What's YOUR vocal habit? -the key thing holding singers back

In this special announcement episode, we’re diving into one of the biggest reasons singers feel stuck:

Not because they lack talent…
But because they don’t fully understand their voice.

Most singers are stuck in a cycle of:

– trying random exercises
– searching for answers online
– hoping something finally works

Without knowing what their voice actually needs, progress feels inconsistent and frustrating.

Inside this episode, we break down why that happens — and what’s actually missing.

If you want to go deeper, I’ve made something available for you:

Discover — a mini course that teaches you how to:

– hear what your voice is doing
– identify your vocal tendencies
– understand what your voice needs to improve

So instead of guessing, you can start making clear, intentional progress.

For a limited time, Discover is available completely free.

🗓 Access runs from March 20 – April 10
After that, it returns to a paid course.

👉Access DISCOVER for FREE HERE 🔥

If your voice has ever felt confusing, inconsistent, or frustrating…

This is the place to start.

Have you loved these episodes? Leave a 5 star written review on Apple Podcasts, take a screenshot and send it to singerspath@gmail.com to be entered to win a FREE private lesson with Sarah! Winners to be announced at the end of spring! *You MUST email a picture of your screenshot to be entered!***

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Learn more about associates Lily and Jeremy here!

Transcript

0:03

If you are tired of not making progress and you're ready to be the artist, you know you're meant to be, you are in the right place. You are listening to the Singers Path podcast. The Path or performing artist training hub will cover everything including singing tips that actually work, advice from top industry professionals and life-changing mindset shifts out with the Starving artist and in with the Thriving Artist. I'm your host, Sarah Bishop, professional singer. Actor, educator and entrepreneur. I'm not afraid to speak the truth and stop the gatekeeping of quality information so you can actually become the artist you dream of being. So let's get on the path, shall we? Even though we're all on our own journeys, it always helps to have a guide. Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the Singers Path podcast. I am joining you from New York City where I just, for the life of me, cannot get over this cough that I have. I just have like this thick stuff in my throat and I can't get it out. So if you hear me pause and cough. That is why it is quite a dreary day. It is very, it's very March. It's giving March right now. Um, and today we're gonna dive in and talk about why it's so important to actually understand what your own vocal habits are. We're gonna peel back, uh, what happens when you don't know what your vocal habits are, and we're also gonna talk about something very exciting that only happens once a year. I, I do believe this is gonna be a once a year kind of thing. I was doing it twice a year or like, was trying out different ways to do it, but I really do think this is a once a year sort of thing because of how valuable this is. But we'll get to that in a second. So. What, first of all is a vocal habit, okay? A vocal habit is understanding what you individually do when you're singing, that's actually stopping you to get to the place you wanna be, right? We also call them vocal tendencies as voice teachers, and there are ways to identify with singers what in their voice. Is holding them back from where they wanna go. Okay, so does this sound familiar? This is what happens when you don't have any idea what your vocal habits or your vocal tendencies are. You will scour the internet for hours. Looking for a solution to why you sound squeaky, or you sound nasally, or you sound breathy, or you just for the life of, you cannot sing through this phrase, this impossible song. Like a lot of you will pick like the hardest songs that you can possibly sing like, like K-Pop, demon hunters, golden. Like, I will Always Love You, Mariah, or Oh, oh my God. God forbid Mariah Carey, not Mariah Carey. When Houston, you will pick some Mariah Carey songs. You'll pick some of the hardest songs ever and like, ha, you're just flying blind. You have no idea why you can't sing it. You get so frustrated, you go, you search for the raise your ya, ya yas. You search for the quick vocal tips. You go to the, you know, the, the most famous voice teachers out there. They have all these quick fixes and it just seems like it's supposed to be that simple. It's so simple. Just, just mix it. Just do this one trick and that will help you. Right? That means that you should be able to do it and then they like. Stand next to a prodigy that like does Able, is able to do like one small adjustment and then is able to, you know, sing this insane song that you're trying to sing. Okay. Does that sound familiar? And then you're like spiraling out. You, you are collecting data from different teachers. They seem to conflict. You have no idea what actually is the problem. I will tell you I have been having car problems recently. I know this seems like a hard pivot here, but it does. I have a point. I've been having the worst fricking car problems. In New York City, like arguably the worst place that your car could blow up. I was driving over the George Washington Bridge and literally the car started shaking and like slowing down. I was like, what is happening? This is not a goods spot. Spot. Arguably one of the worst spots for this to happen in this like seven lane traffic that I'm in and from this weekend to now, right? I am recording this on a Thursday, so since. Sunday to now it has been a cluster F of just not understanding what the actual problem is with the car. We took it to a Firestone. They actually made it worse. They put the wrong coolant in it and it mixed and it congealed and then spread throughout the car. So. There's a new problem and there's somewhere an underlying problem, and that's kind of what it feels like when you don't know what's wrong with your voice. You're like, you're like, you're not stupid. Right? You know there's something happening that isn't causing you to sing the way you want, but then you're like. Sometimes you'll go to teachers and they won't even be able to give you an answer, right? Unless you're going to like a top teacher or really highly trained teacher that are often like way over a hundred dollars an hour or possibly $200 an hour, right? You're not gonna always get the answer as to like what's actually happening with you, right? So that's what it kind of feels like with my car in the shop. I'm just kind of sitting there being like, can no one help me? I don't know enough about how this thing works mechanically to actually get it to do something. So I guess I'm just SOL, like what am I, what do I do with this, this this mechanical thing that I can't drive and I can't use now and you won't even tell me what's wrong with it. Right. So that's very much what it can feel like. That was the point. Yes. Thank you. Yes, that was the point. That can feel, it could feel helpless. Right. And that's the worst feeling, arguably when you're like, well, I love to sing. I feel like I should understand how to use my voice and be able to sing. But like why I, I, I don't have enough understanding beyond what I'm supposed to take some good breaths and then my posture's supposed to be good. And then I guess I'm just supposed to figure it out. And then what happens is there's all these like compiling stories that happen mentally for the singer because it goes well, maybe I'm just like. Not very good or like, maybe it's just not in the cards for me. Or, and, and they start like spiraling and believing that maybe they're just not that good after all and it's not possible for them. And I'm here to tell you today, that is absolutely not true and I promise I'm not full of shit. Like this is literally what people pay me to do. And what I've been passionate about trying to teach singers to have more of this information so that we can get rid of that feeling of helplessness and like, why can't I use this instrument and this voice that's in my body? It all comes down to understanding how to hear and assess what your voice is actually doing so that you have some kind of plan and understanding of how to address it. Right? I like to steer away from the word fix because with voice, it's not really about. Fixing yourself. It's really just, you know, continuing to get more coordinated in how the voice works and being able to do more things. But like, you're not broken, right? It's just you're having a hard time singing K-pop demon hunters, and you need to understand what are the steps your voice actually needs to be able to do it. I will be honest, like some people are born with more natural talent, right? So they're born just being able to do things pretty easily. But that's not the case for everyone with singing, and unfortunately, there's this idea because I think there's been just so much bad, vague vocal training out there for so long that. You know, if you just not born being able to do it, it's just not possible for you. I've taught people who are like, well, even with styles, well, I'm just a classical singer, like I'm not ever gonna be able to learn to belt. And I'm telling you, once you start to understand what your habits are, what your tendencies are, what your voice tends to lean towards as far as how it copes with singing with material. It's like you're almost diag. You're diagnostically reviewing or you're diagnosing what your instrument is actually doing. And once you have an idea of, oh my God. This is what's happening with my voice. Oh, I actually have a lack of resistance, and oh, I'm just too thin, or, oh, I'm too thick. And that's why, and then you'll have clarity over like, oh, that makes so much sense. That's why this is happening and this is happening and this is happening, right For me. That's why my car isn't working. That's why I can't drive my dang car because X tube is not working and this thing is not working. Right? So. That is really honestly the key to actually making true progress very quickly. You have to identify the problem because otherwise you just have like a mechanism that isn't working or isn't working in the way you want it to, and you're just kind of throwing spaghetti at the wall and trying a bunch of solutions that none of them seem to be working, and then it just leaves you feeling helpless. Okay, so there are a few different vocal tendencies, um, and they all have to do. Mostly with mechanics when we're talking about it, right? Is the voice, um, are the vocal folds coming together enough? Are the vocal folds too thick? Are they too thin? And you really can like actually learn to hear and hear how to detect what mechanics are working and what aren't. That's what voice teachers do, right? They are trained. To listen to singers and detect what's going on inside the singer's body based, mostly based off of what they're hearing, right? So this is what I'm really excited to announce here. That's very special. That only is happening once a year and because it's so valuable and that is. Discover the Discover Mini course. Discover started as a masterclass where I would teach it live, and then it turned into this thing that we like built from the different classes we made, and now it's, it's actually something that is for sale, but once a year, I make it free for about a month because. I'm not trying to make people always feel like they're behind a paywall to get this kind of information, but I will tell you I've paid like literally thousands of dollars to learn the information that's in Discover, and it truly is the answer to help you understand. How, what your voice specifically needs. In a way you could kind of look at it as, you know, I'm, I'm training you to be your own voice teacher, right? I'm training you with the information that I've learned and, and practiced and use on people who pay me lots of money to help them with, right. But it's, it's broken down in a way that's digestible, that's actionable that once you watch this class, it's about two hours long. Um, and there's listening examples and different exercises and tools that will actually help you learn to address the problem. There's. Examples of working with different voices that might have the same kind of, uh, habits as you. It's, it's actually a, an amazing, amazing amount of information that will answer, I promise. A lot of your questions that you've been having, I've had so many people all over the world write in and say how valuable they've found discover and how. Grateful they are for it. And that's what I mean. Even though you know it is most of the time available for sale, it is really important to make things free sometimes, because I feel like, again, I know you're sitting there spinning out and a lot of you are. Yeah, just wondering what's wrong with you. And the only free information that you can really find is on socials and on YouTube, and that's not always bad, right? It's some of that information can be helpful, but it's hard to sort through all of it and know what will actually work for you when no one is really. Answering the question as to what you actually need, right? That's the thing about like developing the voice and what you'll learn in Discover is really learning to balance the voice and balance these different coordinations so that it works in the way that you want it to. That's the thing. How are you expected to balance the voice when you don't know where it's off? Balance. Okay. So that's what Discover does. And it is free. It is free between the windows of for 2020 6th of March 20, 20, 26, and April 10th, 2026. Those are actually the public dates. When you're hearing this podcast, if you're hearing it earlier than March 20th, 2026. I just love to like release things a little bit early on the podcast so you guys have a couple extra days of, um, lead time compared to the general public. So lucky you. I love to plant little Easter eggs and like as rewards for people who actually engage and listen to the podcast. I find that incredibly special and I feel very grateful for the people who listen to it. So that's why I like tell you guys a little bit early and that's also another reason why. Even if you've watched Discover before, I would still sign up for it again and really take advantage of watching it again because everyone who is involved in Discover for 2026 is going to have first dibs, um, extra special discounts and a special offer that like no one is gonna have unless you have actually signed up and watched. Discover. Okay, so I, again, I, I love seeding things in little places. Like in here. I'm telling you early that this is happening. Please excuse the steam heat that's now whistling at us. Um, and that's why if you sign up for Discover for free in 2026 again. You watch it before April 10th, 2026, you're also gonna have something very special and early access to something that no one has access to. So I just, again, these are just ways that I like to show appreciation. It is completely free. You do have to watch it though. A lot of you sign up and then you don't freaking watch it. And I'm like, what? Why did you do that? Like, take the time, like schedule the time. It's gonna take two hours, like sit down. Watch the ding thing. Take the time. I promise it's gonna answer a lot of your questions. I'm, I'm ta I'm sad that you guys spend so much time, so confused, feeling so hard on yourself when really, I mean, not that it's necessarily simple, but the beginning of your journey. You need to have some level of self-awareness of how to help yourself. And when you have that first step of self-awareness, you're able to actually start to hear like a top voice teacher would hear. You're actually able to objectively listen to yourself and be like, oh my God, that's what it is this whole time. That's why this hasn't been working. And then you finally like have that first step of like, holy shit, I didn't know this whole time. This is what I was missing. It makes a huge difference, and that's why again, like hundreds of people love this. Um, so please take advantage of this. Discover is all about teaching you how to understand your focal habits, and it's super important because otherwise you're just gonna be, again, flying blind, running into walls all the time, not knowing what the heck's going on. I wanna help you make sure that you go and you sign up for that. Again, it's completely free if you swipe up. All the information is in the show notes. You'll also see it on my website, Sarah Bishop focal studio.com. I think you can also go to the singers path.com and it should be there as well. But this is a once a year thing. Don't miss this. Let's stop just wandering around. Wandering. Why yay ya, ya doesn't work. Wondering why you can't seem to sing the songs you want. And let's get some fricking answers already and start to divide your voice into at least an actionable category where you have a plan. That's the other thing about Discover is not only does it help you identify like, oh, these are what my habits are. It like tells you what to do about it, right? Like, hey, like, so this is what's happening. This is what you need to do. Like, actually, and I swear to God, like again, I use this on honestly thousands of students at this point. This, this method and way of understanding how to hear yourself and then what to do about it. The results speak for themselves. It works instantly. Again, you have access for free from March 20th to April 10th. Go sign up for Discover. I literally don't know why you wouldn't. As it's free, you just have to sit down and don't sabotage, like sit down and actually watch the dang thing. And I promise so much of your discomfort is going to be resolved. You're gonna get some much needed answers. I'm ready for you to have autonomy and confidence to actually feel like you understand your voice, you understand how to help yourself. I'm so excited for you to have that feeling of accomplishment and like finally, God, I got some answers. And um, and the reason I'm saying that is because that's usually what people write in and, and how grateful they are about it. It like just finally gives them some clarity and some control. And if you're a professional, right, it makes you feel like you're no longer always at the mercy of your voice teacher. I think sometimes, like if you have been studying for a long time, it feels like, oh, my voice teacher's a magician, or My voice teacher is magic. My voice teacher fixes everything for me. My voice teacher is the one I go to, and then I don't really know what's happening. I just make them fix it. Yeah. Well, that doesn't work when you're on tour or when you have a last minute audition and you can't get in with. Them. Right? So this is really about taking control of the narrative, really having more understanding of the actual functionality of your instrument, and then what the heck to do about it so that you're not helpless anymore. All right. Now with that, I'm so grateful to talk to you today. This was a shorter, punchier episode. That's more just talking about, again, I know how, how most of you are. Feeling right now. Um, and it's really just to let you know that this free thing is happening. Make sure you get your butt to sign up for it. This is more of kind of like an announcement episode. I'm so grateful for you guys listening. That's why you get a couple days early to sign up. Do not wait on this. Please go sign up. And with all of that, I am so excited for you to benefit from this gold mine of information of Discover. Um, and I will talk to you next time. Okay, bye. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a five star written review on Apple Podcasts. This helps me get this information out to more artists all over the world. Let's work together to spread the joys of music. Until next time, I'm your host, Sarah Bishop, signing off from the Singers Path podcast. Thanks for listening.