Hey, I’ve been there too, and I’ve come out the other side

I’m a singing coach for aspiring and emerging performers.

I help them to break through their blocks, and skyrocket their vocal talent, so they can sing like magic and become confident and captivating vocalists. I also help them discover their unique vocal strengths and style.

About Me

I’ve been singing for most of my life, I was lucky enough to have a family that positively encouraged music making. I took classical singing lessons for a couple of years at the age of 15 but it wasn’t really my thing.

Although I loved singing and wanted to do it more, I was really shy and unconfident as a teenager and so I didn’t dare to do it around people because I didn’t want to be noticed. I didn’t feel able to ‘give voice’ to myself.

Things changed, first by sheer luck and then through focus

But in my early twenties I joined the direct action environmental movement in Southwest England and singing was a normal part of life there – on camp, people sang every night round the fire to entertain themselves, and during the day, they sang on actions to raise our spirits and get our message across with protest chants.

Although I was still shy, I was gradually put at ease by the very free and friendly culture I found myself in, and I was more and more able to join in with the music and singing.

And because we were singing about our cause, our beliefs, and our radical lifestyle, it was a really empowering experience and my singing began to thrive, because I was literally ‘making my voice heard’ in the world. It was a natural way of life that was such a refreshing release from the urban world and judgmental culture I had grown up in.

And although I loved singing with that tribe of activists, and the acceptance of it, I did start to become aware that my voice was quite breathy and had a rather nasal quality which was too penetrating. I listened to myself in comparison to others and found myself inferior. So I lost confidence and became frustrated because I didn’t know what to do about it.

But then I came across a 2-year community music course which included a thorough training in holistic singing methods, and I jumped at it.  It was with the internationally-respected Tonalis Music Centre in Stroud. I found it fantastic to have spent a few years playing music in a free-flowing, organic way with my mates, but then to get some more structured input to develop my music and singing.

And the vocal training was an absolute treasure, it was like being shown a map of the territory that you had blindly wandered in for a long time, and seeing where all the jewels lay.

Suddenly I was being shown the whole of my voice and how all the parts of it worked together, and how to access a full range of different qualities, so that I was no longer ‘stuck in a rut’ with one way of singing;  and I was able to release most of my bad habits and replace them with positive ones that strengthened my voice week by week.

I diligently put these new techniques into practice and I could really hear the results, so my voice became richer, fuller, freer and I felt happy to be heard again. I finally felt that my voice ‘did me proud’!

A blossoming

Since then I have had so many compliments about my singing I can’t count, and I have continued to study and implement this holistic training method, both on my own and by doing further courses. ( In fact I’m a bit of a nerd about it! ;)

Sometimes when people say how beautiful my voice is, I can’t help feeling funny because they say it as if they think I am just  graced with ‘natural talent’ but I know full well it is because I have LEARNT  how to sing better!

These days

Aswell as being passionate about singing myself, I also really love teaching and coaching, partly because I have so many wonderful, fun, embodied techniques for bringing the music out of people, and partly because I love seeing people grow in confidence and self-expression as they discover the rich voice inside them.

I have also been growing my songwriting and performance skills over the years and been developing myself as a singing artist aswell as a teacher. This means that I have the knowledge and experience to help aspiring performers achieve their desires, aswell as help amateur and semi-professional singers to hone their vocal skills.

I am a member of the NVPN, Natural Voice Practitioners Network, and I hold the CME, the Certificate For Music Educators, an NVQ Level 4 accredited by Trinity College of Music, London.

I’ve been helping singers for 12 years now and I have become better and better at it, and I love making a positive, tangible difference in people’s lives.

Your turn

I would love to hear from you! To learn more about how I can help you unlock the potential in your voice, check out my

Singing Lessons Page or email me at:  selena@singwithstyle.com