So many of us are bombarded with information, music, sound bites about what good singing is, what talent is, who belongs in music and who doesn’t , what styles are in and what styles are out.

Very few of us are asking one of the most important questions we need to ask ourselves as singers…

When we are experiencing the inner critic as we sing, we often also suffer physical tension, constricted breath flow and a barrier to accessing curiosity, creativity and expression.

Fear: “…an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat.”

What hurts in reading this is that I know, from my own experience and from my work with singers over the years - that many of us have had the courage to sing and have been met with pain and threat as a result.

Singing was always a private joy.

Calming my anxious mind by singing myself to sleep at night as a little girl.

Devouring new music alone in my bedroom.Trying to memorize every single lyric to all the songs on one album in a day.

Belting out songs for private living room concerts atop the coffee table.

Singing was always just for me.