A year in a day
I once paid $400 to talk like Patrick Star.
Best money I ever spent. Here’s why.
I play guitar, drums, piano and bass, and I write songs. Singing was another story. I had zero natural ability. Maybe less than zero. After my third band broke up because of the singer, I decided to learn it myself.
I worked at it for about two years, most of that with a $25 vocal coach. I got a little better. Not much. My studio was at a good friend’s house, so he heard every note, and at one point he sat me down for an actual intervention: “Tom, you suck. Whatever gave you all that musical talent gave you zero singing ability. You need to stop.”
Instead, I went looking for the best. I found Brett Manning, the vocal coach who’s worked with Taylor Swift, Hayley Williams of Paramore and Keith Urban. He learned from Seth Riggs, the coach behind some of the biggest voices of the ’80s and ’90s. I booked a lesson with one of the coaches on Brett’s team. About $400 for a single lesson.
He had me sing my song. He said, “Okay, not bad,” and thought for a moment in silence. After what felt like forever, he said, “Have you ever watched SpongeBob?” Confused, I was like, “Uh, yeah?” Then he asked me to have a conversation with him where I was Patrick and he was SpongeBob. For the next few minutes, we had a conversation like that. I was like, “Dude, did I really just pay you $400 so we could talk like cartoon characters?” He laughed. “Fair enough. Now sing me your song.”
It was instantly better. My voice felt free. He’d spotted my problem in about two minutes: I was pulling my larynx (my Adam’s apple) way up every time I sang. You see, when you pull it too high up, you start to strain your voice if you’re not doing it properly. Ten minutes of talking like Patrick brought it back down to a more neutral position.
I grew more in that one lesson than in the two years before it.
Later on, my friend from the intervention came out to see me play. “Dude, you sound amazing,” he said. “I’m eating my words.”
“You can grow a day in a year, or a year in a day. All it takes is somebody good enough to see your individual problem.”
Brett Manning
My $25 coach was good. Great, even. He helped quite a few of my friends become amazing singers. But he just couldn’t see what was actually wrong with my voice. He had never come up against someone just so shitty at singing before 😂
That’s my job when we work together: spot the one thing that’s really holding your business back, so you can stop growing a day in a year.
