Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Lisa Bayungan. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Lisa, appreciate you joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.
I am a self trained artist. I learned how to sing before I ever knew I was learning. I had such a passion for singing at such a young age that I sang constantly as a child. My first solo was in third grade. The choir director taught me a very soulful version of “Jesus loves me” and looking back I realize how difficult her version actually was. At the time, life’s insecurities hadn’t kicked in yet so I just sang it the way she taught me to sing it. By middle school, I had developed a habit of listening to my favorite artists on repeat until I could mimic their amazing vocals. I thought I was just obsessing over their singing ability. I didn’t realize I was self-training. And hey, this was much more difficult back in the day than it is now because a “replay” meant I had to rewind cassette tapes or drop the needle on the record in the same spot each time. Now all you need is good curser placement on a Youtube video and you can hit repeat to your heart’s desire.
Knowing what I know now, I wish I would have learned to play an instrument like guitar or piano. This would have enhanced my creative and writing skills and it would have also opened more doors for me to gig without having to find musicians to accompany me.
The most essential skills in singing are proactive listening, authenticity and belief in yourself. I make it a point to pass these 3 keys on to every client.
Turn your passive listening into proactive listening. So what is proactive listening? We learn to speak through listening. Think back on how you learned to speak. You heard people talking and you mimicked what they said. I say mimic because we don’t just learn words. We learn tone, attitude and expression. And we do this simply by hearing. Now think about how many songs you know. When they come on the radio, you sing along. You know the words, the melody and the rhythm. You may even know some of your favorite singers’ cool vocal runs. You learned all of this through passive listening. Meaning, you likely learned it all as a secondary activity as these songs were playing in the background while you were focusing on life, work and play. Now just imagine what you could learn if you were actively listening. Focused listening without singing along is the hardest part of proactive listening. You are listening to learn the “how”. How is the singer breathing? How are they enunciating? Or simply, how is the artist doing that with their voice? If you proactively listen, you can reverse engineer even the most complicated vocal run to learn how it’s done. We are not trying to imitate our favorite artists. The goal is to glean their skills so that we can reproduce them with our own authentic style and flair.
Stop trying to be unique. Instead be authentic. I find that when an up and coming artist is “trying” to be unique it usually comes off as exactly that, “trying”. I don’t just mean that they appear to be trying to be unique. Instead, it actually looks like they are “trying” to be a singer/performer. I often tell my clients, “there’s no thinking in singing. There’s only hearing and feeling”. Now that doesn’t mean that we don’t need to practice new things, rehearse our songs and hone our skills. It means that once you get to sound check, it’s time to throw everything agains the wall and whatever sticks…sticks. If you have done the work off stage, then the only thing left to do is to deliver your performance. To deliver a song you must sing it with so much passion that you convince your audience that you feel 100% of the emotion conveyed by the lyrics and your passion is so convincing to them that they pick it up and feel it too.
Believe in yourself. The underlying topic of nearly every voice session is confidence. Building confidence is equally as important as building skills and technique. Ideally, skills and confidence grow side by side because they fuel one another. Technique is the greatest tool for true expression. Expanding your skill set will help you customize your technique which allows your true and unique artistry to manifest with confidence and authenticity.
Lisa, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I am VoiceCoach LisaMarie. I started CVP Coaching, that’s Contemporary Voice and Performance Coaching shortly after the US Navy moved us to Memphis in 2015. It doesn’t take long to learn that Memphis is a musical town. There are so many talented singers and performers in Memphis. But I also found that while many of them had a lot of passion and talent, they did not have a lot of know-how. They just needed someone to believe in them and equip them with the right training, tools and inspiration for them to achieve their own personal greatness with their craft.
I launched CVP Coaching to address the frustration of believing that you have so much more in you and you just need help finding it and pulling it out.
I have developed a series of simple and easy techniques and exercises that can transform any passionate singer into a skilled, authentic and engaging performer without the need of formal music training.
My CVP Coaching method allows me to offer full service coaching to singers and performers at any level including worship leaders, choir members, musical actors, karaoke stars, pageant contestants and industry professionals. I even get the occasional “it’s my turn to do something for me” clients. Clients at any level are welcome at CVP Coaching.
The one thing that I am most proud of is my clients. I get to do life with the most amazing people. The more they invite me into their dreams, the more they grow me as a coach. Somedays we’re in studio working on their singing, their stage presence and their writing skills. Other days we’re in the booth at one of Memphis’ amazing recording studios or we’re on location at some of Memphis’ top hot spots recording a music video. Other days, a client may be having the kind of day where they simply wish for me to put my Life Coaching and Pastoral Counseling certifications to good use. Being trusted to guide them in these arenas as they push their goals to the next level is beyond words. My favorite date nights are when my husband, Tony and I get to be in the audience of a client’s play or concert.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
In 2006, I was living in San Diego. I was asked by a business associate to sing at a convention for a company that my husband and I were affiliated with at the time. The movie Dream Girls had just come out, so the song “I am changing” seemed like a perfect choice for this event. It was held at one of the larger casino convention halls in Las Vegas in front of several thousand people. I spent weeks planning everything down to the smallest detail. When we arrived at the convention, we learned that despite my contact’s high level of influence with the organization, he had never actually cleared my singing with the program directors and he was no where to be found. Yes, normally I would get everything in writing ahead of time, but he was a long time business associate and we were attending the convention anyway. So, there I was in a smashing gown ready to give a great performance and no one knew anything about it. Needless to say, I was quite upset and didn’t really enjoy much of convention that night.
On the 5-hour drive home the next day, I was still pretty upset as I rehearsed in my head all of the preparation that I had done to sing just one song. I had rehearsed until everyone in my house new all the words to my song that I didn’t get to perform. I had searched high and low for the perfect gown with shoes and accessories to match that no one saw me wear. I missed out on hanging by the pool the evening before the convention because I wanted to be sure everything would be perfect the next day. I was really stuck on all of the effort that I had put in for my associate, for the convention and for the organization that no one seemed to care about. Then suddenly I felt God interrupt my thoughts with just one clarification. He said, “You didn’t do any of what you did for any of them. You did all of it, all of the rehearsing and planning and shopping because it’s who you are. You always put 100% into everything you do. Whether it’s for something small and intimate or it’s on a grand scale. It’s all the same to you because it’s who I made you to be”. When that truth hit me, it changed everything. It changed me.
Have you ever had to pivot?
When I learned that my perceived weakness as an artist is actually my greatest strength as a voice coach it changed everything for me. As a self-trained artist, I never had the benefit of singing lessons and I also never learned to read music. Singing in choirs my entire life helped a lot because we rehearsed with sheet music. So learning a new song by listening to it while looking at the sheet music helped me understand the basics of reading music. I have been privilege to be a featured performer in many exciting venues around the world. However, I always felt a little inferior any time I worked with other singers on projects when I was the only one that didn’t read music.
It wasn’t until I started voice coaching that I realized that I wasn’t alone in my misconceptions. Like me, most of the clients who sought out my services had developed an incredible, raw singing ability without knowing anything about how to read music. I love getting to be the one to affirm their natural, raw talent. It gives me great joy to attest to the many skills they have learned all on their own. I assure them that while reading music will make them a better musician, it won’t necessarily make them a better singer. For example, reading music will help them better communicate with other musicians. However, I have learned that a singer who can read music may learn a song faster than me, but that does not prevent me from singing it better than them. On some level, I knew this for years. Now I make sure my clients understand this fact right up front. So my greatest asset as a self-trained artist who still doesn’t fully read music is my ability to transform any passionate singer into a skilled, authentic and engaging performer without the need for formal music training.
Contact Info:
- Website: cvpcoaching.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/voicecoachlisamarie/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SingingLessonsMemphis
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lifecoachlisamarie/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRE8J_jHsxShC7tf2kcoibw
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