Learning How to Sing in a Band Improves Professional Presentation Skills & Public Speaking Skills

When I was a little girl, I loved to sing. I never had formal voice lessons, a vocal coach or anyone in my life to teach me how to sing. Because I was a cleft-palate baby, I had problems with air flow and had to have speech lessons. The speech lessons I received in 1^st grade gave me speaking skills that stretched my vocal chords and helped me understand the power of annunciating. The surgery to my uvula and soft palate when I was 16 months old, helped improve my speaking voice and airflow.

I received a guitar and songbooks for Christmas presents and began singing at 14. I was in heaven.

At 16, I began to sing in a local restaurant. I was shy, performing in public made me uncomfortable, but I continued to work on my presentation skills, including doing vocal exercises to increase my vocal range. Fortunately, it was a small venue and the customers said I did a pretty good job of singing one of my favorite songs, John Denver's Leaving on a Jet Plane.

Later on, when I moved to South Miami Beach, FL, I joined Toastmasters because I wanted to meet new professional friends in the area. That organization helped me improve my speaking skills, focusing on English speaking, or sounding pronunciations, impromptu and spontaneous discussions, as well as formulating thoughts on the fly, particularly overcoming nervous anxiety.

It took me until I was 32 years old to get back into the music scene again. I happened to mention to one of my co-workers that I was starting a Rock and Roll band, and within 15 minutes, she had booked my band for the upcoming company picnic.

That gave me about 16 weeks to find members for the band, design a set list of four hours of material, and create a show, while getting my singing voice in shape. I had learned some vocal exercises in high school and the church choir and we began warming up before practice. I understood that warming up the voice was critical to performing well. I also knew that getting up on stage, and performing live, in front of people - wasn't easy. Through my experiences with Toastmasters International, I had learned that fear of public speaking is one of the top reasons executives fail.

I'm sure you are thinking by now, I must have been crazy, and you would be right; I was certifiably insane but I had made a promise once, to a dying friend in a nursing home. My promise to her was that I would always live my life with no regrets. And so, even though I was fearful, I vowed to face my fears head on and beat them, and live my dream of becoming a professional singer.

My brother was gifted and could play any instrument I asked of him, and had a strong vocal talent as well. M best friend's (now ex) husband was a guitarist, and he was between bands, so he told me he was in. We put the word out and posted ads at the Manchester Guitar Center and interviewed a few drummers. We found Bobby and began putting together a set list and then we practiced, practiced, practiced!

We called ourselves Vicarious Moments at first. It came together, amazingly, and we did our first public gig. It was a family picnic at a park and our harmonies and original rifts went over well; soon we had another gig. The public seemed to like our seventies approach. It didn't take us long to realize that we weren't going to be happy doing cover tunes, so we changed our name to "Chainsmoker" because it was something we all had in common. We began writing lyrics and music for our own, all original songs. Some weeks we were so busy we were performing Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights.

About a year into it, we went into a studio and recorded a sample demo CD and began to market our band through the Advocate Newspaper, doing our own public relations. We created a logo, designed a front and back image, made T-shirts, and sold our merchandise or used it as premiums.

For the last 12 years we have played in many different venues in and around the Hartford, CT and Springfield, MA area. In fact, we have played places like the Cracker Barrel Pub, in Tarriffvile, CT, where they had never booked an all original band before.

One of my fondest memories was walking into Toad's Place in New Haven, CT. The stage was big, the light show spectacular, and the acts that had played on it were even bigger. It was intimidating and exciting to be standing on the same stage that had held Eric Clapton, Melissa Ethridge, and many others. I think of it as one of the greatest nights of my life. Particularly exciting, was to be in the dressing room that had held these famous musicians and seeing their comments on the dressing room wall.

How had I gotten myself in that position? I had faced my public speaking and singing fears head on, recognized that I needed to warm up my singing voice, practiced on my presentation skills, worked hard to expand my vocal range, and most importantly of all, I was doing what I loved to do, I was living my dreams.

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