The Art Of Attention — Arden Kaywin Teaches Singers To Trust Their Instrument

It's all about giving them tools to get in touch with their awareness,

To witness their thoughts,

To get in touch with the true self.

Because when you sing from that place,

Not only is your technique better because you're not sabotaging it in all the ways that you would if you were trying to prove something or force something or manipulate something so that you feel like you're not going to fail,

But you're so much more able to readily connect with an audience when you are singing from that place.

You can be vulnerable and you can allow your truth to come through because you've spent time with it and you're not scared of it.

Welcome to The Art of Attention,

I'm Darren Larson.

Arden Kaehwin is a singer and voice teacher who lives in Los Angeles.

She's developed a holistic approach to singing that combines both attention to vocal technique and to the mental habits that get in a singer's way.

I enjoyed this conversation so much because she's so enthusiastic about her work and because it's such a luxury to get to discover another person's unrepeatable blend of challenges,

Discoveries and insights.

You don't have to be a singer to enjoy what Arden has to say.

It applies to whatever skills you're working on in your life right now.

I hope you enjoy our conversation.

Hi Arden,

Welcome to The Art of Attention.

Hi Darren,

Thank you so much for having me.

Yeah,

I'm excited to talk to you.

Now it's a distracting world.

We've got tons of things competing for our attention and I'm interested in talking to people who are deciding not to wait for the world to get less distracting before they decide to respond to this challenge.

As you think about the stuff that you're working on,

I think starting with your personal life before we get into your musical teaching career,

I'd like to invite you to share something you're working on right now that you're trying to change how you relate to the distractions of modern life.

For me,

My journey into mindful practice has also really dovetailed with a spiritual meditation practice and so when I am talking about working on my mindfulness and working on attention and everything,

For me it comes down to the distractions in the brain,

My own distractions,

My own inner critic,

My own whatever that is that is taking me out of the present moment.

For me,

It's less about external distractions,

Be they screens and social media and all that stuff which I know is a real issue that a lot of people deal with.

For me,

It's more the spin of my own mind that's actually taking me out of being present and where I notice it the most in my own life is in parenting.

I have a six and a half year old daughter and I have heard it said that if you want to grow or change in any way,

Your children can be the best mirror for you if you let them and that if you let them is the part that is the most important because so many people don't use that as the mirror that it can be.

Whatever the issues are that every parent deals with,

With any child,

Any six year old toddler,

Whatever age your kids are,

It's showing you your own stuff.

That's been my experience.

I guess your education right now is letting a six year old teach you some things,

Right?

It's true.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Because she's mirroring back to me my energy.

She's mirroring back to me my own triggers.

She's mirroring back to me all of that stuff.

If I'm in the spin of my own mind,

I'm not seeing that and then I'm missing moments that I can learn about myself and learn about her.

If I'm letting myself be triggered,

If I am going into that victim mode in my head or beating myself up in my head or whatever it is,

That's the spin of the ego mind as I've learned it rather than getting in touch with my awareness and just witnessing what's going on and being present to it because when I'm in the spin,

I'm doing one of two things as I've learned.

I'm either future tripping,

So I'm totally freaking out about whatever this means for the future,

Whatever this instant is.

She doesn't want to clean up her room,

So I'm making that about,

Oh my God,

She's going to defy me when she's 15 years old and I tell her she can't go to the party.

Totally.

No,

It's real.

To full disclosure,

My daughter just turned 28,

But raising her has been the most satisfying aspect of my life and I totally relate.

I actually,

Envy might be too strong because it's hard work.

There's a lot of really great things about it and I envy,

I think what I envy is the process you're currently in and that you're going to be in.

Also,

Whatever mindfulness you currently have,

It's going to be so,

It's going to blow you away how beneficial it will be as she gets older.

You know that thing where you bring the baby home and maybe you're not supposed to lift anything heavier than the baby,

You're starting to develop these muscles that equip you to be able to parent.

It's the same thing.

I don't know how people parent an adolescent without having trained some kind of toolkit or strategies for responding all along the way.

What I think is so fascinating is to observe those developmental stages and just as you start to feel comfortable with one stage,

It's literally changing right in front of your eyes and the challenge level changes overnight.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For me,

What mindfulness helps me do is notice,

Witness,

Am I future tripping?

Am I freaking out about what this means for the future,

Which means I'm not in the present moment and I'm not actually seeing her and seeing me,

Or am I shaming myself about the past,

Meaning,

Well,

You can't do this,

You suck as a parent,

Whatever it is,

The last time,

Here it is again and she didn't do it last time and she's not going to do it again.

Whatever the spin is,

What I have learned is that we as humans,

And this is all of what your work is about,

We're very rarely in the present moment.

We're either future tripping or we're shaming ourselves about the past.

We're in the past or the future and it prevents us from a lot of joy and a lot of learning and a whole lot of things that we can just let go of and realize there's not such a big deal if we can actually be in the moment we're in and be present to it.

So for me,

It's less about the external distractions and it's about the internal distractions of my own mind wanting to spin out.

Yeah,

Well,

My hunch is we all kind of blame external distractions when I think,

I mean,

Certainly we have a lot of provocation out in the world,

Things competing for our attention,

But it really is an inside game,

Isn't it?

I love this idea of catching yourself already projecting something out into the future or dredging up something from the past.

What do you do when you catch it?

How do you bring yourself back?

Oh man,

So the way that I learned even how to do that,

How to witness my thoughts,

Because it's impossible in my experience to catch yourself if you don't have a practice of witnessing your thoughts when you're not triggered.

And so for me,

That's why a daily meditation practice for the last decade has been instrumental in teaching me daily,

Reinforcing that ability to just sit.

I meditate about half an hour and witness my thoughts,

Just witness.

And so if I didn't have that,

I don't think I would be able to even see that I was not in the moment.

I think that's where a lot of people suffer.

So now that I have that practice and I have that experience and I know what it's like,

I can recognize for me,

It's physical tells.

It's physical.

I know when I feel my diaphragm in the center of my chest start to seize that I know that I'm going somewhere and I'm not staying where I am.

So for me it's a physical tell.

And so oftentimes what I do is because I can witness,

I can remind myself,

This is not real.

And what I mean by that is whatever the fear that it's bringing up in you,

Nine times out of 10,

It's not real.

I was taught an acronym,

Which I love and I don't know who to give credit for this.

So I apologize if this is something that somebody is listening and came up with this acronym,

But it's the acronym for fear,

Which is false evidence appearing real.

It's not real.

It's something about,

I love the word resonance.

It resonates emotionally as if it were real.

It feels true.

But it's not.

What I hear you're doing is you're developing this early detection sensory.

You're noticing,

Oh,

Here are the tells that reveal to me that I am taking the story I'm telling myself as real and factual when it clearly it's a fantasy.

It's a fear.

What I'm really fascinated about exploring what you're describing there is it's a calibration of caring because we wouldn't have these scenarios that we're scaring ourselves with if we didn't care.

It's so tangled up in you want your daughter to grow to a well-adjusted human that thrives.

And so we hold up these stories that like,

Oh,

Here's a sign that I'm not headed in that direction,

Which is ridiculous.

And here's a sign that it's my fault.

I'm the reason it's a failure.

Completely.

Of course.

Why not?

So there's beating yourself up too.

Yeah.

So we could talk about parenting for a very long time,

But I do think we need to jump into how you.

.

.

Yeah,

Because that is not my area of expression.

But it will be.

It is.

It's becoming,

Right?

So how did you come to be a,

I don't know,

Vocal coach,

Vocal teacher?

I know I caught the word vocal producer even.

How is it that you got involved in what you're currently doing,

What you're currently working on?

So I am a classically trained singer.

You're in Ohio.

I went to Oberlin Conservatory,

Which is right down the road from you in Elyria County.

And so I did my undergrad at Oberlin Conservatory in classical voice.

And then I went on,

I did a master's in Manhattan School of Music in New York.

And then I sang professionally as an opera singer for a while.

I got burnt out and sort of segued into the commercial music world,

Recording world,

Made some indie pop records,

You know,

18 years ago,

As long as I would go,

Pre-Facebook,

And had a lot of songs licensed to every network you can imagine,

TV stuff,

Sang on commercials.

And I started to notice the direction that the contemporary music world was going in,

Which is that it's very hard for recording artists to make money because nobody wants to pay for records anymore.

And you have to be on the road 250 days a year because that's where money is for recording artists.

And I was turning 30 and I was getting married and I didn't want to be on the road 200 days a year.

And I had already sort of backdoored my way into a teaching studio because a lot of the producers that I had worked with and managers I had worked with knew about my training.

And so every once in a while they'd say,

Oh,

You know,

I have a singer who's,

She's awesome,

But she's a little struggling.

Can you come and produce vocals for her session,

Which means come and,

You know,

Help her get the best performance possible in the recording session.

So I would go and I would produce vocals and then invariably afterwards the singer would say,

Hey,

Do you coach?

Like,

Can I come see you?

Can we work on stuff?

And so I sort of backdoored my way into a nice teaching studio.

And so over the years it grew and it built up.

Once I knew I didn't want to be in the recording world anymore and then I wanted to kind of shift gears,

It was there.

I had already sort of started building it without much attention.

So I decided to put attention towards it.

And I had so much technical training and I enjoyed it.

I realized how much more I enjoy teaching in a weird way than performing.

I love performing,

But teaching is gratifying.

I mean,

I know it sounds cliche,

But it really made me feel like I'm making a difference in the lives of these performers who without me would continue to be stuck and not realize their full potential and be able to go out there and make a career out of it.

So yeah,

So that was over a decade ago.

And at the same time that I was building the studio and working with singers,

I started on my own decade plus mindful journey of mindful practice and spiritual practice and meditation.

And so I started to realize how so many of the issues that the singers in my studio were struggling with were not that they didn't understand the technique.

They understood,

Like intellectually,

They understood what I was asking them to do.

There came a point where they had all the technique in the world.

They understood it intellectually,

But at a certain point their body would shut down and it would be like,

Uh-uh,

Can't do it,

Too vulnerable,

Like too scary,

Too vulnerable.

And even though their brain intellectually knew what I was asking them to do,

Their brain was sabotaging their body out of all of these,

You know,

Whatever it is,

Fear.

The thinking was sabotaging the singing.

Such an interesting thing.

Artists tend to be drawn to making art,

Creating art,

Performing.

Maybe there's a lot of emotional intensity,

But not necessarily a lot of emotional skill or ability to regulate or navigate that emotion.

Has that been your experience?

It can.

I mean,

What I have experienced over the last decade with my singers is more that they get in their head.

So when they're in their head,

They're not,

It's not even about regulating or not regulating.

They're just not even connecting because they're in their head.

So they're anticipating or they are comparing.

They don't know how to get out of their own way.

Yeah.

And we might be saying something similar in different ways,

But yeah,

There's some block that is somewhere inside me.

I'm struggling and I've got some kind of block or internal friction that I need to get around.

But would you say that when you're working with them,

Then you're giving them skills that maybe allows them to unlock some of those blocks and then be able to express themselves in ways they hadn't realized they could?

Yeah.

I mean,

That is,

That's the idea.

And so it's understanding the ways that these blocks are preventing them from effectively using their instrument.

So when your body is your instrument,

As it is when you're a singer,

It is the self.

Your instrument is you.

And so there's all kinds of sense of self and identity tied up in it,

Whether they do it well,

Whether they don't,

Whether it comes out the way they want,

Whether they don't.

So there's all this stuff that's intertwined.

And the way singers are traditionally trained in this country and most elsewhere is that it leaves out training the one part of your body that will sabotage you every single time if it goes unexamined.

That's your mind.

Yeah.

That's your brain.

Okay.

And so understanding the blocks that are preventing you from trusting your instrument and trusting your technique is really the underlying work that we do.

And so it is high level technical vocal training merged with proven mindful practice to get them into an understanding of the quote,

What's really going on.

You know,

When you don't hit the note the way you want and you're frustrated,

It's not because your body doesn't know how to do it.

Your body was built to make sound.

Like you,

A human body is the most effective producer of sound that mother nature built.

You know,

Humans have built violins and trumpets all to imitate the beauty of the human voice.

And when you think about it,

Like we were all born with the capacity to make resonant sound.

A baby can cry at the top of its lungs for hours on end and never get hoarse,

Never get tired.

And it is the most present resonant sound.

But what happens is as we get older,

Either emotional things or physical things start to come in and get in the way of mother nature's most effective production of sound.

And so the way I work with singers is we deal with the physical things in terms of the technique,

The actual physical vocal technique,

Their breath support,

All of that stuff.

For some singers that's enough.

For some singers they're not in their head and they get that and they're on their way.

But for other singers,

They reach a frustration point when they know everything,

Like I was saying before,

They understand it,

But their body shuts down.

Their body can't do it when they want it.

So sometimes it'll be this great sound and sometimes it won't.

And they have no idea why.

They have no idea why it works once and why it doesn't the next time.

The inconsistency,

You can't have a career if you're inconsistent.

And we're talking about people with like amazing instruments,

Amazing voices and career potential who are not making it at the level they want because there's these blocks that are causing them to be inconsistent.

And when you're inconsistent,

Then you're not going to put yourself out there.

You're not going to take risks.

You're not going to invest in yourself the way you need to to make it happen because you don't trust it.

So do I have this right that you organically moved in this direction of becoming more of an instructor role.

And then somewhere during that you were also exploring for yourself mindfulness.

And you started to put the two together.

So what would you say,

When did you start to notice that your exploration,

Do you remember,

Of mindfulness starting to connect the dots for yourself that,

Wait a minute,

I can bring some strategy or insight that I'm learning over here in my mindfulness practice to my singing?

Is that how it has that?

Yeah.

I mean,

It wasn't like a conscious decision though.

So I would be in the studio with my students hours throughout the week and I would just start to drip the information,

Just drip some of the mindful information because I would see that they were blocked.

And it was so clear to me what it was coming from.

So I'd ask a few probing questions and we would have a discussion and I would start to give them permission to suck.

Like,

That's a big thing.

If you knew how many times I would say,

Can you please make a bad sound?

Like give yourself permission to make a bad sound.

And the minute they give themselves permission to do that,

The technique hooks in and the good sound comes out because everything that was preventing them from doing that was like what you said before about parenting because they care so much that they just get all up in there and micromanage and make force to manipulate,

Which does not help singing be good at all.

And so I just started to- It's a paradox.

It really is.

Yeah.

I can so relate.

So I started to drip it.

And as I did,

I started to realize what a huge impact it had.

And so then I developed the intensive that I do with singers,

Which is,

It's not traditional weekly voice lessons,

It's like a two month deep dive.

They're doing meditations,

They're doing thought exercises,

They're having weekly lessons,

They're in group studio classes.

I realized that I can only do so much in an hour lesson once a week,

But if they are doing these things between lessons,

It makes such a huge difference.

Yeah,

Totally.

Well,

That's in the work I do.

Mindful coaching is exactly what you're describing is what I do.

You can observe who is exercising in these ways.

Who's actually applying these things.

It just starts to naturally show up,

Right?

The benefits.

So I guess I'm curious,

Is there a particular style of mindfulness or are certain teachers that resonated with you or how would you describe your own discovery of the benefits there?

So I went on a retreat.

It was a meditation and mindful practice retreat to Greece of all places.

So there's a meditation studio here in Los Angeles called the Den.

I highly recommend it if anybody is in the Los Angeles area.

And there's many different teachers of many different styles of meditation and mindful practice and they sponsored this retreat.

And my friend owns the studio and so I was looking for some place to take myself for my birthday.

So I said,

I don't know anybody who's teaching.

I'm just going.

I'm going to Greece.

So I went on this retreat and there were two wonderful teachers on this retreat who really helped me to see like the big picture of all of this.

And they come from two very different,

I don't know what you would call it,

Lineages or I don't know,

Philosophies,

I guess.

The first,

Her name is Heather Preet and she is a mindfulness coach and meditation teacher.

And she teaches here in Los Angeles and also through the UCLA Mindfulness Institute.

And so her practice is,

I don't want to say it's not spiritual.

It is in the sense of connecting you to your own inner voice and your own truth,

But it's not from any lineage of,

You know,

Either Buddhism or Hinduism,

You know what I'm saying?

Yeah,

Totally.

So sort of secular in that way.

And really understanding presence and how to be present and how to witness thoughts and how to get out of the spin of the mind and get in touch with your awareness.

And at the retreat also is the person who's become my meditation teacher for years now.

And his name is Chandras Bhardwaj and he wrote a book called Break the Norms.

And it's funny,

When I met him,

I met him on this retreat.

I didn't know who he was before.

And then he gave me his book and the forward was written by the Dalai Lama and the afterward was written by Deepak Chopra.

And I was like,

Oh my God,

You're a big deal.

There's like no idea.

And so he comes from the tantra lineage.

You know,

People in the US hear tantra and they think sex and this is like nothing,

Nothing to do with that.

It is meditation and it is mindful practice,

But it comes from a more spiritual place of getting to that same truth within you of getting out of the mind,

The ego mind and getting in touch with your awareness and your true self.

And so when I do my own meditation,

The idea is to quiet the monkey mind and to get in touch with that awareness,

Which is,

As my experience has been,

My closest connection between my own truth and the universal sort of truth.

Call it the universe,

Call it God,

Call it whatever you want.

But whatever that greater thing is that is not me.

And that helps me to just realize that my mind is a processor.

It's just the processor.

Like it's,

Everything is being filtered through it,

But it's not always interpreting correctly.

Right.

It's got to,

Yeah,

You're filtering.

Filtering is a great way to put it.

And it's like,

So you're,

What I hear is you are observing your,

You're starting to observe your thoughts and feelings as opposed to taking them as literally true.

And somehow everything feels like it's about me and I'm the center of the universe.

But when I shift my perspective,

I can observe how I'm sort of making what,

Let's say some challenge.

I'm making it harder by how I'm reacting or relating to it.

Right.

And I'm making it all my own BS when nothing,

You know,

My favorite,

Favorite quote,

And I tell this to my students all the time is a Shakespeare quote,

Which is nothing tis neither bad nor good,

Tis thinking makes it so.

Right.

And like they're,

They're so busy judging their sound.

They're so busy judging.

And we're,

I mean,

You don't have to be a singer to get this.

Like you're so busy judging everything in your life as good or bad,

But that's your own filter.

That's what you're bringing to it.

And you know,

For a singer,

That's what I mean about they're so in their head that they can't actually trust their technique because when they're busy judging,

They're doing things to then like react to that in their body that is sabotaging the technique that they already know,

Which would be making a good sound for them,

But which is now not.

It's just so gummed up with all the internal stuff.

And I have to wonder,

At least this comes up a lot lately with folks I'm working with.

There's a story I'm telling myself about me or like,

Am I the best or am I worse?

We never think,

Am I a moderately good person getting better?

You know,

It's always like,

What if I don't realize I'm the best or worst or something like this,

Right?

It's always these- Right,

What if I just am?

Yeah,

What if I'm just somewhere,

What if I'm just learning?

But instead we tilt towards these best and worst.

But I'm also running into a lot of people describing to me how they have a sense of being observed.

Like doctors,

Someone whose practice is going really well,

But they have this awareness.

They're not sure how to read other people or they're not sure if people are being upfront with them about the feedback.

So there's this sort of internal panel that as they're going about their responsibilities,

Which there's every evidence that they are outstanding at what they do,

But it's this kind of internal second guessing that to me has this element of like a kind of an internal performance anxiety where someone is always watching me,

But I don't realize I'm sort of populating that panel of judges in my mind.

Yeah,

I call it the committee.

The committee.

It reminds me of the Council of Elders from Shazam back in the day on the TV show.

Do you remember?

I don't know that,

But I can imagine.

So you run into that too.

You call it the committee.

How do you- Yeah.

What do you suggest when people realize that's going on?

Or is realizing that it's going on kind of the thing?

I don't know.

Well,

Yeah,

There is some of that.

I mean,

What I've been taught,

What I've learned and what I teach my singers is that the first thing that has to happen is to name it because it's not you.

It's not the voice of your true self.

If it's screaming at you,

It's the committee.

It's the inner critic.

It's not the voice of the true self is the little voice.

It's that little voice that's saying,

Don't go in there.

And then the big voice is saying,

Oh,

But it's a party.

It's going to be fun,

But you're like 16 and you don't have a fake ID and you know you shouldn't be going in there.

You're right.

It's like the voice you really want to listen to is the voice that doesn't demand your attention and the voice that demands,

It's not fair,

Right?

The voice that demands is the one we should really question.

Right.

So it's like,

This is the committee now.

If it's beating me up,

It's the committee.

So you know that that's the inner critic or the committee,

Whatever,

Call it whatever you want.

And so for me,

What I learned and what I teach is like the first step in learning to deal with that with the inner critic is to name it because in doing so,

Okay,

This is the inner critic.

You're naming it,

You're detaching from it.

It is not you.

It is not you.

It's ego minds trying to beat you into submission to prevent you from doing the one thing that it cannot abide,

Which is failing.

And so how do you get more beats with honey or with like a whip?

Yeah,

Honey.

But like,

We're going to make you so afraid.

We're going to beat you up so much that you're,

God darn it,

You're not going to fail.

At least that's how it manifests for a lot of,

You know,

Singers and people who have to perform,

Right?

Because if they don't,

They're going to fail and then their life's going to be worthless and the dominoes fall from there,

You know?

So first just name it.

It's just the inner critic.

Okay.

It's not you.

And in doing so,

You start to,

We witness it and the witnessing,

We detach and we realize this is not the truth of us and then we can notice the pattern and I tell my singers,

I have them,

So the ones who do my program in one of the modules,

I have them write a letter firing their inner critic.

Okay.

And I say,

You know,

Give it a name.

One of my students named her Beulah.

I mean,

You know.

Yeah,

Right.

But in doing so,

I mean,

It's good to laugh at it,

Right?

Totally.

Because we're taking its control,

Its power away.

So she writes a letter to her inner critic named Beulah and I'm like,

You know,

Tell her that the company is going in a different direction.

Right.

We need to talk.

We need to talk.

I need to set some limits with you.

But it is a relationship you're describing.

You're guiding people to have a different relationship instead of just accepting the default relationship.

Right.

Yeah.

And it's very much about creating a new relationship with this inner critic because you are stepping into the role of true self and you're not going to be ruled by this inner critic anymore.

And so we fire.

We fire the inner critic.

You know,

We're going in a different direction.

Thank you for all of the work it's done for you over the years.

Yeah.

You know,

And we no longer need your services,

Blah,

Blah.

And then,

You know,

I will be working on a song or whatever and I'll see the fear come back and I will say,

Didn't you fire?

Didn't we fire the inner critic?

You know?

And so,

And then they laugh and I'm like,

Can you laugh at your inner critic?

Oh,

Ha ha ha,

Bula,

You're so predictable.

Here you are again.

Here you are.

Didn't I fire you?

What are you still doing here?

You know?

Right.

And I feel like in being able to laugh at it and,

And it really castrates it from having much power because you're just like,

You know,

Because they will try to come back.

You know,

Inner critic doesn't like being in retirement.

Right.

But,

But you have tools,

You know.

So it's all about giving them tools to empower themselves to get in touch with their awareness,

To witness their thoughts,

To get in touch with the true self.

Because when you sing from that place,

Not only is your technique better because you're not sabotaging it in all the ways that you would if you were trying to prove something or force something or manipulate something so that you feel like you're not going to fail.

But you're so much more able to readily connect with an audience when you are singing from that place because you can be vulnerable and you can allow your truth to come through because you've spent time with it and you're not scared of it.

And that's what audiences respond to.

Well,

And that's the another paradox,

Right?

Where the audience actually wants your vulnerability that's not collapsed or paralyzed.

It's like,

Um,

Right?

Something like this.

It's almost like you're setting the stage for people to get a taste of what vulnerability can feel like when it's actually used as a creative tool.

It's not something you're trying to get rid of.

Or at least that's how I kind of frame it.

I think there's,

Yeah,

There's something about vulnerability.

We think that people,

In order to feel connected to other people,

We have to be perfect.

And the irony is that nobody feels connected or close to a perfect person.

We actually need each other to be real and human and vulnerable,

I think.

So yes,

Perfect is boring.

Perfect is boring and mechanical.

And we've got machines,

We've got algorithms.

We still need people.

We still need humans,

Right?

Actually,

We need humans,

I think,

More.

So I've been poking around on all the stuff you have available online.

And one of the things that excites me the most is how many times I come across something that is a parent contradiction.

That's how I would frame it.

Something where you're giving a strategy to students that seems like an opposite.

I think you actually used the word opposition.

Would you maybe describe and tell me if this is something you feel like going into.

That this idea of the breath,

How there's some kind of instinctual ways that singers approach the breath.

But you sort of give them a way to flip that upside down.

A couple different ways to do that.

You know what I'm talking about?

Yeah,

Yeah,

I do.

So you know how to breathe.

Everybody knows how to breathe.

You don't have to think about it.

You do it a million times a day.

And it's very intuitive and easy.

We know how to breathe.

And yet singers think that they need to all of a sudden when it comes time to sing,

Get all up in there and do things to breathe.

And it's just maddening because it totally gets in the way of what their body already knows how to do.

And so specifically I'm talking about the inhale.

I hate the phrase take a breath because it implies a violence,

Like a doing.

And when you try to quote take the breath,

You're trying to help your body pull air into your body.

And in doing so,

You engage all these muscles of your throat to try to help the body pull air in.

And you end up constricting those muscles around the trachea,

Making the tube smaller.

And so you get less air.

But even forgetting about the mechanics of that,

It's like,

Why do we not trust breathing?

Like why?

Do you not breathe every single day?

And so I'm all about disrupting the thought process,

Which is I have to do something different to sing.

No,

You don't.

You are doing something different.

Right now the way you're breathing is different and it's getting in the way of you being able to sing.

So I like to tell singers release into the breath.

Let the breath come in.

There's a very big difference between let and take.

And it's about letting your body do what it already knows how to do.

If we were supposed to,

My favorite thing is to say to a singer who's breathing that way,

Like,

Would you go down the street?

Like you would die.

Why would you do that?

In our,

You would never do that in everyday life.

Why would you do that?

And then they,

They,

They realize that the silliness of it,

And then it,

Then it sort of starts to click in there.

Oh yeah.

I don't have to do anything.

I already know how to breathe.

So I'm just going to let my body do what it already knows how to do.

And it makes a kind of sense though,

Right?

Because they've,

They have been told to take a breath,

But there's something about the habit of micromanaging something that is natural,

I guess.

And it's hard to convey,

Right?

So you're sort of,

You sort of have to get an experience.

And I guess that's what really you're doing is providing this,

Having people to,

To take a new observation of something that's become autopilot and to,

To question that and disrupt it,

Which then results in them relaxing their grip on something that they thought they had to control.

Control.

Yeah.

Right.

Which they don't.

And like the word that you just used autopilot,

Like that's really the enemy for any good performer.

If you go on autopilot,

Which,

You know,

A lot of singers will say,

Oh,

I was so in the moment,

Like I was just so there and it felt amazing.

And then they go back and they watch the recording or listen to the recording and it doesn't sound the way they want.

And there's a big difference between being present and being in the moment versus being on autopilot.

I think people conflate the two because they feel like they want to be swept away into the emotion and everything of the song versus actually being present to the emotion of the song and feeling that in your body and that experience somatically.

But when a singer,

Especially when you're in your training,

You can't go on autopilot because like what I always say is it took a singer,

It took you 10,

15 years to sing this way.

Like how long have you been singing?

15 years.

Okay.

So you've been doing the old habit for 15 years.

The only way that we're going to build a new muscle memory is if you start to get present to what you're doing.

So don't go on autopilot.

Bring your awareness to the moment of the phrase.

Bring your awareness to the breath.

And without fail,

My favorite thing to do when a singer is having trouble with a phrase and I know what it is.

I know exactly how to fix it,

But I don't want to tell them because I want them to figure it out for themselves.

So what I will say is,

Can you bring your awareness to say it's a breath thing that they're having trouble with.

Can you bring your awareness to the moment in the melody,

The moment in the phrase where you start to push or whatever the thing is that I want them to fix.

And so nearly by bringing,

By doing the phrase again and by bringing their awareness to what they're doing,

99% of the time the phrase is fixed and I didn't have to tell them how.

They already know how.

Right.

That's the thing,

Isn't it?

The thing is,

All we can do is set the stage for that observation.

That observation has to come from the student.

Sometimes I don't know if you've ever heard of this analogy,

But I love the analogy that I'm really a midwife and I'm constantly trying to get better at not saying more than I need to say so that someone can just have that experience.

They are having the experience.

I'm just trying to nudge them in a direction so that they can have that experience.

It's natural,

Right?

Yeah.

And it's much more powerful than for them when they do that because it also sets up trust.

Trust in that awareness because what I want is the trust in the awareness to be much stronger than trust in whatever the ego mind is telling them.

And that internal critic or the committee start to learn to listen to that more subtle voice,

To trust that subtle voice.

It's like a calibration.

There's so much of this is about calibrating something natural,

But that we just tend to tilt towards things that are gripping and controlling and working against ourselves.

Yeah.

And I think that humans just in general,

We don't like not knowing.

That's right.

We don't like that we don't get to know what's going to happen,

How it's going to turn out.

We don't like that we don't get to know the outcome.

We don't like that we don't really have control over the ultimate outcome of our lives,

Of our talent.

We can do the footwork and do our best,

But at the end of the day,

There are many other factors that are so out of our control.

We don't like that.

And so we're going to try to control everything we possibly can.

And for a singer,

That's just deadly.

And I think it may be,

Yeah,

Totally.

I mean,

I'm assuming that's true,

But I also think it's so much everywhere,

Everyone everywhere,

That what you're saying is so,

So deeply true that,

Well,

Here's the thing.

We actually hate uncertainty,

And whether we like it or not,

Uncertainty is all we have,

Really.

But I think when you're talking about being stuck in our head,

I talk about sometimes of being kind of this ongoing narrative.

I'm telling a story about me.

But it's like we take the substance,

I can't control the outcome,

Then I will take a substitute.

I'll worry.

I'll imagine worst case scenarios,

And I'll kind of act as if that were control.

It feels like,

Back to this,

It feels like control.

Yeah,

You feel like you're doing something,

So you feel great,

But at the end of the day,

It's not actually propelling you forward.

It's like,

What's the old adage,

Worry is like a rocking chair,

You do a lot of motion,

But you don't actually get anywhere.

Yeah,

That's right.

That's right,

You're going nowhere,

But you feel like it's going somewhere.

You're working,

But you can't actually go anywhere.

So I'm wondering if you work,

I guess,

Primarily with singers.

What I'm hearing is that so much of what you are doing does have an impact into other areas of people's lives.

So I guess my,

I got a couple questions.

One is that,

Do you find that your students discover that they're relating to other aspects of their lives differently because of what they're learning in your classes?

And then also a question of,

And I'll kind of let you just,

But the other question is,

Do you ever find yourself being a resource to people who aren't singers?

So maybe public speaking,

Anyway,

That's a lot of,

There's a lot of questions there.

Yeah,

So I'll answer that last one first.

I have been approached,

And I do get approached often,

To work with people who use their voices in other ways besides singing.

And I don't work with those people,

I refer them to others because my area of expertise truly is in singing and in vocal technique for singing.

And speech techniques that speech pathologists might use or other vocal coaches like for actors who work,

It's a little different.

It's a little different technique and one that I am not an expert in.

And so I don't work with anybody else besides singers.

That said,

So your first question,

Do they find that it is impacting other areas of their lives?

Yes,

All the time,

Every single one of them,

100%.

And I have singers who have gone through my programs,

The first level and the second level,

And they're singing amazing.

And they're like,

But wait,

What am I,

I want to come back.

It's not about the singing anymore.

They have learned tools that they want to keep cultivating that are now serving them in different areas of their lives.

And I have to gently push them out of the nest and say,

You have all of these tools now.

They are going to serve you in every aspect of your life and go fly.

You know,

Like trust it,

Use it.

But it's true for the majority of them that because all the discovery work,

We are doing it with respect to their singing,

Their talent,

Their career,

Their hopes and their dreams for their career and their voice and all of that stuff.

But the truth of the matter is that what they're really gaining is the ability to get in touch with their awareness and their truth.

And that will help them in whatever they decide to go do.

We're doing it vis-a-vis their singing and their music.

But it has parallels in wherever they go.

I actually had one singer who left her husband after the program because she got so clear on everything that was blocking her and realized that she needed to let go of something that was not serving her and it was him.

And I was like,

Oh my God,

The fact that she felt so,

So clear and so empowered to do that and had,

Had nothing to do with her singing.

That toxic relationship was impacting everything about her singing because she was holding everything and not being able to trust and flow.

I think it's all,

It's all related.

I feel like your students are so lucky to discover you because you're pointing them to the root level of our,

Of what makes us suffer,

Right?

We're so preoccupied in our culture,

Maybe in all cultures actually,

To be fair,

With the surface,

The surface,

The surface perfecting.

And it's so,

So liberating to go down a couple layers down to where we're getting tangled up on the inside at a deeper level because yeah,

It's connected to everything.

I also feel like your students are super lucky because you have,

Well,

Things that stand out to me.

There's an enthusiasm,

Kind of a vibrancy,

But it also seems something about the focus,

Knowing what your focus is and know,

Being so clear about what your role is and when it's time for that person to go on and apply what they've learned.

It's also,

You know what,

It's good parenting.

To me,

It's preparing people to not need us.

Yes.

But to thrive.

And I think being a good parent,

Being a good coach means knowing where my boundaries are.

How do I set realistic boundaries that are designed to help the people I work with or the children I raise to actually be rooted and internalize these skills that I want to pass on.

Instead of having them need me,

I want them to trust themselves and learn how to be comfortable with uncertainty.

Right?

Yeah.

Wow.

It's so cool.

I don't know.

It's such a treat to get to meet you and to know you're out there in the world.

Thank you so much.

How do people,

Singers,

I guess,

Find you?

I know we can put a ton,

Whatever you mentioned here and plus more,

I'm kind of a curator.

I love to make a lot of links available in the show notes for these conversations.

So anything you've mentioned so far,

I can definitely put in the show notes,

But what are some other things you'd like for me to include so people can find you?

Yeah.

So my website is ardenkawinvocalstudio.

Com and I have a Facebook group for pro singers and fledgling pro singers,

Almost pro singers,

Who feel like they have a lot of training and have experience and yet they're not at the level that they want to be in their singer or their career.

They're not seeing the results of all of that training yet in their career.

That feeling of being always the bridesmaid,

Never the bride,

Always the understudy.

You get into the callbacks and then you don't get it.

So it's called the Pro Singer Success Collective and it's a private Facebook group,

But you can look it up and click the link to apply to join and I'll let you in if you're a singer.

Sometimes people,

I don't know,

They try to just collect groups and they're not really people who really need that group,

You know?

So that's why I filter because I want people in there who really want great tools and I go live to the group once a week on a variety of topics.

This past week were the three things that I believe are essential for career success that have nothing to do with singing technique.

So yeah.

Well,

And also just to be clear,

What I discovered looking around was that you don't actually,

If you're a singer and you don't live in LA,

You are also doing coaching through Zoom.

Is that still true?

Yeah,

I do.

So at this point I'm primarily working with singers in my two month intensive program.

I have a few every once in a while singers that I will see on a one off basis,

Like in an old style,

Just weekly traditional technique lesson.

But at this point where my time is and my passion is,

Is working with singers doing this deep dive,

Getting under the hood and understanding why you're not having the success you want.

You're good.

You've got talent.

You're in there.

You're in the mix.

Why are your auditions not landing?

You know,

Are you able to get that meeting with the label and then you don't get the record deal?

What's going on?

Why are you not packing the room for your show?

It's not that you're not talented enough.

It's not that you don't have a voice.

It's that there's some block preventing you from going from where you are right now to where you want to go.

And so what we do is we merge the technical training with the deep dive of understanding what's going on in the thinking behind the singing with the mindful practice and they unfold in parallel fashion over the eight weeks.

And it's an incredibly transformative program for singers.

It builds the foundation.

So to me,

The foundation that is going to give you the ability to have a lasting impact as a singer in a career is not its vocal technique is one part of it.

It's artistry and performance,

Which is like knowing who am I as an artist?

Can I feel comfortable even showing that and then mindset?

And so that is the foundation that we build in this intensive.

So at this point I do do online lessons every once in a while,

But it's just my schedule is so tight with the people who are in my intensive that it's just often hard to find time in the schedule.

I hear you.

And is that intensive?

That is face to face.

No.

If you're in LA,

Yes,

You'll come here to my studio,

But you can do it anywhere in the country.

And we do one on ones on Zoom.

We do a group studio class.

So it's singing,

It's masterclass format,

But we also do it on Zoom.

And then we have a mindset call,

Which is also on Zoom.

I mean,

Technology makes it amazing.

It's amazing.

It's so cool.

I would love for people to discover your work through our conversation.

That would be super satisfying.

Very cool.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Awesome.

All right.

Well,

So thank you so much for your time and I hope we find ways to stay in touch.

You are so welcome.

It's been a pleasure.

And thank you for listening.

What techniques or strategies do you rely on in the work you're doing?

What skills are you working on to keep your relationships healthy and satisfying?

I hope you walk away from this conversation inspired to trust your ability to dive into the messiness of learning and getting better at the skills that are important to you.

In the show notes,

You'll find links to a few resources related to topics Arden and I covered in this episode.

If you enjoyed our conversation,

I hope you'll help us spread the word.

In addition to listening on wcbe.

Org through the WCBE podcast experience,

You can also find it on iTunes,

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And on the Insight Timer Meditation app.

If you or someone you know is interested in being on a future episode,

Please email me at daron,

D-A-R-O-N,

At attentionalfitness.

Com.

You can also email me to let me know what you think of this or any other episode.

Until next time,

Don't wait for the world or your mind to get less distracting.

Find ways to exercise your attention right now.

I'd love to hear about it.