Imagine you’re performing a song and you make a mistake.

Maybe you forget a word, you come in late or early, you hit a wrong note. Whatever it is, how are you most likely to react?

If you’re able to take it in stride and just move on, good for you!

BUT, that’s not the most likely scenario. It’s much more common for people to freeze, and go into a mental space of “deer in the headlights”.

And when you freeze like that your musical brain momentarily shuts down. It’s like a glitch in the program. I bet you know the feeling. And maybe not only around singing. Hmmm.

If, instead, you’re able to remain present and stay in the game, it’s a whole different thing.

You remain flexible and functional. Your musical brain remains engaged. This is so crucial because it allows you to fully attend to the upcoming challenges in your song.

But how do you make that happen?

The first step is this mindset change…

Believe it or not, having an unexpected sound come out of your mouth is NOT the equivalent of having committed a heinous crime.

It’s just a mistake, and it’s NOT THAT BIG A DEAL.

Once you realize this you can learn to move on real fast — almost instantaneously. And you can stay musically functional.

How do you start to learn the NO BIG DEAL mindset?

A great way is to just make some vocalizations without thinking them through first.

This might be a little trickier than it sounds because there is so much emphasis in our culture on getting it right — all the time. Which leads to tons of self-censorship. Which is an environment in which it’s almost impossible to learn – because learning by definition requires trial and error, right? That’s a shitty vicious cycle!

So what you need to do to change this is practice not thinking.

Here are a couple of video to help you with this.

In the first one, you’ll copy my sounds — this will ultimately get you more comfortable letting your own sounds pop out. (If you prefer to jump in right away with your own sounds, just respond to my sounds in a spontanious way instead of copying what I do.)

In the second video, I specifically invite you to respond to my sounds by making your own.

Just remember – you’re not practicing “getting it right” or “sounding pretty” — you’re practicing NOT THINKING, and not cringing at yourself. I want you to start having the visceral experience of IT’S NO BIG DEAL, so you can stop cringing at your own voice and instead you can stay in the game!

With practice it becomes an easily accessible mindset that’s really great for your singing!

Join the Fearless Singers Playground online membership program — a supportive and joyous singing community specially designed for beginners! When you join you’ll get access to great online skills & song lessons, as well as live sing-alongs, workshops, and open mics.

Such a great way to grow as a singer!