Unlocking Your Singing Potential: Practice, Persistence, and Performance!

By Paul Kwo

Everybody sings. No matter how good or how bad, at some points in our lives, we all sing. Yet some people seem to be naturally more talented or blessed with a better voice than others. Some people just seem to have an innate ability to produce amazing sounds with their voice, churning out some great songs.

Just like any other skill, singing is a skill that requires practice and can be improved over time. Those who seem naturally more talented in singing simply sing all the time. Perhaps they never had a rude relative telling them that they are not a good singer, so they never stopped. They just kept going and kept singing, and as a result became better.

I love to sing. Whether just sitting at my school after hours in Alhambra and practicing till the wee hours of the night, or at a karaoke bar singing my heart out with some good friends, or on stage performing for audiences large and small in the San Gabriel Valley or beyond, or leading worship at my church in Culver City, all of these add up to my singing skills improving.

So if you love to sing, just keep singing. Whether you are in lessons or not, just keep doing it. The only thing to watch out for are:

1. Stretch your body and warm up your voice with basic vocal warm ups every day. Daily exercise applies to your voice too.
2. If it hurts, something's wrong. Get help with a professional vocal coach.
3. Drink lots and lots of water. Water is the fuel for your voice.
4. Avoid caffeine. It dries out your voice.
5. Experiment with how different foods and drinks affect your voice. A lot of it can be psychological. Generally speaking most foods don't directly affect your vocal cords. Food goes in a different pipe and never touches your cords. But your body may still react to it producing unwanted side affects.

If you want to be really good, then set up regular gigs for yourself. They don't have to be big, they just have to be regular. Some great ideas for small gigs most people can easily set up are:

1. Church worship singer and choir member. Just sign up at your local church.
2. Sign up and volunteer to sing at convalescent homes and other non-profit organizations that needs regular entertainment.
3. Attend a regular open mic.
4. Create your own home performance series. Invite a few friends, even if it's at your own home. Make it a little party. Have everyone bring some food. You can even do it as a singing circle where everyone performs for 10 to 15 minutes.
5. Perform at a local coffee shop. A lot of local coffee shops and places will host local aspiring artists. But of course this would be for those of you who are a little more seasoned and ready to get a little more serious.

But remember, the key is that you do this on a regular basis. Start off doing this once a month, so you have a goal, something to always work towards. Then get it up to once a week, so you are forced to practice and prepare material every week. If you can get it up to more than once a week, that's even better.

PopRock Academy is located in the San Gabriel Valley. We provide music lessons to residents of Alhambra, near San Marino and South Pasadena to the north, San Gabriel, Temple City and Arcadia to the east, Rosemead, Monterey Park to the South and downtown Los Angeles to the west and beyond.

Unleash Your Inner Rockstar: Join a Band and Rock Out!

By Paul Kwo

Whether in Alhambra, South Pasadena, San Gabriel or halfway across the world, many music students dream of singing and playing in a rock band. Grab a few friends and start jamming away at mom and dad's garage. We've all seen the image of the frustrated parents hearing the ruckus the kids are making in the garage. The kids are all just jamming loudly without any guidance or supervision.

Even if the students are taking separate guitar, bass, drum lessons and voice lessons on their own, putting it together is still another daunting task. Getting a coach to work with the students is an important aspect in helping students create music in a meaningful and listenable manner. Students can ask questions and work on music together as a group with a coach that will help bring it all together.

The key towards a good Rock Band is practice. With the proper coaching, a band can get a lot done even in a short few months. It is also very useful to help students set realistic performance goals as a part of their formation. After all, what's the point of starting a Rock Band if the band isn't going to perform.

In Alhambra and the San Gabriel Valley Pasadena area, there are plenty of performance opportunities for students. Monterey Park offers an annual Got Skills competition for students free to enter. They work with Asian Pacific Clinics in Rosemead for the youth in the 626 area and beyond. We here at PopRock Academy has participated. We also have connected with many local festivals and events such as the Alhambra first friday event and the Alhambra 4th of July and Hotspot celebration to provide performance opportunities for our students. There are many open mic opportunities in Pasadena, Alhambra and Hollywood for new bands to start. Arcadia has a 626 Night Market event multiple times a year for bands to submit audition videos to showcase their talents. Most schools in the San Gabriel Valley have talent shows and competitions for their students to participate in. There are just so many ways for students to get out there and perform. And with performance opportunities, students are much more motivated to practicing and working hard.

So aside from the hard work of practicing, marketing is just as important for a rock band to flourish. Know what the band is about and what the goal of the band is. Set realistic expectation and take incremental steps towards accomplishing them. A solid marketing plan is just as important for the survival of a band. Setting crazy goals like signing with a major record label in 1 year or 2 will most often lead to disappointment causing the band to dissolve. So if your band's dream is to aim to be a working band, work with your coach on a realistic plan of attack. Know the steps that it takes to get there and be realistic about the approach. Don't just jump into it jamming with your friends in a garage and expect some amazing record producer will walk by and hear you play and sign you on the spot. No one can guarantee you fame and stardom. But with lots of hard work, anyone can be a solid working band.

Let Your Inner Rockstar Shine!

Transforming Piano Practice: Making Music Fun for Kids

By Paul Kwo

Parent: “Why aren't you practicing?”
Kid: “Piano is boring.”
Parent: “But you used to love the piano.”
Kid: “But it's boring now.”

This is an ongoing problem with piano lessons. Practicing at home can often become tedious and boring. After all there is just no short cut in practice time. How in the world could anyone learn an etude without spending hours at a time on the piano? It's just not possible.

The few kids far and in between who loves piano music will have no problem practicing. They love the music they are practicing. They want to play those pieces. So they automatically have a goal to work towards. They want to accomplish the ability to play certain pieces of music.

But most kids don't necessarily have a profound love of piano music. They may like piano music, but certainly not enough to move them into playing the piano for hours on end to learn a technically challenging piece of music. They may just enjoy tinkering at the piano for five minutes at a time, but anything beyond that is just tiresome.

It's a real challenge for young students to understand the role of the piano in music. Some piano teachers like to use pieces they know (new pop music) to encourage them to practice more and make piano more relevant.

Another alternative I found very helpful in getting students interested in giving the time and energy to learn piano and/or guitar is actually voice lessons. Many of my voice students after a year of study decides they want to take singing more seriously. In order to do so, they understand the need to learn an instrument if they want to write their own songs and perform on their own in the future. And the piano or guitar are the two primary instrument for any singer to learn so they accompany themselves while they sing and crank out their own original material.

But in the end, don't stress over a child practicing habits. Even if the kid practices for only 5 minutes a week, that's better than no practice. Even if going to the piano lesson is the only practice the child gets, that's still growth. Keep the consistency of the lesson. Help the child learn to enjoy music. Whether you are in Alhambra, or in Pasadena, or in another part of Los Angeles, or even in another part of the world, the core principle is the same. Take the stress out of piano lessons and let the child have fun. When they associate music learning to fun, that makes life so much better and they will still learn enough piano over the years. When they become adults and are able to play most music that they want to, it would have all been worth it.

By Paul Kwo

"When can my child start teaching piano?" A parent ask. The short answer: "Your child can teach whenever someone is willing to pay them to do so."

I have been asked this question many times over the years by parents who wants to enroll their child in music lesson, especially those who inquire about the level testing that are offered by organizations such as the Royal School of Music or the Music Teachers Association of California. Some parents have the notion that if their child finishes a certain level, they are ready to teach music. I recall a classic Simpsons episode where Marge tried to be a piano teacher. Even though she couldn't play the piano herself, all she had to do is stay one lesson ahead of the child who's learning. The sad reality is that there are a lot of unqualified music teachers around and parents have no idea what they are getting themselves into.

I must admit when I first began teaching, I was one of those half-qualified teacher who was still a High School student having studied piano all my life. So I taught my first couple of students at the age of 16. Actually I taught a student that my dad found for me for six months when I was 12, but I had to give up because I just wasn't ready to teach. When I took up teaching again, I taught my students the way I was taught. It may sound like the logical thing to do, but later as I studied piano pedagogy (which is the study of the teaching of piano) with a renowned teacher of pedagogy in Northridge, did I realize that the methods that I was taught with is antiquated and much better systems have since emerged.

Without going into too much details on methodologies as that can fill volumes of books, I want to help parents able to pick out a good teacher from a bad teacher here. Here are a few helpful hints:

1. Is your prospective teacher still in High School?

Though I began teaching while I was in High School, knowing what I know now, I cannot recommend any High School students as a qualified music teacher no matter how talented they are. Being able to perform and being able to teach is two completely different things. High School age students are just not mentally ready to take on this position as a private one on one instructor.
Teaching music is not simply an exercise of transferring information to a student from a teacher, but also one that involves mentorship and guidance. Every student has a unique life and reason for being at their lesson, and it is the teacher's job to get to know where the student's coming from to help guide them to accomplish their goals.