Transcript
Hi I’m Cari Cole. I’m a celebrity vocal coach and artist development expert. And I help artist find their voice, craft their music, and create successful music careers. I’ve worked with Donald Fagen from Steely Dan, Courtney Love from Hole, I’ve worked with the band Journey. I’m going to teach you how to be a better singer and performer
A lot of people come to me asking me how young is too young to start, and when should a person start training. The youngest student that I took, because I really start with technique first, was seven. I don’t take many seven-year olds. The reason I took her was she had not only so much good tone and a good sound, but she was so into it. Her attention span was really focused on this subject. I knew that instantly we struck up this relationship it was going to work. And so there’s a lot of factors that go into my choice in that regard.
But I think one of the reason parents tend to hear this general comment of don’t train your child too young, you could ruin their voice, is if they train with more of a sorry guys, musical theatre teacher who is only teaching them to belt and is not concerned with the health of their voice. This can be damaging. So you want to make sure that you find a coach that has a really good, solid technique under their belt. And then there really is no age too young as long as their attention span is there. I mean, it’s not going to be too interesting for a five-year old to study technique, but they might want to sing songs. If they’re interested in music, I would have them learn piano or learn an instrument. And that’s the place to start. I started at six with guitar. I didn’t get into singing until later.
You want to stimulate their interest in music, and scientists say that there is an area of the brain that grows with musical education. That’s why I make space in my program for eight students under the age of fifteen, every year. Because I really believe in fostering the talent in young singers. But either way, it’s important to have a coach that really understands technique and can lead them correctly, so that they don’t their voices. And it’s invaluable for them because it’s set up in their muscle memory to sing correctly.
For instance, Katy Perry started, I think, when she was nine, with opera lessons. She trained from nine to sixteen. But you can hear it in her voice. She has a lot of overtones and a lot of clarity and a lot of tone. So it’s a cool thing to do, as long as you find the right approach.
