Speaker 1: Pushkin, Are you ready to do a vocal lesson? I'm
Speaker 1: ready to do a vocal lesson. Why don't we start
Speaker 1: with a little me me me? Yeah, make me sing
Speaker 1: the one I'm most scared of, me me me me
Speaker 1: me me me me me. I guess it's that, but
Speaker 1: you would go all the way up right, Yeah, do
Speaker 1: that again? Me me me me me me me me
Speaker 1: me all right, I don't know what you're scared of,
Speaker 1: because you made that sound so easy. Me me me
Speaker 1: me me me me me me. Yeah. It's really hard
Speaker 1: to do though, because I'm hyper focused. I'm like hyper
Speaker 1: focused on being relaxed on a e vowel where I'm
Speaker 1: feeling like I'm less open. I start to kind of
Speaker 1: trip myself up even just doing it there. I had
Speaker 1: to be like, all right, we're gonna do this, but
Speaker 1: you gotta relax, man, you don't have to be so tight.
Speaker 1: This is backstage pass. I'm Eric Metro, and this podcast
Speaker 1: I'm inviting you into my studio to hear how some
Speaker 1: of the most successful and famous singers work on their craft,
Speaker 1: the art of singing. They also happened to be students
Speaker 1: of mine, so I have to say I know them
Speaker 1: pretty well. We'll talk about everything, their vocal process, their careers,
Speaker 1: how their emotional life affects their voice, and how it
Speaker 1: all intertwines with their lives. That was me talking with
Speaker 1: Shawn Mendez. He'll know his songs like Stitches, Mercy, treat
Speaker 1: you better If I can't have you, There's nothing holding
Speaker 1: me back Wonder and also Spotify's most dream song of
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, his duet with his girlfriend Camila Cabeo called Senorita.
Speaker 1: Now don't worry, You'll get to hear from Camilla Cabeo
Speaker 1: in a future episode later this season. Sean's really close
Speaker 1: to his family. In fact, they were his earliest audience.
Speaker 1: I remember the first time I sang for my mom
Speaker 1: and my family. He was The Climb by Miley Sara.
Speaker 1: I went into my kitchen and I played the music
Speaker 1: and I was shaking because I was like singing in
Speaker 1: front of my mom and my aunts and my cousins,
Speaker 1: and I sang the whole song with my eye clothes
Speaker 1: and I opened up the eyes and I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: my mom was crying and everyone was crying, and I
Speaker 1: was like, wow, it was really sweet. So she still
Speaker 1: tries to get me to do that in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: Sometimes some day you've got to record that for her
Speaker 1: as a gift. You know what I did from Mother's Day?
Speaker 1: I recorded her favorite song as Fast Car by Tracy Chapman.
Speaker 1: I was away because of the quarantine, so I recorded
Speaker 1: that for her. You've got a fast I've got a
Speaker 1: ticket to anywhere. Maybe we can make a change. I
Speaker 1: remember when I first started learning guitar. I picked up
Speaker 1: the guitar and she's like, just learned this song from me, please,
Speaker 1: And that was probably like the first or second song
Speaker 1: I ever learned on guitar. Too. It didn't take long
Speaker 1: for Sean to figure out what he needed to do now.
Speaker 1: Even though he got his and innovation and quite an
Speaker 1: emotional response from his kitchen audience, Young Sean decided to
Speaker 1: move his performances to a somewhat wider audience. On Buying
Speaker 1: Fine no longer exists, but for those of you who
Speaker 1: don't know or had forgotten, it was a platform where
Speaker 1: you could share six second long videos like this one
Speaker 1: Hallo from me or this one which got millions of
Speaker 1: views from every second other day and a Jeans Girl
Speaker 1: they were doing like a viner's meet up in downtown Toronto,
Speaker 1: and they asked me to come and just be there.
Speaker 1: So my parents were like, should we come? I said, no,
Speaker 1: no one's gonna know who I am there. I don't
Speaker 1: really think anyone's going to know me. And then when
Speaker 1: I got there, I kind of was walking up the
Speaker 1: subway to like the main area undonea square, and I
Speaker 1: remember just like Mayhem started and I finally found my
Speaker 1: way to this stage and got to perform for like
Speaker 1: a couple hundred people, just with a mic and an
Speaker 1: acoustic guitar, and I remember this feeling of like performing
Speaker 1: for people and with people they were singing along. I
Speaker 1: came home freaking out to my parents. I was like,
Speaker 1: you're not going to believe what happened, Like all these
Speaker 1: people were listening to me singing songs. And when I thought, okay,
Speaker 1: you know what, I want to be a performer. I
Speaker 1: want to be an artist. Was that very first time
Speaker 1: in Toronto, and I was lucky because I got to
Speaker 1: do it in front of people who knew who I
Speaker 1: was because of this social media platform, and it was
Speaker 1: this like such a great first experience for me. I
Speaker 1: guess like ever since that moment when I like really
Speaker 1: got to perform for people for the first time with
Speaker 1: no lights and no cameras and just an acoustic guitar.
Speaker 1: I was kind of in love right off the bat.
Speaker 1: And there's a couple hundred people cheering and they're super excited.
Speaker 1: There's this obviously this confidence boost you get and you're like, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: if a couple hundred people are liking this, than maybe
Speaker 1: a couple hundred thousand people will like this, and maybe
Speaker 1: a couple of million people will like this. And I
Speaker 1: think that it only takes a couple to kind of
Speaker 1: ignite that flame of I'm going to take this all
Speaker 1: the way. Did you feel that way right from the start? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think I always had this grand vision of where
Speaker 1: things can go. And I owe a lot of that
Speaker 1: to my parents for being so you can do anything,
Speaker 1: you can do absolutely anything. And I feel really lucky
Speaker 1: and blessed because I know that a lot of people
Speaker 1: may not have the support that they necessarily need to
Speaker 1: go the distance. And I feel like more support than
Speaker 1: anyone even ever talks about or ever hears about, is
Speaker 1: necessary for success. I got to see Sean play at
Speaker 1: the Rodgers Center in Toronto. It's his home base, so
Speaker 1: of course it was a really special show. I ever
Speaker 1: see a person in this room. I watched the show
Speaker 1: with his family and his friends, and of course Camilla,
Speaker 1: his mother, was right in front of me. She looked
Speaker 1: like every other teenager in the crowd, singing along, dancing
Speaker 1: and enjoying the best concert of her life. I don't
Speaker 1: know if she could have ever imagined just how successful
Speaker 1: he was going to become, but I knew, and I
Speaker 1: think on some level, Sean always knew. My favorite story
Speaker 1: is when you said you used to walk around the
Speaker 1: house with the ball between your legs when you're into
Speaker 1: the soccer face. Yeah, I would have like a soccer
Speaker 1: ball between my feet all the time because I was like,
Speaker 1: this is either going to go to the World Cup
Speaker 1: or nowhere. And that's how you approached the singing. It
Speaker 1: was the same with the singing. When I say Sean's discipline,
Speaker 1: do I ever mean it? I'm already singing in the
Speaker 1: lesson ten minutes before we start a lesson. I'm doing
Speaker 1: my pre warm up warm up. I know. I love that, though,
Speaker 1: and that's just you right totally. I think the truth
Speaker 1: is like everybody has a different real like passion and
Speaker 1: a real desire within them and not everyone's going to be,
Speaker 1: you know, as obsessive about singing as I am, but
Speaker 1: they're going to have something. And I think the trick
Speaker 1: to success in your life is finding the thing that
Speaker 1: you really love and putting all of your energy into that,
Speaker 1: because that is when you're going to get real reward
Speaker 1: from what you do. The truth is, you have to
Speaker 1: practice really really hard, and you have to work really
Speaker 1: really hard, but you also have to be really really
Speaker 1: patient because things that are great take a long time.
Speaker 1: I think in every single profession there's so many times,
Speaker 1: especially when things get bigger, where it's really hard and
Speaker 1: really exhausting, but there's always this kind of flame that
Speaker 1: can't burn out for what you do and this love
Speaker 1: for what you do. And right right, well, I like
Speaker 1: the fact that you did have an obsession before singing,
Speaker 1: and that was with soccer only because it's showing that
Speaker 1: you really got to find the one thing that you
Speaker 1: really love and it might change along the way. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean I played soccer, and I played hockey, and
Speaker 1: I played baseball. I played a ton of sports and
Speaker 1: I even took like a drama like acting class where
Speaker 1: I was like I played Prince charming in a play
Speaker 1: when I was like thirteen and I was testing all
Speaker 1: of the waters out before singing and playing guitar came along.
Speaker 1: And there's a very clear difference between something that you
Speaker 1: like to do and something that is your passion, because
Speaker 1: when it's your passion, you start doing it and then
Speaker 1: four hours go buying and you wonder where the time went.
Speaker 1: I think that anyone who has a passion will know
Speaker 1: when I talk about this little tingly feeling that you
Speaker 1: get when you're doing the thing that you love to do.
Speaker 1: And even if you get five seconds of like euphoria
Speaker 1: through your body because you sang it one certain way
Speaker 1: or you played a chord a certain way, you're whatever
Speaker 1: you're doing, you're painting, you're doing anything. That little five
Speaker 1: seconds of euphoria makes a lifetime of work really exciting
Speaker 1: and desirable, you know what I mean. And I also
Speaker 1: think it's really important to say that if you feel
Speaker 1: like you haven't found your passion and you've tried a
Speaker 1: lot of things, it doesn't mean that one of those
Speaker 1: things won't end up being your passion because you kind
Speaker 1: of have to grow to figure out what it is
Speaker 1: that you do love to do. Sean's completely right about that.
Speaker 1: For me, it wasn't until I saw Ed Sheeran and
Speaker 1: him playing an acoustic guitar and him singing the way
Speaker 1: he did that I thought, you know what, I can
Speaker 1: do that. I never really thought I could be justin Bieberan.
Speaker 1: I never really thought I could dance like him and
Speaker 1: be like him. But I can play guitar and I
Speaker 1: can sing like that. Ed to me, was the most
Speaker 1: exciting musician there was because the guitar was his third
Speaker 1: arm and he was like using it as a real
Speaker 1: piece of him. And I love the way he played,
Speaker 1: I love the way he wrote songs and sang. He
Speaker 1: really inspired me. And sometimes it just takes a minute.
Speaker 1: It's waiting for the right time to kind of present
Speaker 1: itself to you. Ed was actually one of the first
Speaker 1: musicians who I ever met. And I flew out to
Speaker 1: la the first time with my mum and he was
Speaker 1: performing on a show called The Voice, and we went
Speaker 1: there to meet him and he was so kind. I
Speaker 1: was backstage with him and he said to me, look man, like,
Speaker 1: what do you want to do? And I said, well,
Speaker 1: I want to do what you do. I want to
Speaker 1: play guitar and sing and be a singer songwriter. And
Speaker 1: he was like, then, you have to put an insane
Speaker 1: amount of effort and work and love into what you do.
Speaker 1: And he's like, no matter who you meet, no matter
Speaker 1: how many people you meet, you have to show them
Speaker 1: so much love and you have to work really hard.
Speaker 1: And I think that his advice. I'll always remember. I
Speaker 1: met you in two fifteen, I believe. Do you remember
Speaker 1: where it was? I think it was at the Staples
Speaker 1: Center and Camilla introduced us. He's talking about Camilla Kabao,
Speaker 1: who was already one of my students. Yeah, we were backstage.
Speaker 1: I was talking to her. You came over. You were
Speaker 1: smiling this big smile, and she said, this is my
Speaker 1: voice teacher, Eric Vitrow, And do you know what you said?
Speaker 1: I don't remember. All right, Oh, okay, I got a
Speaker 1: few questions for you. He started asking me about voice immediately,
Speaker 1: and the whole time we stood backstage, that's how we
Speaker 1: did about it. Yeah. I remember thinking, Wow, he really
Speaker 1: is interested in being great, like he really desires to
Speaker 1: get better. Yeah, which was pretty impressive. And after all
Speaker 1: these years Sean's dedication, it's still impressive. I spend most
Speaker 1: of my time preparing myself to do vocal lessons with you,
Speaker 1: preparing myself to how I'm going to feel after a
Speaker 1: vocal lesson. Am I gonna have to meditate? Am I
Speaker 1: gonna have to meditate before? Am I gonna have to meditate?
Speaker 1: Somewhere in between? So I guess a lot of meditation
Speaker 1: really ranks high in your life, super high. But I
Speaker 1: need the meditation right right. Sometimes I need the meditation.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you have to meditate before our lessons. But Sean
Speaker 1: didn't always meditate in journal. When it actually started taking
Speaker 1: it seriously and discipline myself to meditate daily for ten
Speaker 1: minutes at least, that was life changing because it's not
Speaker 1: about the act of meditating for ten minutes. It's about
Speaker 1: the moment of being in the vocal lesson and being like,
Speaker 1: let me just take a deep breath. It's the attitude.
Speaker 1: It's the motto of meditation. You know. I wake up
Speaker 1: in the morning. Something that really helps me kind of
Speaker 1: not go into an anxious state of thinking right off
Speaker 1: the bat. Is like getting straight into a cold shower
Speaker 1: and breathing and feeling my body and being like, all right,
Speaker 1: here we are. I get out of the shower and
Speaker 1: I go downstairs or outside, I find myself to someone
Speaker 1: where there's some light and I can see this guy,
Speaker 1: or put my feet in the grass or something, and
Speaker 1: I do the Whimhoff breathing technique, and then maybe I'll meditate.
Speaker 1: Maybe I'll have a coffee. And even as I'm having
Speaker 1: my coffee, like I'm doing this all very mindfully, sitting
Speaker 1: there with the coffee, and I'm not letting myself check
Speaker 1: my emails or my Instagram or my Twitter, because this
Speaker 1: morning is for me, it's not for everyone else. And
Speaker 1: I think that that morning ritual of really letting myself
Speaker 1: be there and for myself really helps. And then I
Speaker 1: guess at some point later in the day, I'll find
Speaker 1: myself journaling and meditating and it's really helpful. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: know what I've never said to you. I thought it,
Speaker 1: but I've never said it. I've always been dying to
Speaker 1: stay as a joke, but I didn't want to put
Speaker 1: it in your head. But now you're so far beyond its.
Speaker 1: Like I told you someday this meditation thing would work out,
Speaker 1: because I used to say, and you remember what you
Speaker 1: used to say to me. I can't meditate. I can't
Speaker 1: do that. No, like you get really acting. Oh, I
Speaker 1: used to get so and used to tell me to journal.
Speaker 1: I journal every day. Now, yeah, did you journal today?
Speaker 1: I didn't, but I will, I will, I will do it,
Speaker 1: and I never did. And I could see that look
Speaker 1: in your eyes, like, ask me one more time, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna you can be so anxious you can't meditate, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I get it, Oh my god. Yeah, but look at
Speaker 1: how far it's come. And you know you were You
Speaker 1: were telling me to meditate and journal the day I
Speaker 1: met you. Yeah, I was telling him from the day
Speaker 1: I met him. But I'm so glad now it's a
Speaker 1: part of his daily routine. Sometimes I feel like we're
Speaker 1: in lessons and I'll be sitting on the floor kind
Speaker 1: of closed eyes, cross legged and meditating for five minutes
Speaker 1: and you're just patiently waiting for me to come back
Speaker 1: to being human. But it's part of the process. And
Speaker 1: we've had tons of breakthroughs, and when we have a breakthrough,
Speaker 1: the most important thing to remember is that this will
Speaker 1: not be the last breakthrough. It's gonna come around, it's
Speaker 1: gonna happen again. You just have to be open to
Speaker 1: the fact that it's always changing and you can't do
Speaker 1: anything about that, and that's kind of the beauty of it.
Speaker 1: Comparing Sean from all those years ago when I first
Speaker 1: met him and knowing him now, I definitely see him
Speaker 1: as being much calmer and much more grounded. And I
Speaker 1: have to believe a lot of it has to do
Speaker 1: with the journaling and the meditation. I rest my case now,
Speaker 1: don't go anywhere. Sean and I have even more to
Speaker 1: talk about backstage. Pass will be right back. Welcome back.
Speaker 1: Let's keep going with Shawn Mendez. I think it's time
Speaker 1: to talk about his favorite vocal exercise, the bottle. Don't
Speaker 1: get me started about the bottle. You're gonna have to
Speaker 1: explain that it's not drinking the bottle. It's not whiskey
Speaker 1: or vodka. It's basically like a plastic water bottle with
Speaker 1: a straw attached to it, and you sing into the
Speaker 1: straw and you're blowing air through the straw, and you're
Speaker 1: kind of making bubbles in the bottom, and you're doing scales.
Speaker 1: And I think the reason I love the bottle so
Speaker 1: much it makes my voice feel better. But I think
Speaker 1: the bigger actual reason is because it frees me up
Speaker 1: from judgment and critique. At the beginning of the lesson.
Speaker 1: You know, I can't really hear myself very well because
Speaker 1: I'm being muffled through water. So I'm okay with it
Speaker 1: if I miss a couple of notes and it kind
Speaker 1: of frees you up. I think there's a lot of
Speaker 1: insecurity with singing when you have a lot of people watching.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I get so into it having to be perfect.
Speaker 1: I stopped hearing my voice and I start making up
Speaker 1: what I'm hearing, and I'm like, Eric, it sounds scratchy
Speaker 1: and it sounds bad, and I'm missing the notes. I
Speaker 1: have to sit down and kind of collect myself. Otherwise
Speaker 1: we're not going to be able to move forward with
Speaker 1: this stuff. So it's taken a lot of work. When
Speaker 1: I first started working with Sean, I used to worry
Speaker 1: about his anxiety and full disclosure his anxiety gave me
Speaker 1: a lot of anxiety, but not anymore after all these
Speaker 1: years of observing him, I now know he always pulls
Speaker 1: out of it. You know what's hard for me is
Speaker 1: doing mimes in a scale like really chill and really
Speaker 1: quietly just going up, even like at the beginning of
Speaker 1: the lesson, when you asked me to go m like
Speaker 1: doing that stuff I get so freaked out about doing
Speaker 1: because I'm like, well, if you crack on one of
Speaker 1: these little simple things, you just suck. That's the real truth.
Speaker 1: If you ask me what we do in those lessons.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I black out some days. It's really hard, literally
Speaker 1: word for word. I've said to Eric over and over again,
Speaker 1: I don't know why, but I can't sing, and it's
Speaker 1: a scary place to be. And I think this subject
Speaker 1: goes across hundreds and hundreds of different types and ways
Speaker 1: it could be for people, But for me, it's this
Speaker 1: feeling of like I've forgotten how to sing, or maybe
Speaker 1: I never even knew how to sing, or maybe I'm
Speaker 1: just getting away with this big trick. Maybe I'm not
Speaker 1: even a good musician at all. Sometimes I'm always like,
Speaker 1: if one day Eric was just like, I'm not doing
Speaker 1: lessons anymore, I'd be like, well, I can't sing anymore.
Speaker 1: And there's this big spiral that happens within the course
Speaker 1: of twenty seconds, and Eric sees it in is this
Speaker 1: they start to cross. Okay, So sometimes it is my
Speaker 1: job to get people out of their heads. Make that
Speaker 1: quite often my job is to get people out of
Speaker 1: their heads. It's an occupational hazard. Some singers find singing
Speaker 1: scales up and down or singing major arpeggio's really easy,
Speaker 1: So I'll throw in a minor one because when they
Speaker 1: start focusing on how to sing that unexpected minor note
Speaker 1: and tune, they can't pay attention as much to the
Speaker 1: quality of their singing voice, So then their voice can
Speaker 1: really open up. Or I'll have them do a variety
Speaker 1: of physical gestures so they completely forget about their voice
Speaker 1: because now all they can think about is all the
Speaker 1: ridiculous moves I'm making them do. Like for me, I
Speaker 1: go through this thing, I'm like, well, why can't I
Speaker 1: just sing because I can speak when I wake up?
Speaker 1: But you're doing vocal gymnastics and you really have to
Speaker 1: warm up otherwise you can really hurt yourself. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I still haven't learned that lesson. Well, yeah, because if
Speaker 1: you start listening to yourself with that afectionistic ear right
Speaker 1: from the very beginning of the warm up, it puts
Speaker 1: you at a disadvantage because you're not going to sound
Speaker 1: great at the beginning of a warm up. That's the
Speaker 1: whole purpose of warming up, and sometimes it doesn't even
Speaker 1: sound great at the end of the warm up. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it takes doing a vocal warm up and then even
Speaker 1: taking thirty minutes of like resting your voice, or thirty
Speaker 1: minutes of just eating some food or anything, and you
Speaker 1: come back and you're like, oh, wow, I am warmed up.
Speaker 1: It's just you're a little bit too inside of the practice.
Speaker 1: And I think the hardest part of singing is getting
Speaker 1: out of your own way, is dropping the ego and
Speaker 1: like just being a kid about it. Like when you're
Speaker 1: a kid, you just sing. When you're an adult, you're
Speaker 1: like singing, but at the same time also like critiquing
Speaker 1: and judging and like afraid. And one of the most
Speaker 1: amazing leaps we made as a duo was the day
Speaker 1: I was like realizing I was like not letting you
Speaker 1: tell me what the real objective thing was because I
Speaker 1: was so afraid and so anxious, and I was like
Speaker 1: no, no no, no, yeah, yeah, I don't want to hear that.
Speaker 1: I don't want to hear that. I wasn't listening to
Speaker 1: my teacher. I was like, I just have to get
Speaker 1: through it out of so much anxiety. And then you're like,
Speaker 1: I really think you should trust me. That was not
Speaker 1: long ago, and I feel like once I really like
Speaker 1: started to just like trust you and trust the process
Speaker 1: and trust me, my voice started to open up more.
Speaker 1: Not only your voice, but don't you feel better as
Speaker 1: a human being? I mean, like I said, it's parallel
Speaker 1: to like to life in general. I love when we
Speaker 1: are just like cruising, like I think for me, it's
Speaker 1: become a meditation too, because I put my phone down
Speaker 1: for an hour. I just basically have headphones and I
Speaker 1: can only hear you in the piano, and I can
Speaker 1: be so focused on just the notes and my breathing
Speaker 1: and very present in my body, and you and I
Speaker 1: are very just zoned in and calm. It's a beautiful experience.
Speaker 1: I find a lot of the time I end up
Speaker 1: leaving the vocal lesson calmer. The whole thing was a
Speaker 1: very zen moment, even in the silence when we're breathing.
Speaker 1: I love those moments because that feels like the only
Speaker 1: hour of the day where things move that slow and carefree.
Speaker 1: Oh wow. Yeah, when people can let go, it makes
Speaker 1: all the difference in the world. And like you said,
Speaker 1: be able to open your mind and go all right,
Speaker 1: So tell me what to do and I'll do it,
Speaker 1: and I'll trust it, because if you can't trust your teacher,
Speaker 1: then who can you really trust totally? I mean, I
Speaker 1: think singers are so emotionally attached to their voice that
Speaker 1: sometimes we'll be backstage at an award show. We'll spend
Speaker 1: fifteen twenty minutes warming up, and then another forty minutes
Speaker 1: just talking about the heart and calming down and getting
Speaker 1: into the right frame of mind to be able to
Speaker 1: do this. Even in our lessons, you end up accomplishing
Speaker 1: more when you're in the right frame of mind than
Speaker 1: doing an hour worth of scales stressed out and frustrated.
Speaker 1: And I think being a vocal coach it's much more
Speaker 1: than going through scales with someone I always call Eric
Speaker 1: my vocal coach slash therapist, because you're never like just
Speaker 1: doing one thing. That's what you are in my phone.
Speaker 1: Your bio is voice teachers, last therapist. Well, someone did
Speaker 1: say in an interview once I was their vocal life coach,
Speaker 1: It's true, you really are. I love that phrase, vocal
Speaker 1: life coach. I thought that was one of the biggest
Speaker 1: compliments I'd ever gotten, because my lessons aren't always about
Speaker 1: vocal placement. Sometimes the most important thing is helping a
Speaker 1: student get mentally ready for a show. Something that helps
Speaker 1: me a lot is that I say to myself before
Speaker 1: a vocal lesson. I say to myself before a performance
Speaker 1: at the Grammys that this is just play. It's art,
Speaker 1: this is music, this is love. This is something that
Speaker 1: was created to make people feel. It sounds crazy, but
Speaker 1: sometimes the pressure and a vocal lesson that I put
Speaker 1: on myself is equivalent to the pressure backstage at the Grammys.
Speaker 1: And it's because they're the same thing. To me, You've
Speaker 1: got to sound perfect. Working on that on kind of
Speaker 1: toning that perfectionism down has been a really big part
Speaker 1: of my life. Yeah. I would actually say, you're more
Speaker 1: nervous than our voice lessons then you are at award shows. Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1: At an award show you kind of have no choice.
Speaker 1: But at a voice lesson, I can be like, I
Speaker 1: can't do this, I can't do this today, and then
Speaker 1: I get more nervous. I can psych myself out a
Speaker 1: little bit more. I'm already I'm even sitting here right
Speaker 1: now being like I'm talking too much. I'm gonna be
Speaker 1: tired for our vocal lesson in an hour. So I
Speaker 1: find even if I'm doing a lesson. The thing that
Speaker 1: helps me the most is that if I'm three warmups
Speaker 1: in and I'm starting to feel myself get that perfectionist
Speaker 1: kind of vibe going on, my tunnel vision is going in,
Speaker 1: I just kind of shake my body like crazy and
Speaker 1: I go, I'll start like whatever, like to like laugh,
Speaker 1: to get myself out of that little thing. It's like
Speaker 1: snapping myself out before I go into that perfectionist place.
Speaker 1: I say to myself in that it's just fun. This
Speaker 1: is just play. Let's just have fun, you know. I
Speaker 1: always get the sense that a lot of times people
Speaker 1: in their mind think, well, when I or if I
Speaker 1: become really successful, if I make a lot of money,
Speaker 1: if I get a certain amount of success, if I'm
Speaker 1: number one on the charts, then I'll be happier. Then
Speaker 1: I'm going to feel really good. Yeah. I mean, this
Speaker 1: is a very touchy, a hard thing to talk about
Speaker 1: because when you say that money and success doesn't bring
Speaker 1: you happiness, and maybe a bunch of people would jump
Speaker 1: to say, oh, switch lives with me, and I'll tell you,
Speaker 1: you know, and I'll be happy, you know, if I
Speaker 1: had the money you had. Money does a lot of
Speaker 1: amazing things, and success does a lot of amazing things
Speaker 1: for you, and it makes your life comfortable and easy,
Speaker 1: and it's the biggest blessing in the entire world. And
Speaker 1: I think you have to be aware of that. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, you have to be happy before
Speaker 1: you play the stadium for the stadium to make you happy,
Speaker 1: because you're not going to get on the stage and
Speaker 1: walk off that night and lay in bed and be like,
Speaker 1: now I'm truly happy because I've played in front of
Speaker 1: fifty thousand people. You can maybe make the ego happy,
Speaker 1: but I'm talking about the real heart. It has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with the fifty thousand people. How did you
Speaker 1: feel when you were on the stage. Did you feel
Speaker 1: that you were being an honest, kind of real version
Speaker 1: of yourself And did you feel like there was love
Speaker 1: in the room and was this thing very real? Then
Speaker 1: that's really what's going to bring you happiness. So it's
Speaker 1: just true happiness comes from within and not from outside success.
Speaker 1: Some of the most fun shows of my life have
Speaker 1: been in front of like fifty people that you're like
Speaker 1: sweating and everyone's screaming the lyrics as loud as you can,
Speaker 1: and there's this insane amount of excitement in the room
Speaker 1: and the pressure is down, and it just feels so
Speaker 1: intimate and close. And those have been some of my
Speaker 1: absolute favorite shows Mine too. One of my favorites was
Speaker 1: at the Grammy Museum Me Too. That was one of
Speaker 1: my favorite shows ever. And that was such a small
Speaker 1: audience and it wasn't the same as a huge arena
Speaker 1: with everybody laughing and screaming and dancing and carrying on.
Speaker 1: But oh, your voice sound it is so beautiful, and
Speaker 1: the audience was totally with you, like they were breathing
Speaker 1: with you. Yeah, you have to just kind of like
Speaker 1: surrender to what the place you're playing wants to give you.
Speaker 1: And that night, I think sometimes you just get struck
Speaker 1: by a little bit of lightning, and that night had
Speaker 1: some lightning in it, and it felt really amazing. I
Speaker 1: often will be on stage and I'm kind of singing
Speaker 1: with them. It's something that I think Bruce Springsteen had
Speaker 1: that I really admire and love. And it just feels
Speaker 1: like you're part of the people in like a really
Speaker 1: like kind of a small town way. And I always
Speaker 1: like to think about it that way, right, I get
Speaker 1: that I almost think of you sometimes when I've watched
Speaker 1: you and this sounds really odd, but I think of
Speaker 1: you is kind of a healer because when I've seen
Speaker 1: you with that audience, I see the look in your
Speaker 1: eye and the way they react to what you're doing.
Speaker 1: And I think I told you the first time I
Speaker 1: really saw that was it Radio City, right, because that
Speaker 1: was many years ago, that was early on when we
Speaker 1: first started working together. No, that doesn't sound ought at
Speaker 1: all funny that you said. I think that if I
Speaker 1: wasn't doing music, I'd probably be studying holistic medicine and healing,
Speaker 1: and so that lives really deep within me. So that's
Speaker 1: actually really sweet. I feel like you've never told me
Speaker 1: about the healer thing. I guess I haven't, but I
Speaker 1: always think about it. It goes back to that show
Speaker 1: at Radio City. I remember thinking to myself, Wow, he
Speaker 1: is really playing with this audience, and the best way possible.
Speaker 1: You know, you would do the thing when you would
Speaker 1: get really really soft and there was that soft moment
Speaker 1: and you'd get them to quiet down. Then you get
Speaker 1: louder again. They'd get louder again. Don't, don't, don't, So
Speaker 1: that's sorry, that's sorry, right, And I remember thinking, he
Speaker 1: really understands this. He's creating an incredible evening for these people.
Speaker 1: They are really enjoying this, and they're gonna go home
Speaker 1: and talk about it, and they're gonna remember it and
Speaker 1: they're gonna be inspired. Thank you. Stick around after the
Speaker 1: break for this week's vocal tip and more with Seawan Mendez.
Speaker 1: If you want to do this exercise with me, you'll
Speaker 1: need a small bottle half filled with water and a straw.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to press pause while you go find him.
Speaker 1: Let's dive into this week's vocal tip. A lot of
Speaker 1: people feel anxiety before going on stage. I'm going to
Speaker 1: give you a few suggestions that will alleviate some of
Speaker 1: that stress before you even start to warm up your voice.
Speaker 1: If you're someone who likes to meditate, then meditate for
Speaker 1: a few minutes. If you're someone who enjoys yoga, then
Speaker 1: do some poses and stretches. Sometimes journaling can be very cathartic,
Speaker 1: so try writing in a journal. You can either write
Speaker 1: positive affirmations, or you can write what you're feeling and
Speaker 1: what your fears are. Or if you have any anxiety
Speaker 1: about singing, write that down too. Get it all out
Speaker 1: of your system and free yourself from it. Before you
Speaker 1: start to practice. Do whatever starts to relax your body
Speaker 1: and take you away from the stress of the day.
Speaker 1: It's always worth taking a few minutes to do. Now,
Speaker 1: let's loosen up your body. Stand up slightly, bend your
Speaker 1: knees to take the pressure off your lower back, and
Speaker 1: just hang forward from the waist. You want your upper
Speaker 1: body to just be hanging forward like a rag doll.
Speaker 1: Let your head and ar hang loosely and freely. Take
Speaker 1: a deep breath in. You might even feel your back
Speaker 1: expand as you breathe in, and then just blow out.
Speaker 1: Let all the tension out. When you do this, take
Speaker 1: another deep breath in, and then this time as you
Speaker 1: blow out, make a hissing sound as you slowly roll
Speaker 1: up into a standing position. Once you're in the standing position,
Speaker 1: take a deep breath and sigh ah. Just let all
Speaker 1: the tension and the tightness of the day out of
Speaker 1: your body. Next to tilt your head forward and just
Speaker 1: do a gentle face shake. It's just to shake your
Speaker 1: facial muscles loose and free, but make sure it's gentle
Speaker 1: so you don't tense up your neck. Then you can
Speaker 1: really shake your entire body loose by shaking your hands
Speaker 1: and your legs and your face altogether. Now let's work
Speaker 1: on your voice. You heard Sean mentioned that his favorite
Speaker 1: exercise is the bottle exercise, where he sings through a
Speaker 1: straw blowing bubbles into water. Singing to a straw helps
Speaker 1: put your vocal cords in the best possible position in
Speaker 1: shape to create the vibrations that produce a free singing tone.
Speaker 1: Teachers explain this technique as setting up the most efficient
Speaker 1: way for your vocal cords to work. By singing through
Speaker 1: a straw, you will be automatically training the muscles of
Speaker 1: your larynx without trying to manipulate them physically. If you're
Speaker 1: looking for the technical term, it's often referred to as
Speaker 1: a semi occluded vocal track exercise because your breath is
Speaker 1: partially blocked, which creates a helpful back pressure in the
Speaker 1: vocal tract. But really, seriously, you do not need to
Speaker 1: understand any of that to have it help you. Just
Speaker 1: try it. Put a straw into a small bottle or
Speaker 1: a tall glass half filled with water, and you'll see
Speaker 1: how helpful it can be right away. Let's blow some
Speaker 1: bubbles and get started like this. Now you do that,
Speaker 1: blow some bubbles into that water. Next, sing through that
Speaker 1: straw your turn. You can sing a simple arpeggio, try that,
Speaker 1: or really any musical pattern of notes that you like.
Speaker 1: You can also try this on a song that you
Speaker 1: want to improve on. It can really help the song
Speaker 1: if you do it, sing through the whole song. Singing
Speaker 1: through that straw into the bottle. Now there are straws
Speaker 1: made especially for this, and also bottles we built in straws,
Speaker 1: but you can experiment at home with this with just
Speaker 1: a regular straw in a bottle. The size of the
Speaker 1: straw will increase or decrease, the amount of resistance you feel,
Speaker 1: and how far you put the straw into the water
Speaker 1: will also make a difference. You'll feel what works best
Speaker 1: for you. By the way, you don't always have to
Speaker 1: sing into the straw in water. You can also sing
Speaker 1: into the straw and just feel the air flowing out.
Speaker 1: Put your hand about two inches away from the opening
Speaker 1: of the straw, and you should feel a steady stream
Speaker 1: of air blowing onto your palm. Then you'll really start
Speaker 1: developing that muscle memory of keeping the air flowing forward.
Speaker 1: And as you heard Shun say in our conversation, one
Speaker 1: reason he likes singing through the straw into water is
Speaker 1: because it muffles his voice so he can start his
Speaker 1: vocal warm up freely without judging how his voice sounds
Speaker 1: at the beginning, which I think is a great idea.
Speaker 1: I always tell people when you begin warming up, the
Speaker 1: way your vocal chords feel is far more important than
Speaker 1: how they sound. If you want to try out the
Speaker 1: vocal tip from this episode, I'd love to hear it.
Speaker 1: Or maybe you want to share a bit from your journal,
Speaker 1: or even a picture of the spot where you like
Speaker 1: to do yoga or where you like to meditate. Use
Speaker 1: the hashtag Backstage Pass pod on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, or
Speaker 1: wherever you like to post. I can't wait to see
Speaker 1: what you do with this week's vocal tips. I'll be
Speaker 1: back next week with another interview and another vocal tip.
Speaker 1: Talk to you then, maybe maybe, maybe maybe maybe. Backstage
Speaker 1: Pass with Eric Vitro is written and hosted by me
Speaker 1: Eric Vitro and produced by Morgan Jaffee. Katherine Giardo is
Speaker 1: our managing producer. Emily Rosstech is our associate producer. Mixed
Speaker 1: and mastered by Ben Polliday. Additional engineering help from Jacob Purski.
Speaker 1: Mia Lobel is our VP of Content Director's Development. Justine
Speaker 1: Lange helped create the show. Thanks also to Jacob Weisberg,
Speaker 1: Heather faine, On Schnars, Carli Migliori, Christina Sullivan, Eric Sandler,
Speaker 1: Maggie Taylor, Nicole Morano, Daniello Lacan and Royston Bazzer. Original
Speaker 1: theme music by Jacob and Sita Steele for Premier Music Group.
Speaker 1: We record at Resonate Studios. Fred Tlackson does our videography
Speaker 1: and the photography is by Ken Sawyer. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Michael Lewis for his inspiration, his friendship, and the best
Speaker 1: guidance anyone could ask for. Backstage Pass with Eric Vitro
Speaker 1: as a production of Pushkin Industries. If you like the show,
Speaker 1: please remember to share, rate, and review. I mean that really.
Speaker 1: To find more Pushkin podcast listen to the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you
Speaker 1: were going to write an autobiography today, what would you
Speaker 1: title it? Falsetto okay? I said, we say falsetto okay
Speaker 1: ironically because I had the hardest time learning how to
Speaker 1: sing false head. Now you don't, and now it's in
Speaker 1: this that's that's that hard word. That's what I would
Speaker 1: title it. What would you title it? That's what you
Speaker 1: would title Yeah, Um, I don't know what I would
Speaker 1: title it. I really don't know. Must mean I'm not
Speaker 1: ready to write it yet. Yeah, I guess not. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, there's a lot more to come, but yeah,