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Hi everyone! So today, we are joined with Tara Simon! She is a celebrity vocal
coach and she's the owner of Tara Simon studios which is a private performing
art studio. Thanks a lot for joining us Tara!
Thank you so much for having me simon! It's a pleasure!
Yeah, it's pleasure! So, the first question would be: How did you start to learn how
to sing?
So, I do believe that singing is also a god-given gift as well as
something that can be learned. I was singing in my car seat before I could
even really walk and I was singing on stage since I was three! Obviously with
no formal training then. I had been performing on stage for years before
I actually received formal training at the age of I think seven or maybe
six-and-a-half close to seven where I sang for a vocal coach for the first
time. So, I've been doing it really essentially all my life before I even
knew what I was doing and it's just something I've been designed to do and
and love to do and as a coach now I find it's very interesting the
transformation of my purpose and my calling. I thought I grew up thinking
that I was going to be a singer you know my entire life and although I
am very much so my real sweet spot in life is to also elevate others and
equipping them with the tools that I've learned throughout my experience as a
vocalist to be successful vocalists themselves and to be fulfilled in their
dreams! It's very fulfilling for me to be able to assist in that!
I think you play piano as well?
I do!
How important is it to play another instrument as well as singing? Does it help?
Absolutely! In fact I always like to tell
my students this story when they don't want to take piano. I've quite a few
very well-known vocalists who do not want to learn how to play an
instrument and I keep telling them listen when I was in New York
auditioning for Broadway. The line was wrapped around the building for
auditions for fame and the one thing that differentiated me from everybody
else was the fact that when I got called back they said: "Oh will you come tomorrow?"
and I said: "No" and they're like: "What do you mean? Everybody that gets called
back is gonna come tomorrow!" and I'm like: "Listen! I've been waiting here for eight
hours in a cattle call! I've missed four other auditions and if you don't mind,
give me that sheet music right now and give me five minutes and I'll be right
back to singing the callback music! And the director looked at me like:
"Uh, you got to be crazy!" he gave me a stack of music: two songs, two full songs,
about three and a half four minutes long and I said I'll be right back!
So they kept auditioning and did their process and I went to a piano in
Ripley Grier studios in New York City and I plunked out the melody line of the
song and then I listened to it really quick to get, you know, the tracking,
the instrumental down. The rhythm and all that stuff. I went back in there and
I threw the sheet music down and sang the songs and I got the part!
That's what separated me and you know there's a lot of good vocalists out
there. But are you are you part of the music industry as a musician and as a
business? Are you a comprehensive product to sell instead of something
that's just half-baked. And by me being able to do that I was able to
subliminally tell that director: "Hey! Hire me not because I'm the prettiest or
because I'm the best singer but because I'm gonna make your job really really
easy!" Right? I already knew the songs in just a few minutes and so that is
what I try to impart to my students look I'm not just telling you
to learn an instrument or to be a well-rounded artist because it's gonna
make you take lessons longer! What I really want is for you to be hireable!
And I really want you to recoup your investment in what you're doing right
now! So that when you go out and audition you can prove your value to someone over
that person who decided: "yeah I'm just a really good
singer and that's what I do"! That's fine if really that's all you want to do!
But just know there are people out there like me and people out there like me who
are training other people to be like me, who may beat you out because again it's
not about you! At the end of the day when you're
auditioning for someone, it's about the person who's hiring you and their
million things on the list of what they have to do and you're just one more of
them! The sooner artists understand that, I think the more roles they're
gonna get!
Really interesting! Thanks a lot! And with this anecdote, I think we
can really see that you have a strong personality as well! So I think the
question that would be kind of logical after that is: What kind of qualities do
you need in order to be successful in this kind of career?
Absolutely! That's a great question and it's got quite a large answer!
I always tell my students it takes about 10,000 no's to get to one really
good yes! So the first quality that you have to have really honestly above
talent is resilience, the second is perseverance and the third is
stubbornness! You need to able to believe in yourself so much that when you get told no,
it's not a deterrent, it is an encourager! It only fuels the fire underneath you to
continue to go to get to that one yes that builds upon the snowball effect of
all the right yes's! So if you're that person who is sensitive, who does
not have thick skin, who cannot be criticized constructively, this is not
the industry for you: run in the opposite direction as fast as you can! If you're
that person who when you're told no you're like: "hmm, that just means I have
to get a little more creative and find a way around that, this is definitely the
career for you if you have the talent want to pursue it!
So really, it's that stick-to-itiveness that's really the most
important! I have personal friends who I went to a performing arts high school
with and they never got any leads. They were always in the chorus at
best. But these people are who are my age who moved to New York, it took them years,
maybe 5, 6, 7 maybe even 8 years but they're now on Broadway and
yes, they may be in the chorus or yes they may be a supporting, they may never
get to a lead role because the level of talent doesn't equal but they're still
there! Right? So, that perseverance that stick-to-itiveness,
sometimes, in a lot of cases, supersedes the raw natural talent just because they
continue to pound those doors down!
I wanted to ask you as well: Why did you decide to audition for x-factor?
Well I didn't decide to!
That's a funny story!
Growing up, there was a friend
of mine who was very near and dear to my heart. His mother was dying of
ovarian cancer. When she was dying, she was in remission and when she
relapsed, we knew that she was most likely not going to survive. He came
over to my house and he was so distraught! He played guitar and
really all I know, I mean singing is my love language right, and so he just
played the guitar. He played this lick and I just started singing over it and I
wrote a song, we wrote a song, for his mother! She was really honestly one of
those beautiful women! I think she was Miss Hawaii or something back in the day!
We wrote this song called: "Beauty Queen" for her and it got a lot of response in my local
area unintentionally! I mean people heard it at her funeral, she heard it before
she died! It was very touching and it just kind of started to spread. I got
a lot of requests at that time to "Please, do more music like this!" and at the time,
I didn't have a lot of money lying around extra! So I was like, well, I really
kind of can't afford to do more of this because I spent a lot of money making
that song great! Like producing it well! So I started a Kickstarter project
and my sister who's a pilot anonymously invested and her pilot friend who kind
of dedicates part of his life to helping boost up others, his name is Bob Raskey,
he also donated! I more than met my goal!
I later found out that my sister was one of the other main donors which was
really special to me! But Bob, you know on Kickstarter you have to pay
people back in rewards, so I had all these rewards listed and he
donated so much money! I was like: "Whatever you want! You can have them
all you know!" He flew to Atlanta where I was living at the time, full time
and said I don't want any of your rewards! He took me to dinner, I was like:
"What do you want? You know I'm kind of on edge at this point, it's
the music industry after all! So what what do you want out of me?" and he's like:
"I just want you to audition for every one of these nationally televised talent
competitions out there this year!" and I said: "I can't!"
He's like: "Why!" I said: "Well, I can't afford to get to all of them
they're everywhere, right?" and he's like: "It's fine! I'll pilot, I'll fly you there!"
And I was like: "Oh!" He's like: "In fact, I'll go with you!" and I said: "okay fine!"
He was kind of an older gentleman and so I thought: "Ah! He's not
gonna know all of them, we'll maybe do one or two and that's it then!
The next day, he sent me an Excel spreadsheet with the dates and places of
every single one of them!! America's Got Talent first. I didn't make it past the first
callback. I'm not their type clearly and that's totally fine, although
Angelica Hale who's one of my students did top 2 so that's awesome!
But X Factor was the next audition, I never win these things you know.
I was sure that I was not gonna make it you know. So I just really sort
of undersung. I think I sang an original song and then Bruno Mars "lazy song", just
cuz, whatever you know? They kept calling me back, and calling me back, and calling me
back and what was so special about the callbacks was not the fact that I got
called back it was the fact that, you're in this big stadium and if you make
it you go left and if you don't you go right! Well, Bob was waiting on the
left side already, like all the way around the stadium! Like knowing that
just in faith, I was gonna get called back and that was so sweet and special to me
that I'm like: "How did you know?" He's like: "I just knew" I'm like: "Well, it would've
been a long walk of shame if you were on the wrong side and you want to meet me
on the "I didn't get called back side"!" So that's how I got on x-factor!
It wasn't this lifelong dream: I want to be on TV! No, I wrote a song
and I had to pay a guy back! That's how I ended up on X-factor!
That's really funny! But I guess you learned a lot so
What did you learn from this experience?
So much!! First of all, the main thing I
learned is how you can be portrayed on television and how polar-opposite that
can be of who you really are! X-factor was a really wonderful
experience while filming for me! In fact, I had producers come to me while I was
off hours in my hotel room thanking me because as a vocal coach I can't help
but try to help people and fifth harmony who was then just individual contestants
they would come to me: "Miss Tara! I don't know how I'm gonna memorize this
fast! Will you please help me if you have any warm-ups?". And of course yes!
I'm happy to help like even though you're competition, I don't see it that way!
I just was very willing to help and the producers will come to me and say:
"Hey thank you so much! You know everybody here is just
really saying how sweet you are and how, you know it is a competition, but you're
so helpful and we see that and we just really appreciate that about you!" I was like:
"Yeah! I mean it's what I do for a living, I can't not be that! You know a
rabbit is a rabbit on the vocal coach, I can't help myself you know even if it
means helping them to my detriment. It's just what I do! So going through it,
it was a very positive experience but because of ratings, how they twisted
everything around on my taste and just made it seem like I was just this awful
vicious villain when there were plenty of people that were rude and mean
without being edited to portray that! I don't know why they work so hard to make
people who were mean and inconsiderate seem to be nice and someone who was
considerate but just happened to be animated with a strong personality looks
so mean because it just couldn't have been farther from the truth and it hurt
me deeply because I knew in my heart like this is not who I am!
An example of that, just so that you know just how bad it was, when I had my first
audition and I sang. L.A. Reid asked me... What
you heard was: "Who do you want to take out of the music industry?" and I answered:
"Christina Aguilera" That's not the question I was asked! the question I was asked was: who
"Who would you like to do a duet with in the music industry?" So he asked
someone else later on that day with the same clothing on: "Who do you want to take
out in the music industry?" and they took his question, spliced it with my answer
and entered the hate mail and death threats of people around the world who
are Christina Aguilera fans! I of which am one of!! So that was my experience on
air but the filming of it was very positive and so now that I do these
YouTube reactions and people get to see who I really am! Of course my
students all know who I really am, my family and friends know that! It's very
vindicating for me because there are some people who recognize me from X
Factor and they say: "Oh! You're so sweet! You're so kind and you're so
knowledgeable with your views! Thank you so much and it's nice you know
online to finally get people to see the real side of who I am unedited because I
don't edit any of my videos if you noticed, they're all in one tape!
Yeah I saw that! That's who I am, this is who I am!
Unfortunately, X Factor felt the need to boost their ratings to just make me someone
I wasn't but the truth always ends up setting you free and once in darkness
eventually does come to light! At least, you learned something, right?
I learned a lot and I'm able to help my students now! Loren Lott was on
American Idol, she's now gone on to Broadway and is now in feature films!
Angelica (Hale), same story! We've had students actually in the studio
represent us in every single one of those talent competitions out there
worth naming and I have been able to take what happened to me in a negative
way and say look when you're asked a question answer it in one sentence and
when you're finished put your head down. Don't make any expressions! When you take
a breath, put your head down! If you don't want to be heard, scratch your lapel
microphone! Do not give them any information or facial expressions
that are usable that you don't want them to use! They both had very positive
experiences on both of their shows, our other students too and I
consider that a blessing! If I had to do it again, if that had to happen to me
again personally to be able to know just how bad it can
be so that I can help them, I would have done it the same way and I would have
had the same thing happens to me so that I could protect
them from that happening to them!
Interesting! So, after that, you released a
single called "Walk Away". How successful was it and how the success
was influenced by your participation in x-factor? Was it a big factor? (Lol)
Yeah! That was really kind of my response musically to what happened!
I mean, there's no way you can correct every single negative comment on YouTube
or Facebook or whatever. There's no way you can respond to the masses!
For me, I've always spoken out musically and that's true to form how I chose
to speak out again and walk away was very
successful! So much so that actually, ironically, X-factor even shared it when
I released it! I was like: "That's weird but okay, thanks!". It won
some songwriting competitions, the music video got
aired nationally in many retail outlets and chains and has made some good
passive income. It's more than anything,
forget the success of the song. For me, it was a closure of something that I was
able to finally get peace with and wrap my mind around and get right with again!
And just be able to respond in the way that I always do musically
I think as a songwriter, what's important about that is that
it speaks to your heart more than anyone else it spoke to my own heart!
When I teach songwriting to my students, I tell them: "A song is
nothing unless it hits home to you first because that's how others feel
it you know". You love Adele because she writes from her pain or wrote from her
pain especially her first album! I mean you don't write songs for
others, you write songs for you, for others and that's why "Walk Away" was
very successful! And to me more so than the success meant so much to me!
Let's talk a bit about Tara Simon Studios now! Why did you create it?
That's also a story! I never set out
to be a vocal coach. In fact, I cringed at the thought! When I was in my
early 20s, in fact even even earlier than then,
people would always ask me when I was singing and performing afterwards they
come and go: "You did such a great job, do you coach?" I'm like: "Uh". It wouldn't be
like: "Oh, can we hire you for our next event?" No, it'd be like: "Oh, I have a
daughter who really would love to take lessons with you!"
I never intended on being a vocal coach. It's not like I studied music
education, I studied vocal performance you know! I didn't get a master's in vocal
pedagogy, I took classes as part of my vocal performance major.
It was just so frustrating to me that this kept coming up and I was living at
the time in South Carolina and this family called me up. I don't even
know how they found me! I wasn't advertising and they said: "We have a son
and he has Down syndrome. His name is Peter, he's 9 and
everywhere we go, we kept getting told no! His hands are too small, cuz
typically their hands are smaller. He can't hit the notes, no we can't take him.
That made me mad! Just because! I didn't know them
but I was like well, um I do teach piano so I said: "Bring him over, I'll
listen to him and if he's good I'll take him! So he came over and I
instantly knew this kid was special! He played Mozart for me
the first time he sat down and to be quite honest and frank, I believed he was
a better piano player than I was! At 9! I told his parents:
"So I'm not sure how far I can take him because he's really really good but
I can tell you this: I'm never gonna be easy on him and I'm never gonna tell him
he can't do anything! So let me try to coach him! It really was more of like
a spiteful thing against those people who said that he couldn't and I wanted
to prove that he could because I know that feeling!
You're constantly being told no as a performer so it was that
rose up in me and so we started to take lessons.
He memorized the 17 page Chopin piece I believe in like weeks! Don't
quote me on the number of pages but it was in the tenths, very very long! This kid
was a prodigy and the best attitude, most amazing kid! And as I taught Peter, my
almost hatred for coaching, the idea of it started to melt away! I believe
that God used Peter to change my heart towards coaching! As my heart started
to soften and I began to, you know, soften up and grow towards, warm up towards
the idea of coaching; somehow, more students started coming and more started
coming and more started coming! This was out of my house you know, this was
not an institutional thing so I moved to Atlanta and began to grow the
business. Still going back to South Carolina where I had students as well
I got a call on my way to Atlanta one day from a Peter's mother saying
that he had been diagnosed with bone marrow leukemia and would I please come
to his first radiation and teach him a lesson while he was having
radiation! I said: "I'll be there!" So I brought my keyboard into the hospital
and Peter and I had a lesson and the nurses said we've never seen such good
stats on a kid having radiation! This is amazing, we should do this all
the time! There's no one ever that survives bone-marrow leukemia with Down
syndrome to my knowledge and although Peter did go into remission a year later
and he did get to come to the brick and mortar of Tara Simon Studios and he did
sit on my piano! I did get to tell him: "Peter this place is here because of you!"
He did pass away later that year but it was so sweet for me to
see him once again at the studio and to watch him there! It was just,
really special for not just me but for his family too! So really it
has sense to exists because of a little boy who is just amazing!
In those moment like this,
we realize that music is really really amazing and there is a lot of
power in actually communicating with music! That's form of language as well
but there is way more emotions in this! I saw it on a lot of different cases
about illness. It can help to heal (the body) but as well the mind, the soul! It's a
beautiful story and it's such a powerful story to build a company on because then,
it's not about money, it's really about the impact you are going to have on
other people and that's amazing! That's wonderful!
Thank you, I still do actually keep in touch with Peters parents
and I tell this story whenever I can because one of the dreams he had before
he passed was that he started posting on YouTube as well his performances and
one of his dreams was to get a million views on YouTube! So we're
still working on that in his name and his parents were just so amazing and
I do still have a close relationship with them. But yeah I mean,
it was never an intentional business. It was never about the money.
It turned out to be about building up others! And saying that they
can instead of allowing someone else that just may not have the security
within themselves and their own giftings to say that they can! Instead saying they
can't and just moving on! I refuse to turn anybody away! We do have students
that come to us with special needs as a result of that and it is a hundred
percent feasible for them to improve too! And for them to be better with music
and to love it, to thrive in it and to perform! I don't believe in the word "No"
when it comes to my studio! You do not say "No" when you walk through those
doors! Say it before you get in because if you say it when you come in, we're
having words! You can and we believe that firmly!
In one of your videos, you said that you believed singing was 90% mental and 10% talent.
Could you explain a bit more?
Sure! My methodology when it comes to singing is: Sing Smarter not Harder!
It's something that I've developed over the years from multiple really great coaches
that I had the honor and priviledge of studying from, both from classical and pop
And everything in between!
My saying when I say that, is really to prove a point that you don't have to be
naturally gifted like me to be a good singer! Now there are levels of good
singing. I mean, if you start off not being able to sing on pitch, you're
probably never going to sound like Angelica Hale or Loren Lott or Whitney
Houston! But that's a different level of singing and there are different levels
of success in life! So I believe, and it's actually a clinical fact, that
only 3 to 5 percent of people are actually clinically tone-deaf!
There is something in their brain that they can not hear pitch!
There's not a cure for that. I can not help you with that!
But there's also a test that I can give students to find that out. I've
never seen one person ever fail the test in all my years of coaching and I've
been doing this for many years! So when I say singing is 90% mental 10% talent,
what I'm trying to emphasize by saying that is: "Look, you don't have to start off
singing at 3 and be this prodigy singer to be able to be a good singer! You
don't have to have vibrato or natural pitch right away to learn those things!"
I've successfully taught those things some many many students! You simply
have to have the desire! So it's your thought life so much more than it is
your talent life! Especially at the beginning because when you decide: "Ok! I'm
gonna give myself over to training, I'm gonna commit!
And I'm going to work this through take this journey!" Well of course, you're not
gonna be to the finish line, you're right at the start! You have to walk to it and
that's what lessons are all about! That's what training is all about! So as
soon as I can restructure and kind of reframe the student's mind into
thinking: "Hey! I don't have to sound like that right now! In fact, I never do I have
to take what I have and really think about my technique! Think about what I'm
doing, not how it sounds necessarily." Then all the sudden, we see progress and
they're like: "Oh wow! I didn't think I could hit that note or I've never sang
with vibrato before, I never thought I could do riffs and now I can!"
This is amazing right because they're not thinking: "Oh! I sound bad" or
"Oh! I'm never gonna get it!" They're thinking about the process of it! That makes sense?
Yeah of course! When I looked at your website, I was really surprised of how
many things you were offering! You're doing singing, piano lessons,
guitar lessons, acting lessons also you have a recording studio! So that's a lot
of things! Why did you decide to have all those different offers?
Again, not the part of the plan! The reason is because we only did voice at
first and there were people that took voice lessons from us that would want to
do acting or they want to play an instrument or they would be to the point
where they needed to record! At that point we would say: "Well, let's
recommend this place to you. We've heard of good things. Go here! This
recording studio seems good, we've checked that out a little bit. Go here!"
No joke, inevitably, 9 times out of 10 at least, our students would come back to
us in lessons saying: "You know, that recording studio wasn't so great" or "Hey!
That acting place, I don't even know why I went! It wasn't good!"
Every time that would happen, it would just make me so mad and I'm like, you
know what, fine! You trust us, we'll make it happen here! So we added acting.
Fine, you trust us, we'll add music lessons here!
Fine, you can't find a recording studio that does what they say
they're gonna do and turns out it fine? We'll build one here and so that is why
we're full-service! Not because I wanted to but because, I'm not saying that
there aren't great people out there right but, it took me longer to find
those people and refer them, than it would to just hire and train great
people and build an infrastructure and space to where they could do everything
in-house! You know we are a family! the culture of TSS is very much familial!
My coaches, they're friends with one another! Our students text us!
We do three showcases a year! We do extracurricular
performances all the time! I mean, we have an awesome culture at TSS and because of
that close-knit nature of the students to the coaches and the clients the
coaches, they kind of don't want to go anywhere else anyway! So it just makes
sense to do everything there! But we did not plan on it and like I said nothing
against outside venues. I know that there are a lot of good ones in Atlanta. But
once you trust one person, it's way easier to just continue on doing
whatever else you want to do in the performing arts with that one person, than
having to go and check out another entity! I mean it's just a nice
thing to do frankly and that's why we do it!
Yeah of course but that's a lot of work! So my next question is:
How did you learn entrepreneurship, business, all those things?
That's a great question! I had the privilege of
growing up in a household of entrepreneurs! My mom and dad still run a
business together. They're amazing parents! I was blessed and lucky to have
them as examples! My dad is in real estate and he became a home
inspector. They do mold remediation as well for when people buy houses and
so my mom does all the bookkeeping and on all the phones. My dad goes out
and he does the job. It's a great pairing of talents and I just grew
up homeschooled for a little bit. My mom taught my sister and I at the time
instead of going to school. So I grew up listening to her answer the phones
and sell the products that my dad would would execute to the potential client!
I mean I had it memorized almost: "Well, ceilings gutters down south"???
All the things that they check for.
It's funny because before we got big, I was my own assistant. I have one
now. But when I would answer the phones and I would say what we offer and
who I am I had her in the back of my mind and my parents in my spirit
because of what I grew up watching! So I never took any classes on it,
I had the good old first party perspective of having the honor of
watching my parents grow and maintain a successful business while I was growing up!
Awesome! That's really great! I also know the importance of having a good
network! How did you go about it? How did you grow your network?
That's hard! Growing a network is difficult, especially before, I don't know
how they did it! Especially before social media boom and everything!
My mom would bake these really special cookies
that she'd make and my dad would take them to Realtors offices and shake
hand, give out cookies and be like: "Hey! I offer inspections and he would get
to know the people. They get to know the people that would hire him.
it was very grassroots! So growing up seeing that, I believe in a grassroots
approach too! Even though we do a lot of social media stuff and we're very
present in the digital world. I very much believe in personal time.
So whenever there is something that I can donate lessons to, children's
schools or silent auctions in Atlanta, I do! Whenever there's a place where I
can sing and donate my talent to for good causes, I grew up doing that, I
continue to do that now! I think it's important that networking is /giving back
So I feel like networking is a lot more successful when you go
in "the networking hat" with the intention to serve someone
instead of the intention to get something! I do believe that if you go in
without intention, you end up getting to full back what you put out and that
shouldn't be the goal either, right? If you
It could be that if that's your ambition. But for me if I'm going to an
event, yes I know I'm going to meet people but my intention is to serve as
best I can and to give back in that way! I actually plan to do
a lot more of that in 2019 I had a baby a couple years ago and that
takes over your life again. But networking is
difficult and I think personally, yes you need to do SEO and social media
marketing and all that stuff but especially if you have a brick and
mortar! For those of you who may be listening who are business owners or
thinking of starting a business, the street where you plan on being is your
most important street and you need to know every single person on it! You need
to go and shake hands! It's not just an email! It's not a phone call! Get your
brochures out, get your card out, maybe get some cute little trinket or
something that you can give for free and just say: "Hey! I'm here!" Local schools
around if you serve kids with your products. You want to build relationships with
those entities and make yourself a familiar brand that they know and think
of and they can trust!
That was a lot of advice! Thanks a lot for that! Because we don't
immediately think about the fact that we can grow a business in the music
industry. Right away, we think about being an artist, performing... So it's
really nice to have this view on it! I was wondering how big is TSS? How many
coaches? how many students?
Oh wow! I have not even counted students lately!
I know we're in the hundreds but the exact number I don't, I probably
should check at some point. It's been very busy in the fall because that's
when a lot of students come back from having a break in the summer.
So you're just in survival mode in taking the students
and making sure everybody is good. Right now, I think we're at ten coaches and a
lot of our coaches coach multiple art areas! For instance, one of my head
coaches, Heather, she coaches piano, voice, acting and songwriting.
If you count that you know in multiplicity of
what the coach coaches, there's probably 20 but within one person there's four
art areas! Then we have a dedicated acting coach, dedicated
voiceover coach, dedicated guitar or piano all those. But there are quite a
few of us that the coach almost all of what we offer depending on who you go
with and they're all hand trained by me extensively! So it takes a while!
I could stand to have more coaches but I'm very picky! One of the caveats to
working with me and for me is that you must be a working professional!
In some capacity, in the music and entertainment industry!Then, once I
find that out, I have to figure out if you are passionate about people and
are trainable. Then we decide if you are a fit to coach and then we train
for months until I know that you're good to go! Basically the model is they are me
with a different face at a less expensive price! So that I can kind of
multiply myself and I think that we've done a really good job! Our coaches
are amazing and I know I've done my job when people request them!
That's special for me! I'm not the prideful owner who's like: "Oh! I
only want people to want me and then just settle." No! I want people to
prefer Heather or prefer Jeremy or prefer David! I want them to do that
because that means that I've done my job well!
Do you do online as well?
Yes, in fact, I just coached my first student in Singapore this morning! It was 9 a.m. for
me, 9 p.m. for her! She did an awesome job! We've got students everywhere Africa,
London, Singapore now, all over the US... We've had students moved three times and
still take lessons with us! So we've coached them in multiple different
states, same students! It's been a huge blessing to be able to impact lives
not just now in the nation but in the world as well!
You just recently added new videos to your YouTube channel. It has been like
almost a month and I was wondering: What was the impact of those videos on your
business? Where you were wanting to go with those videos? What are your goals?
I feel like everything I've told you it
seems to be like an accident. This wasn't intentional either! I had started
to post on Instagram these vocal tips and tricks and hacks and it was
very content rich! It was high value! It was very much like solid technique and
it was original content. It got responses but nothing like these YouTube
reactions! One day out of almost just frustration, my social media guy TJ and I
were like: "Let's just do a reaction real quick! We have some time. We
finished what we were doing early." We did and it gets 80,000
something views and like 200 subscribers to now 11,000 in counting! I just sit
back and I laugh because that's my life! That's how God works my life! It's
just everything is: "didn't mean to"! I can't take the
credit for it really and so it's just funny to me! Of course it has impacted!
I mean, you're so much more exposed to people around the world that you
wouldn't normally be exposed to! That's how I taught
the person in Singapore this morning! I am releasing an eight-week course! So I
find that this little happy accident here is gonna be great because
it's gonna help me expose the course to a lot of people who may not be able to
afford weekly lessons privately. But they could afford a one-time payment that's
way less expensive for eight weeks of training with me! It's all modules
that's video interactive and that I've created! So it's all of what you would
get in private lessons but in an eight-week course and it's the
foundations of my methodology which is "Singing Smarter not Harder! It's for
those who are maybe singers, who are on the beginner end. They may need to know
like how to produce sound, what it's called the proper terminology, where
sound comes from, how to be dynamic! We talk about "belting" in there. It's also
for singers who have been singing for a while but they may not have really
studied, they may not have taken lessons. They're feeling ware on their voice
and they're feeling like: "It's costing me a lot and I'm getting hoarse.
I think I might need to know where my sound is coming from and maybe
redirect it a little bit". It's definite for that person too and so I think that
the YouTube videos are really gonna help boost the exposure for that course as
well! And hopefully help me reach a lot more people that normally wouldn't
be able to take from me in any other way!
I was really impressed to see that it was only one take!!
We were talking about that earlier. It seems really easy for you to
actually comment on other singers, I guess you did it a lot?
Every day all day! For the past I don't know
how many years! It is funny you know! The other videos that we would record, I
would write the script out because I wanted to make sure all the technology
and all of the technique and everything that I was saying was perfect and it was
so stressful! I'd be like so anxious about it and when we do these it's
literally like I could do them in my sleep because this is what I do in
lessons! My job is to constructively critique. It's such a
sweet spot for me and I've never done any double takes as far
as I can remember from filming! I think every single one that we've
done is just one take!
Awesome! That's very impressive! And in the future I
guess you'll continue doing reactions videos because it's so successful! But
maybe you have other plans for videos that may be in different topics, maybe
some tips on singing or something else?
You're so smart!
Exactly! So once we have a large subscriber base, who are looking for more
in-depth information. We're sort of laying a foundation for that now. I'll
definitely love to get back to giving more content rich, original, technical
training to them for free on YouTube! Take comments and answer questions like
that as well for sure! That is right now what the eight-week course is going to
be doing! But a hundred percent, I definitely want to hopefully have just
as much desire and demand for that as it would be for the reaction videos! But
you know, it's funny! The reaction videos are a great vehicle for that even now
because I read every comment and I try to respond as much as I can!
There's over 600 comments on one video so it's like a full-time job but I
do read them and I respond especially to the ones
asking questions! Like one little kid, it must have been like under ten, said:
"I really want to take lessons but I'm scared to ask my parents"
I'm writing back: "You never get anything if you don't ask, you know!"
Or someone said: "I have a really big problem! Every time I try to sing, I yawn!
What do I do?" Well, let me write back to you and
tell you, let's figure this out!
It's actually prompting those technical questions even though
I'm not necessarily talking about technical things to that person there.
It's being brought up in the comments which is really cool! I love that!
I wanted to know a bit more about your experience coaching Angelica (Hale)
because she's really young! So I guess it was really different and she is very
very talented! What was your process to actually teach her?
Angelica is a joy to coach! She's really a treat and her parents are so very
supportive of her! Her number 1 fans are Eva and James for sure and me right
behind them! But I would never try to fight them for that position.
Angelica is just as determined and driven as she is talented!
Again, we talked about that from the very beginning when you have that combination
in a student especially so rare to have it and someone so young is really quite
an anomaly! I'm honored and humbled to be able to witness that and
to be able to grow that! It's a really big privilege for me! They came to me
when they got on AGT and they said: "we just we need your help! We need
her to sound amazing! We've heard you and we want your help!
Especially with vocal design and melodic lines and. All those things and
keeping her voice healthy!" Because it was a very demanding show! A lot of late
nights, a lot of song changes last-minute, a lot of song memorization, a lot of
vocal design on my part to make the songs interesting and fit her voice
perfectly and really showcase what she had to offer! So we worked hard!Wwe
worked really hard! Her parents were right there,
ready to capitalize on all that exposure right after! I saw her
yesterday online and she's in LA right now and she's got
something really exciting coming up! I'll actually be watching on the television! I
can't say what but she'll be on there very very soon and we're training
for that right now! But teaching her is a joy! She is a hard worker! She
practices! When I say to do something, she goes and she works on it until it's done!
I'm really *** her, I don't treat her like a child!
If she misses an note or if she's flat or if she didn't do the run that
I designed I'm like: (intimidating face) and she's like: "I know!" She goes back
and she does it! But never discouraged, never negative, never depressed about it,
super positive always like: "Okay! Let's do it! Yeah! We dance and
celebrate her victories! We expect excellence out of her and she
expects excellence out of her which is why she's excellent! So it's a joy! I'm
super honored to be a part of her growth!
Let's talk about singing now, a bit more specific.
So can you please tell us a bit about the mixed voice? Because that's
something I guess a lot of singer don't know about and I learned about it
really recently. So what is the mixed voice and how do you train it?
The all elusive mixed voice! There are people who are natural mixers. I
guess the best analogy I can use to help people understand what mix is and what
your voice does when it goes to mix, it's like you're taking a jacket and you're
putting it on you and it's got a zipper on it. You attach the bottom and
then you take the zipper and you pull it up! So the two sides get attached into
one! This is chest voice and as you zip up,
we're in mix here and you zip up more and we're in head (voice). So it's this zip up
feeling within your range of a change in register and usually for
most people there's a big gap! I'll give you a sonic example a big gap would
be: (aaaaaaaaaa) You hear the change, right? Instead of: (aaaaaaaa) Where it just
kind of zipped up the second time. It's really difficult though to train this in
the ladder, the second one because when you're in your mix, it's just that! It's a
mix between your chest and your head voice mixed together! So it's very
elusive in the placement of it like physically! I can feel in my chest
voice where I am right now! I can feel in my head voice where I am right
now, it's very clear! But in my mix: (aaaaaaaa) It's like here ish.
It's like this "no man's land" place that's very difficult to point like, put
your sound there! I can say to any singer: "Put your sound here, put your sound here"
but mix, I've got to be like: "put your sound ish" By the way,
everybody's face and skull is shaped a little different and so there
resonation cavities are a little bit bigger, smaller, wider, thiner... So
it may not be placed exactly where it is for me for you! You have to go based
on analogies, based on repetition and based on certain exercises that I've
designed to force the issue to kind of continue massaging that area. Just like
if you had a lump of cookie dough and it's really lumpy. You take a rolling
pin and you roll it out. It's like: "This is never gonna work!" It looks like
a mess at first but you keep rolling, you keep rolling and then eventually, it's
smooth! It's the same exact thing if you're working your mix! Working that
zip up! If you're working that chest to mixed ahead, you have to continue through
that break and massage it and massage it until finally it smoothes out! You
can trust the movement because if there's stress or strain there, it's not
going to zip up. The zipper will get stuck, just like it does if it gets
caught in fabric. So if it's not fluid zip, if it's not relaxed, it's not going to
zip up! It's really difficult! Mixing is a difficult topic to coach! I like it
because when I was training with other coaches, they were so local
pedagogically technical, that they didn't give me analogies like I just gave you
to have an image to try to emulate when I was doing it! So I had to kind of
figure it out on my own! I was trained very well but I was trained hard! It
was really on my own in my own practice where it
happened by accident and I was like: "Hey! Let me see if I can repeat that again!
That was amazing!" Then I figured it out as I go. I wish they would have just
said this and I would have gotten it!
It's not just matter of like showing me because they'd sing it for me all day
long! I'm glad you can do it, congratulations! I'm trying to over here
and I don't understand what you're doing! Part of why we're so successful at TSS
is because I've struggled with that! And I'm able to give analogies to say: "Look, I
know how you're feeling right now but if you can just think of this, if you could
just trust to do that real quick, then let's see how you turn out and usually
it's correct! so it's analogies, it's mental pictures
and images and it's repetition to teach mix!
Do you have as well an analogy for breathing? Because it's really hard for most people!
Yes! In the studio, we talk a lot about breathing for sure! One
of the analogies I like to give my students young or old is a "front-side-back"
breath as if you are filling up a tire! You know when you're swimming in the
pool and you've got that energy around of you! If you have this imaginary inner tube,
you don't just want to breathe in the front and fill that up! You want to try
to, in your imagination, act as if there are side and back compartments for air!
When you breathe, you breathe down into your belly button but you also
breathe around try to fill up even your back full of air so that you have a full
full nice deep low breath in which to start phonating from! That's just
one of the analogies we use.
Interesting! I don't know
if you talk about it with your students but about really really high
notes like whistle notes or falsetto. Is it possible for everyone?
I don't think so and here's why: everybody's vocal cords just like I was
saying about the shape of the anatomy of a person, there are certain people's
vocal cords who have a thicker kind of viscosity to them and there are some
who are thinner! Which is why you speak in a certain timbre, I speak in a
certain timbre. A woman I may meet on the street might talk like this and
that's just how she is. I met really low "Alto" girls who talk like
this. I'm kind of somewhere in between. The vocal
production all has to do with the thickness of our cords and the
elasticity of our cords. So anatomically speaking, no! I wouldn't not
be successful in teaching everybody whistle tone! That's why it's special,
right? It's the same for really low notes. However, I can increase
anybody's range! So you may start off with an octave worth of range and when
we train, you may end up with two or three! You may not ever get to whistle
tone but you definitely are increasing your range! It's all relative
you know. If Ariana Grande can hit whistle notes, she's got that kind of
higher, lighter, brighter voice even when she's speaking, I don't know how low she
can go! I may be able to go lower than her and she may be able go higher than
me and vice versa. There's always a give-and-take to everybody's giftings and
just because one person can go in whistle doesn't make them a better
singer! You may be able to go lower than them!
that's exactly where I wanted to go! I guess it's the same thing with the low notes that
maybe everyone has a different range and maybe you have really really low notes
but no high notes!
I wanted to ask you: How important is it to learn music theory in order to do runs,
in order to harmonize, all those things?
They are not the same. I think you're gonna have a way easier time if
you play an instrument to harmonize for sure! Because you are much more aware of
chord structure and when you harmonize you're essentially doing inversions or
according of the root which is the melody note! So if you're doing a
harmony of let's say: "mary had a little lamb" and i'm singing: "mary had a little
lamb" In order to do the third up I'd go: "mary had a little lamb" and if i wanted
to do the fifth up I'd go: "mary had a little lamb" If wanted to invert that, I could go
down you know: "mary had a little lamb" is the melody line,
I could go "mary had a little lamb" and i'm going down. You can
invert harmonies, you can do all sorts of things but if you know chord structure,
based on being a pianist or guitarist or musician of any kind, you're much more
acutely aware of where you are in the melodic line, harmonization wise! Now, runs
are a little different. I do know singers who are great at running and riffing who
do not play instruments much to my chagrin! Like Loren Lott, she
does not play the piano, I could kill that girl! But she's amazing vocalist! She
can tear paint off walls, she can run, she can rif... Now, she's not a huge fan of it, I
make her because she can do it and she's amazing but it's not her comfort zone!
But she can do it and she doesn't play instruments. So I can't say that you have
to play an instrument to be able to run and riff, you don't! It makes it easier I
do believe! Because again, knowing scales, you're a lot more aware of going from
the major to the minor! If that works within that chord underneath you! So
your accuracy and your ease of riffing and running and your complexity of the
riffs and runs that you design probably would be better. But that doesn't mean
you can't if you don't play something!
About harmonization, you talked about thirds and fifths but there is a lot more to it.
But in modern music we don't hear a lot more in harmonization.
So have you ever used like sevenths, ninths or more complex chords in harmonization?
Yes! In fact, I comment on them in
YouTube videos and I call them crunchy chords and I love the crunch! I'm all
about the crunch and I do that in my songs a lot! I took a lot of jazz
training in college, some choral conducting, a lot of classical training
too and so I'm like: "I'm a theory geek" essentially. Because of that I
really enjoy using that technique and that theory to make my harmonies
more interesting and more layered. I'm big into harmony stacks as well!
If I'm recording, I never just do like one vocal take. I'm always stacking my
"harmies" at least three times for a nice full sound and just doing as many
cool inversions as I can! I'm all about it! In fact, honestly, I usually get stuck
singing lead when I sing but I much prefer singing backup so that I can do harmonies!
One other thing I'm really curious about is: How can you work
on your tone? Because it's kind of hard to hear yourself because you sound
different than what people hear! So do you have any tips about that?
100%! I would say the one thing that's the most helpful when trying to be aware
of the Timbre and texture and tone of your own voice is to record yourself and
listen back! Because you're right, when you are singing, your inner ear is
hearing the production inside of you. Then you're projecting sound out and
then hearing that ambient noise as well! So it is different and that's why a lot
of times, people kind of plug one ear to hear. But it's still not the
same as what the listener is hearing at least to us when we're singing. So I
always tell my singers: "Listen! If you feel like you are pitchy or
you're not singing with a rich enough quality, if you're kind of nasal or thin
and you want to start manipulating your tone a bit, you gotta know what you need
to change! And in order to know what you need to change, you have to hear yourself
the way an audience hears you! So record yourself! Even if it's in your room!
Record yourself! Listen back! See what you did or didn't like! See what you
want to change! Record that again! And listen and compare the two!
Don't just delete it! See what got changed! See what audible differences you can hear!
Something I actually learned from
your videos that's kind of related is about the way you pronounce words!
I find that really interesting! I never heard about it that for example: "Do
not pronounce 'R's at the end of the words" That's really interesting! "Not closing
your mouth to keep the pitches right." Could you talk a bit more about this?
Yes absolutely! So it's all about space, right? When we
sing, we're trying to create more space all the time because that's what allows
the air to come out more freely. It's what keeps it from being stopped up and
I gave that analogy of the holes on YouTube
about it getting kinked. So we want to keep that air free-flowing
because if it's not free-flowing then there's going to be eventual strain
inevitably. So when I'm having a singer sing something like the word
shoulders, which is one of the things we talked about on YouTube, that 'R', in
order to say 'R', I'm having to close my mouth. And sometimes, the note that
we're singing is needing a lot of space! Maybe I'm singing: "Shoulders" and that
sounded kind of nice and I'm thinking 'R'. But if I say it the way I'm speaking
it, sing it the way I'm seaking it: "Shoulders" It's like totally stopped up
here! So I have to give myself more space! I'm going up in my melody so any
extreme in 'R's needs more space! I got to give myself more space: "Shoulders".
It's so much more relaxed and easy to get it out but it still sounds to you like
shoulders! You knew what I was saying! Actually I sounded like really
closed off and more kind of country sounding with the first one or the
rather that the harder 'R' but with the harder 'R', I'm simply singing it like I
speak it! And that's the big misconception and that's why I'm big on
these consonants being omitted is that we cannot sing the way we speak! We
need to have a conversational tone to our voice and not sound affected. But we
don't open our mouth much when we speak! When we sing, we need to! So
that's the rule that I'm trying to impart is that you gotta always be
thinking: "How can I capitalize on more space because that's what my voice is
asking for!"
I think it goes as well into the 90% mental because it's a lot
more thinking that we might expect! That's really really interesting! So the
last question would be: "What advice would you give to someone that want to have
a career in the music industry, that has a good level in like instruments
practice or that knows how to sing, but the basics? What should they do?
So you would never go to the Olympics or be even a competitor in the Olympics, make
it that far, and you definitely would never place and get a medal,
without a coach! You have no business trying to compete with the best of the
best in this industry without being trained by someone! It doesn't have to be me
but it needs to be someone who knows what they're doing, who has their best
interests at heart, who has no ambition of their own but to help you! That's the
very first thing you need to do! You cannot do this alone! You have to believe
in yourself the most, more than anyone but you cannot do this alone! So my very
first and most important piece of advice would be: "Get yourself someone that you
can trust, even if it's a mentor but preferably a vocal coach, if you're
looking to sing because they're gonna be about you and your vocal health! Their
biggest priority is how you're feeling vocally and how you're growing vocally
and how competitive you are vocally! so that when you're going out and
auditioning, you're booking those roles." Because I guarantee you the people that
you're sitting next to waiting in that room or in that line, they're training! They
may even be training with me! So you're in a huge disadvantage if you
go into battle with no armor on, your coach is your armor and you definitely
need one! The second is to never ever give up! You have to have that
stick-to-itiveness we talked about! You training your instrument but
perseverance and persistence is key! You need to be healthy! You need to be eating
right, you need to be exercising to have physical stamina, you need to be keeping
yourself up and looking presentable! You are a product! When you sing and when
you're an artist, you are the product! Just like this is a product; you are
a product! And you're only as good as the execution of your product, how good your
product is and you're only as good as how well you sell that product! A lot
of artists fall short on that second part! They're really great products but
they're terrible business people! They want to wake up late, they want to just
sing for a living and they have no idea how to sell themselves as the music
business portion of it. And again, a lot of vocal coaches will teach you how to
sing, we do all of those things! We are half done when you are a competitive
product at my studio! It's our responsibility, we take it very seriously
to equip and show you how to sell yourself, what to do, how do you go and
get gigs, how to call at restaurants, how to create a setlist, how to get musicians,
how to rehearse them, what to wear, how to talk between your songs at sets,
how do you know promote your EP that you recorded while you're gigging,
how to ask for tips... I mean everything! Everything! It's super
important you're a business if you're an artist and more artists I would like to
see treating themselves as artists rather than just singers! You're an
artist if you can sell yourself in singing and make a living at it! I think a lot of
people call them artists nowadays because it sounds glamorous but they're
forgetting half of the side of what a real artist is!
Yeah! It's almost like entrepreneurship, right?
100%! You are your own business! This is a brick-and-mortar!
I mean, you don't need a building you are the brick and mortar! You're a
walking, moving brick and mortar! How are you keeping it up? How are you
selling yourself? It makes all the difference in the world between someone
booking you and someone booking someone else!
That's amazing! Thanks a lot for all
your tips! So how can people find you? On your website: tarasimonstudios.com they can
book lessons with you and with your coaches! Also on YouTube as well:
"Tara Simon Studios"
YouTube, Google+: "Tara Simon Studios" We're on YouTube,
on Facebook or on Instagram! Any of that can be searched by Tara Simon studios!
The website is: tarasimonstudios.com You can reach me there personally as
well. Subscribe to the YouTube channel, watch the videos.
Get free content first you know. Get this interview, learn about us, learn
about the culture that we're trying to build. This is not really
about getting more students for me, it's about creating a culture of awareness
and knowledge and inspiring people to move forward with their dreams in an
educated and knowledgeable practical way!
Great! Just a quick side note you are
using Google+ I think I saw that. Why? Is it working?
We actually get some inquiries from there! Through that, I guess you can somehow
text, like there's a number that's sort of a generic number and it reaches
me or reaches my assistant. So people can use that as well to inquire and
we have that from time to time. I don't know much more about
it other than that, it's just one more thing! Trying to do all the things online!
So thank you a lot for being here! It was a pleasure!
I wish you a lot of great things happening in the future!
Thank you Simon it was a pleasure
meeting you! Thanks so much for the awesome questions today!
See ya! Bye!
Bye!