just continuing to grind that skillset and being frustrated as to why this isn't showing up when you need it the most.

Michael: Gosh, that makes so much sense! The thing that was coming up for me as you're sharing that was that quote around… gosh, I'm not sure who it is. Maybe someone in the chat can share if they know who said this quote. Maybe it's Rumi? That our goal isn't to seek love, but to remove any of the obstacles to experiencing it. And it sounds like what you're sharing is that, in a lot of cases, we put on external layers and things where we're trying to force or control the outcome, when really, our goal is to just let you be who you are and express that naturally and it happens naturally if you are able to take away the things that are basically blocking you from experiencing that.

Arden: Yeah. I say all the time to singers that we're working with: this is a process of undoing. Most singers, they want training because they want to be shown how to do it, how to do it right, how to fix it. And it's actually the way you fix it is a process of: undoing, uncover, discover, discard. Most of the time guys, your body knows how to do this. Your body was built to make resonance sound. You think of a baby who can cry and cry at the top of their lungs. Never get tired, never get hoarse. I know you have kids, Michael. Me too. Like you remember those days when they just CRY! And it's the most present/resonant sound and they don't get hoarse and they don't get tired and they can do it for hours. Why? Why is that true? Because they are born and they are the mother nature's most effective producers of sound, and they don't have physical habits and psychological habits that are getting in the way of mother nature's most effective production of sound. And we think that we need to make, force, do, to get all up in there, and what we end up doing is sabotaging and disconnecting from that. How many artists have you watched, especially if you watch the competition shows: Idol and voice, those are great examples of this, where the singer is just up there and they're all like this and look at me and proving and and you just want to tell them to just stop! And then somebody gets up there and it's just literally a channel for letting. Like I said, just let that come through you. But that is not something that we are taught to do is to let. We're taught you gotta do it! And then we stopped trusting what we were given, and then we actually create the bad results that we were trying to force in the first place. We create that bad performance. We create that botched high note because we were too scared; we didn't have the skills in our mindset to be able to trust our body, trust our technique, and that's it. And that is hard. So that's what we specialize in helping artists do so they can effortlessly tap into the potential of their instrument. Like guys, when you're doing this right, it feels good. It doesn't feel like a struggle to make sound. It doesn't hurt. It feels literally like the sound is just coming in and living down and then there's nothing better.

Michael: Man, This is so good. I feel like what you're sharing too applies to your voice, but just as on a human level, that you being plugged in and present with where you are and how you're feeling is something that is going to ripple out across your whole life, in addition to your voice. I would love to open up the floor here. We have a live audience and I see some folks are raising their hands to have some questions. So maybe we can actually bring on some people to ask questions here live. So let's start with David Patrick Wilson. Hey, David. How are you doing today? 

David Patrick Wilson: Oh, this is exciting.

Michael: Oh yeah! David Patrick Wilson, how are you doing?

David Patrick Wilson: I'm good, man. Arden, I really appreciate what you're saying. How much have a vocal problem, and how much do you really think… I come from the acting side of performance as well as the singing side. How much of what you're talking about do you think is in the context of how, and the choice of material that they're making that gives them the freedom to be who they wanna be while they're singing?

Arden: Okay. I love your question. It's David, is that right?

David: Yes, correct.

Arden: Great question. If I can mirror it back, what I hear is actually backwards. I want to flip it around for you. Okay? So, choosing the material is going to make me feel aligned with myself. No. I get aligned with myself and my instrument, and then the material that I'm choosing is going to be a square peg in a square hole.

David: Okay?

Arden: Tell me if you want me to explain where I can qualify.

David: Yeah. Yeah. Can you take that a little further, please?

Arden: So it's the difference between working from the outside in, versus working from the inside out. This is something that is so common, right? I have artists who are coming to me and they're telling me: I don't know what lane I'm in. I don't know what genre, what kind of material I'm supposed to be doing. I don't know who I am as an artist. And, if I can figure that out, then I'll feel confident. Then I'll feel good. Then I can go put myself out there. And it's like, well, let's rewind; let's flip that around. The reason that we don't know what lane, the reason that we don't know what genre, the reason is because it's the external thing that's going to fix the internal confidence, right? Once I know that genre, then I'll feel confident, then I'll be able to sing it well. And it's the other way around, which is: once the singer has that uninterrupted mind-body loop going on where they know how do you tap into the potential of their instrument. They have that confidence. Then whatever they're picking to sing is aligned. So it's working from the inside out rather than needing the outside thing: Oh, it's the problem with the rep. That's what's the problem. No, the problem is that this core alignment of this instrument, the artist doesn't know how to tap into that potential consistently, and they're saying that the rep is the problem when really when we get that artist connected to the potential of their instrument, then they know what lane they're in. They know what feels good. They know what they're choosing because that connection has been internally created, and then the external results, in the form of whatever the song, the genre, whatever, show up as opposed to: we're not going to address that. That's what traditional training would do. We're not going to address any of that. We're just going to pick different repertoire. And so now you're throwing all kinds of spaghetti on the wall and none of it feels good because that internal energetic thing that taps you into that potential of your voice, your technique, it hasn't been set. Does it make sense working from inside out instead of working from outside in?

Michael: Awesome. Yeah. Thank you for that. Yeah. So it sounds like the question around: how do I find material that fits with my brand/who I am, what you're recommending is you start by getting aligned and getting connected with who you are and then naturally the material that you choose will…

Arden: Well, part of it is getting connected with who you are so that the natural tendencies of your voice are brought out. So I had a singer who came to me and he, this was like a long time ago. It was like six years ago, and he was hell bent on being like hard rock. That was his thing.

Michael: Yeeaahh

Arden: Exactly.

Michael: I couldn’t help it.

Arden: That's what he loved to listen to. His identity was wrapped up in that, but he wasn't succeeding. He was putting out records. Nobody was listening to them. It wasn't working. So when we tapped him into the core of just being able to let go of whatever he thinks he's supposed to be; whatever he thinks he's supposed to do, and let's just really get clear on giving you the skills to help you tap into your instrument without anything of how you think it's supposed to be. So we're addressing the things up here because as long as he thinks it has to be hard rock in this way, he will never be able to explore or experience the full capacity of his instrument because he's got these blinders on. So we helped him take these blinders off. And what do you know, he has the most incredible, rich, country-rock, like country-twangy but rock, but country I dunno, I'm trying to think of those kinds of bands. There's a huge market for that. You know what I mean? And oh my God, he was like: this feels so good. Like, this feels. I don't have to try to do this. This is just what my instrument was built to do. And then I was working with a Grammy winning producer, his career is off the charts. It's awesome. But I would say when it comes to genre and stuff, if we don't peel away all of the “shoulds” and the things, then it will never be available to us to see what's possible outside of those blinders. So I don't know if that's a tangent, but… 

Michael: It's the best kind of tangent. Yeah that's great. One question I have for you is a question that come back too often as it relates to what we're talking about right now with some of these like Eastern principles of goal setting versus being present and being in the present moment. One question that I have for you is around finding the balance between setting goals and wanting to achieve something else or something greater becoming something new. The dichotomy of that with being present and being at full acceptance with the present moment as it is. How does someone best leverage both those things? Cause it does seem those 2 are hand-in-hand, but if you're too focused on wanting to achieve something, then you lose touch with being present, but if you don't have goals, then it's like sitting still on a bike: It's hard to balance and keep moving if you don't have it. So yeah, just be curious to hear your perspective on that.

Arden: So the first concept… I love that you brought this up. The first concept that we teach our singers when they come in to do our intensive training is this, and it speaks directly to what you're talking about: Be in the footwork and let go of the outcome. Be in the footwork, let go of the outcome. It doesn't mean that you're not doing the footwork, right? You have your larger intention, you know what you want to create, and now you're in the footwork and you're letting go of how. Because in our puny little brains, if you think about the nature of whatever, we're going to get meta here, but the nature of the universe is so vast. There's so much that our puny little human brains literally cannot even conceive of. And so we set this goal and we think that's how it has to be. That's the goal, to speak of blinders. But what we're doing when we attach to that outcome, okay, is with those blinders, this is it, we completely cut ourself off from everything over here and everything over here that could bring us somewhere so far greater than that thing that we can't even conceive of. So it's that idea of: okay, you have the larger intention. You have the larger outcome. We're going to set what that is, and now we're not attaching to that outcome. We're letting go of how that could come to us, what that's going to look like, whether it's in the moment of trying out a new technique in your voice, something micro, or whether it's the larger goal. I personally hate the word “goal” cause it's very black and white thinking, right? Either I meet the goal or I don't; either I succeed or I fail, right? My goal is to lose 30lbs by December. December comes and I only lost 15 pounds and now I feel like a fricking failure cause I didn't meet my goal. But guess what? I lost 15 pounds! That's 15 pounds more than I had. I'm 15lbs lighter. But see, if I think “that didn't work”, now I'm not going to keep doing those things, and I won't ever get to the 30lbs, right? For me and the singers that we're training, it's like target-based thinking. Okay, you shoot, oh, you're off the bullseye. Okay. What's one thing I need to optimize in my footwork so that when I shoot again, I'm now closer to the bullseye? I shoot again. Oh, look, I'm closer. Great. What's one thing I need to optimize? What's 5 things I did so I can continue to do those things? It's a massive amount of mindset work because it's so personal with our voice, and if we continue to take it personally, it's too hard. We will just continue to create our own suffering. So that idea of be the footwork, let go of how the outcome has to come to you, what it needs to be, what it needs to look like, and now you're just, to come back to the present moment, now you're just in the moment doing what it is that you need to do in your footwork today, whether it's doing your vocal practice, whether it's your tribe, reaching out to your Insta people, or whatever you're doing to create your fans. But it's that attachment to that outcome: it has to be this way or else! I should be blah, blah, or else. All those things that create the contraction in the body, like physically in the body that stops us from accessing the potential of the sound and the instrument. Even those things that are happening when you're not singing. It's all in there because it's all in here.

Michael: Well, Arden this is like one of my favorite conversations and things to geek out about. I bet we could talk for 3 hours.

Arden: Yeah, We should have a part 2 on mindset and meta crap for singers. [both laughing]

Michael: That's the title too. I like it: “Mindset and meta crap for singers”. Fantastic Arden, this is one of my favorite types of conversations to have, and I appreciate you and what you're doing so much. I think it's incredibly important for all of us, both as singers and musicians, but just as humans to connect with what's real and what's here and who we are. Our mind-body is such an important part of that. So thank-you for the work that you're doing. And for anyone that's here right now that would be interested in connecting more or learning more about the vocal services that you offer, Can you share a little bit about where they can go to dive deeper?

Arden: Yeah, So there's my website, which is ArdenKaywinVocalStudio.com. But honestly, I'm doing something that I'm super excited about at the end of this month. We're doing a five day challenge for anyone. You don't have to be working with me currently, you don't have to be in my tribe. Part of this is that there's just certain things that I get asked all the time, and that if you guys just knew them, your lives as singers would be so much easier. We're doing this 5-day, I don't know if I'm calling it a challenge, it's an incubator. It's like a breakthrough performance incubator, how to be able to go from A to Z really fast. And some of the just basic ideas of that. It's free. I'm just doing this because I want you guys to really understand that there is a different paradigm for how to train and what it can be like when you do that. And most singers, they don't understand it and they need to experience it in order to be like: Oh, this is game changing! And so I want you guys to have that. I can just put my, I don't know, my email address into the chat or you have my email address.

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. If you wanted to share whatever the best places for people to connect and we can put it in the community chat.

Arden: So the reason I'm giving you guys my email address is because if you want to come to that, just email me and just say: saw you on Michael's thing, and I want to come to the incubator challenge in February and that way, when we start putting out the registrations, we're about two weeks away from that right now, that way I'll just add you guys to the list and you can come and get some mojo and there will be live hands-on training. There's going to be some get up and sing. There's also going to be just really understanding the concepts in a very easily break-downable way. And if you're listening to me talk and you're like: I don't even need that, I just want to work with you. I need help! You can also just email me and ask and we'll talk and see if it's a fit for you. I think the most important thing is that you need to be serious about your own transformation because it requires an investment of energy and time and money to be able to fix these things. It's not like kachillions of hours and money or whatever, but this is for people who are really serious about their voice, serious about creating something great with it, and serious about doing that now. Not in a year, no tire kickers, please. If you really want to be able to rely on it and do it fast, then reach out to me and we'll see if it's a fit.

Michael: Amazing. So I just shared the link in the chat as well for people to be able to reach out to you directly. That's extremely generous. I'm surprised by how many guests like yourself are very open to be able to help and provide value to folks. If you're listening to this live right now, you're on our podcast, or if you're here in the live audience, then I would highly encourage you to make the most of these resources that are being shared. So Arden, that 5-day free challenge where you can actually, rather than just talking about how the apple tastes and describing the delicious taste of it, actually bite into it and taste it for yourself! You can actually go through that experience and get the benefits. So thank-you so much.

Arden: Of course! I was going to say if I can say what we're going to get into so that people are not like: Oh, this isn't something, do you have two seconds?

Michael: Of course!

Arden: Okay, so basically these are the things that we're going to be looking at:

• We're going to be looking at what most voice teachers don't teach you; understanding the main reasons that we started getting into it today, but that you still experience issues with your sound, your technique, reliability, and consistency, despite having training and how to fix it.

• We're going to talk about what it means to clean your instrument. Learning the system that we teach to do that. I'm going to show you how to do that.

• The techniques that get game changing results from your voice without having to endlessly practice more than you do. It's teaching you how to work smarter instead of harder.

• And then we're also going to talk about breath support and the secrets of breath support that works for you instead of against you. So once we get really clear on the things that most voice teachers aren't teaching, and a lot of that is our mind-body work. Then we're going to teach you how to put it into practice in your breath support. Because without proper breath support, nothing else that you want to create is possible. And I think a lot of singers, they think they have breath support. They think they understand it. They think they've been taught it. I'm here to tell you, you haven't. Because if you're still experiencing all those other issues with your voice, it's 90% of the time breath support issues. So we're going to break down innovations in a really revolutionary method of breath support. I'm going to show you how to do it and give you like a 15 minute daily practice to be able to practice that support and reinforce it and condition it in your body.

• We'll have some hands-on coaching on it.

• And then on the third day, we're going to talk about consistency and confidence and what the rocket fuel for consistency and confidence is because it's all very well and great to have lots of tools, but if you don't have that consistency and confidence in your ability to do it consistently, what's the point? So there's going to be really targeted exercises for conditioning, reliability and consistency.

• Understanding the process to undo, tension, strain, vocal fatigue; other symptoms of inconsistency

• And then on the fourth day we're going to talk about the fast track to get you to get from process to performance because really there's nothing worse than being a singer who can do all the exercises really well, but then struggles to translate all that technique into the songs and the performances that you're doing. So we're going to teach you knowing what to practice and how to practice it. So you're really bridging that, that gap from process to performance. And a lot of that also has to do with learning how to get out of your head when you sing and perform, because it's a very different mind space to be in when you're doing exercises than when you're on stage. So giving you a very powerful routine to be able to do that, bridge that gap.

So yeah, so those are the things that we're going to be doing in this thing. So if that's at all interesting to you guys shoot me an email. Just say, put me on the thing to register, and as soon as we go live with that, I will, and I will shoot you back all the information.

Michael: Fantastic. Yeah. That just blows me away how many resources we have that are available to us nowadays. The fact that we can learn from someone who's working with major label artists, people from American Idol, the Voice, X Factor, the one who's coaching these artists who are on the biggest stages and that you have the ability to directly connect and access the wisdom and the experience that you're sharing, regardless of where you live around the world. The dog agrees. Very cool. So yeah, once again, Arden, thank you so much for being here, for sharing some of the lessons you've learned, and I would totally encourage anyone that has resonated with this conversation who wants to dive deeper, to check out the five day challenge, or even just to reach out directly if you're ready for vocal coaching services from Arden. So thank-you.

Arden: Thank-you, Michael! Bye everybody.

Michael: Yeeaahhh! 

Hey, it’s Michael here. I hope that you got a ton of value out of this episode. Make sure to check out the show notes to learn more about our guest today, and if you want to support the podcast then there’s a few ways to help us grow.

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