Vocal Mechanics Coaching by Amanda Jeanne Busch

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Introduction: I created this profile in July 2015 teaching singing lessons and several musical instruments in person at my home. In March 2017 I paused this page as I was in a car wreck with a terrible neck injury. I ended up being in another car wreck 6 months later, battled cancer twice, and suffered 4 strokes. In August 2020 I reactivated this page only doing vocal mechanics coaching and only doing it online usually using the Zoom app. I have over 30 years experience helping mostly college students and professionals perfect their sound before entering the recording studio, and taking their live performances up to the next level, but 2008 to 2017 I had the opportunity to be Children's Choir Director at Robbinsdale United Church of Christ in Robbinsdale Minnesota conducting 2 choirs - one of 3 year olds to 1st graders, and one of 2nd to 5th graders, and when I started doing private one on one sessions with amateur musicians in 2015 I started working with people of all ages - age 3 to 99, and at all stages of their musical journey, and in 2022 and 2023 over half of my clientele were age 14 and younger. I started doing private singing lessons with amateur musicians of all ages and at all stages of their musical journey in 2015 after Music Tech (The Rock and Roll College) in Minneapolis where I gave my "Artist In Industry" seminars and worked with students in the '90s, and McNally Smith College of Music in Saint Paul Minnesota where I gave my seminars and worked with students in the '00s both closed their doors, and so did Paisley Park Recording Studio and Entertainment Multiplex in Chanhassen Minnesota. In 2020 I discovered I could do private sessions online usually using the Zoom app, but if you prefer a different platform I'm always willing to try something new. Come log in and meet me in a Zoom screen so I can be more detailed and attentive than in person, and you can be more relaxed in the comfort of your own home. We start with some physical stretching and exercises to prepare the body for singing, then focus on your beathing techniques. I guarantee at least a 30% increase in breath capacity. Just imagine what you could do with all that extra air! Then we do warm up exercises made up of scales and arpeggios moving up and down chromatically strengthening and lengthening the vocal chords, helping to smooth the transitions between the 5 stages of the voice: chest voice, head voice, the belting range, falsetto, and whistle tones, and of course all of these exercises double as ear interval training. In the second half of the session I will introduce new techniques, ideas, and visualizations using your favorite songs to sing along with. I always let my clientele select their own songs to work with in the second half of their session, or else I'm happy to make recommendations, unless you have specific repertoire to prepare for an upcoming audition or performance to prepare, but the more familiar you are with the songs the better my methods work. I have real world experience and have helped my clients reach their personal goals in literally nearly every genre imaginable including but not limited to Country, Rock and Pop of the '50s, '60s, '70s, '80s, '90s, all the way up to current Top 40 hits, K-Pop (Korean), Hip Hop, Rap, Eclectic Electronica, Blues, R and B, Alternative, Indie, Hard Core, Industrial, Black Metal, Heavy Metal, Reggae, Bluegrass, Christian, Gospel, New Age Christian, Americana, Creole, Musical Theater, Bollywood Hits, Folk music of many cultures including Irish, European, Roma, Sephardim Jew, Lebanese, Spanish, Hindustani, and Classical in many languages including Latin, Italian, German, and much more. I do NOT coach opera. The techniques and stylizations of that genre are unique unto its own and I am not trained or well versed for that particular ambition. I've written my own music in several genres over the years (I'm 47) but what I've been most recognized for is my contribution to the Saint Paul Hard Core Scene 1999 to 2004. If you have sheet music for what you want to be singing I will make sure you understand and know what to do with every word, letter, number, and symbol on the page, and help you learn your line so it becomes familiar and you know exactly where your entrances, intervals, dynamics, accidentals, time signatures, and lyrics mean and can sing it with confidence walking into your next audition, rehearsal, or performance. Ask me about my "crash course in reading Western Music notation" based on the choruses of Handel's "Messiah" see below for greater details. Great technical crossover into other genres! I find great personal satisfaction aiding people in awakening and getting in touch with their vocal chords, usually surprising themselves significantly discovering what their vocal chords are already capable of, painting different pictures for the mind with words makes miniscule adjustments of the features of your face, mouth, neck, and body take place that there really is no way to do consciously, but once you have it it is a tool for your toolbox you get to keep, one more option to choose from when you pick which skills to use to share your song with the world outside of your shower or your car. I believe there are dozens if not hundreds of different ways to sing the same thing as long as the PITCH is accurate, because once you have tools inside your toolbox You are the ARTIST who gets to choose which ones to use when. I offer instant gratification, tangible results in every session, and I get great personal satisfaction helping people discover the endless possibilities their voice is truly capable of! I relish any opportunity to work with people in the process of writing their own music to perform and/or record, and I work with clients of all ages and at all stages, from ages 3 to 99. The first 16 sessions or so with me apply universally to everybody no matter what your genre of choice is or where your goals are, it's just a fact that if your genres of choice are musical theater, or singing with a school or church choir you are going to need to learn sight singing western music notation too if you want to pass an audition, or keep up with a choir that rehearses one night a week plus one hour before the Sunday service and have new music you are expected to learn nearly every single week. I am always still booking forward for groups, duos, trios, foursomes, and moresomes, bands, choirs, etc, and I have some dates coming up "guest speaking" within the Saint Paul school district. My rates working with 2 people together is $120 per hour prorated by 15 minute intervals, and 3 or more persons in ensemble is $150 per hour prorated by 15 minute intervals. My rates for making one time presentations to theater casts or choirs of any age and size is $250 per hour, or $15 per person in the room if more than 16 people. Rates to conduct a group multiple times to prepare for a performance with 2 to 4 rehearsals or so is negotiable. I am available within 100 miles of the 7 county Minneapolis/Saint Paul Twin Cities metro., or online usually using the Zoom app, but I am willing to try out other platforms if you prefer. I love the vibe of face to face, in-person sessions but have been learning my way around Zoom, Facebook Messenger, GoogleMeet, and Microsoft Teams, and this old lady is always willing to try out something new. Many of my peers in the industry try telling me "no one is taking me seriously because I don't charge upwards of $120 an hour for one-on-one private sessions, considering my credentials", but I just CAN'T DO that to people! I started taking voice lessons in 7th grade and I paid $11.50 for my 30 minutes each week out of my own babysitting money. I never would have been able to take voice lessons at today's expected prices, but 2 years ago I tried dropping my price to just $60 an hour and No One Contacted Me Whatsoever for 4 Whole Months! But now at $80 an hour I get just about the right amount of attention for me to stay in business, but January 1st 2023 I started advertising that "Every 4th session is FREE!" which if you do the math for once a week sessions for one month my price IS $60 an hour, and that's a price I feel good about - compared to my competition here on this website. I used to present vocal mechanics as a 2 1/2 hour college seminar at Music Tech in Minneapolis in the '90s and at McNally Smith College of Music in Saint Paul Minnesota in the '00s so I do have quite a bit of material up my sleeves. Both of these institutions closed their doors over a decade ago. I KNOW my price tag doesn't match my credentials lol! I've been told I give Excellent bang for your buck! Make sure to keep your notebook handy so I don't speed away too fast! I will pause the timer for your session if you feel you need a moment to catch up on note taking. Especially important when working with the under age 12 crew. Some notes are drawing simple pictures to remember what we've learned, and I'm always happy to double check spelling so you can do more online research afterwards if you choose. I have a great book too called "The Anatomy of the Voice" to show you simple diagrams of the internal soft tissues I'm talking about sometimes, so be sure to jot down the labels at least, sometimes I move pretty quickly as we identify, feel, locate, isolate, strengthen, lengthen, protect, manipulate, and undo each action we reacted to, from each of the body parts involved in making you the beautiful unique snowflake that you are, striving to master the instrument that is the human body! I do NOT recommend buying the book "The Anatomy of the Voice" unless you're pursuing a Master's degree in vocals, it's an awfully dry read without much explanations on its own. There is one major master exercise for us to test our waters of aptitude with, an exercise almost embarassingly devised as you first learn it but it is so multifaceted in how it helps you grow in breath support, 30 to even 50% increase helping you release the lower rear ribs, using a vibrational feature assured to protect the vocal folds from damage no matter how far into the depths of your whistle tones even above the piano's top keys we may go exploring, which really IS a realistic possibility over time for men as well as women, and once you understand lip trills you can utilize them at any time chromatically preferably or circularly maximizing the workout of your diaphragm which holds your heart and both lungs separated from the organs below it, pumping at mass reaction so your voice may truly fill a theater above a full orchestra without need for microphone amplification as the performers of bygone eras were wont to do and did well. It's amazing to duplicate, the capacity still exists, it's up to you to learn to control it! Great crossover for your yoga practice and meditational breathwork practice you may do too. We will spend maybe 8-10 minutes on this exercise your first session or so depending on the scope of your range. Seems silly, but believe me it's really priceless, worth its weight in gold even! And everyone, and yes I mean EVERYONE uses lip trills to warm up before every performance or recording session, such as Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, Miley Cyrus, Beyonce, Ed Sheeran, Celine Dion, Prince Rogers Nelson, Pink, Angelique Kidjo, just to name a few. The 2nd half of your session will be learning "tools for your toolbox" working on your chosen songs. There are so many tools to pick from, I pick the order on what I feel serves your needs best as you demonstrate for me your best effort to change notes on a page or in your ear poured back out your mouth as liquid emotion. I LOVE the look on someone's face when a technique "clicks" and they startle themselves and LOVE the sound they just made! Instant gratification has always been my favorite part of this job! I am a vocal mechanics coach, which is slightly different than giving singing lessons, and share many "stand alone techniques", not a progression of "rules for singing", more like "tools for your toolbox" that you can take out and apply to your performance as you see fit for the rest of your life. Stand alone techniques to actually isolate, control, strengthen, and lengthen the actual mechanics of how you produce, resonate, and release your sound. I have worked with many of "the best in the business" and gleaned a few new "tools" off of each and every one of them. These include Cari Cole, Prince (Rogers Nelson), Gwen Stefani, David Nordli, Paula Holmberg, Kathy Saltzman Romey, Paul Oakley, Bobby McFerrin, Robin and Linda Williams, Garrison Keillor, Amy Lee, Miriam Gerberg, Stuart DaVaan, Tiny Tim, Elvira, Venus DeMars, JD Steele, Souhail Kaspar, and even Mitch Miller himself! See below for more specific credits. Effective Nov 2017 I am no longer teaching guitar, bass guitar, sitar, cello, or Middle Eastern, North African, Hindi, and Oriental hand percussion. However some music theory, sight singing, and solfege can be incorporated into your sessions if you wish, and all the exercises we do in the first half of the session double as ear interval training. Each year as summer bids farewell, I offer for clients looking for a "crash course in reading Western sheet music/modern notation" by working on 8 of the Christmas choruses of "Handel's Messiah" to prepare for participation in a "Sing Along Messiah" concert held in nearly every major metro area during the season of Advent, leading up to Christmas. It is the most often performed work of music in the history of the modern world - since 1741 it has been performed at least annually in Europe and the Americas offering the unique opportunity to experience singing with a live orchestra or pipe organ, conductor, and 4 soloists, and the audience sitting by choir sections - Soprano, Alto, Tenor, and Bass, so when it comes time for the choruses to be sung the conductor turns around and conducts the audience. This is no easy feat, the music is quite challenging even for the seasoned veteran, often presented as fugues riddled with malismas that offer a fabulous technique crossover to hip-hop and R&B music especially. It was originally written and performed as a benefit for a new hospital in Dublin Ireland in 1741 during the season of Lent which required all of the opera houses to be closed - the fad of entertainment in that day. Registration deadline is August 1st each year with a commitment to 16 one hour weekly sessions at the steeply discounted price of $760 total.

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Hired 97 times

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9 years in business

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Customers rated this pro highly for work quality, professionalism, and responsiveness.

Great 4.7

22 reviews

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Tessa O.

Jan 18, 2024

Hired on Thumbtack

Amanda Jeanne was so easy to work with! She fit my daughter into her schedule right away to begin lessons, and from the start introduced her to warm up and voice training techniques that improved my daughter's tone and range. Zoom lessons are what fit into our family's schedule at this season of life so that was an added bonus of ease and convenience. I like that Amanda Jeanne let my daughter select songs she wanted to work on, instead of assigning a song. She was on time, focused 100% during the lessons, and gave feedback that was constructive/instructive without being harsh or making my child feel embarrassed. Would definitely work with Amanda Jeanne again.

Details: 10 - 13 years old • Yes, the student can read music • No formal training • What the teacher recommends • 30 minutes • At the pro’s location • My home, venue, etc. • Remotely (phone or internet)

Singing Lessons

Ray R.

May 23, 2023

Hired on Thumbtack

She is patient and has provided exercises to improve my sound and my range. Exercises and guidance for better breathing and breath control. Exercises and guidance for loosening my jaw and opening my mouth wider while singing. Warmups and stretches, even tongue exercises. I am not a pro and don’t intend to be, but this will be valuable in improving my choir performance. Very good to be observed by an experienced teacher.

Details: 45 - 64 years old • No, the student cannot read music • No formal training • Classical • Gospel • 30 minutes • Remotely (phone or internet)

Vocal Mechanics Coaching by Amanda Jeanne Busch's reply

Working with you has been great! Not very often men your age try joining a church choir and learning to sing and read sheet music for the very first time with your granddaughters in the background. It's said that "learning to play music and wrap your head around reading sheet music is a huge challenge for anyone over 30. It's about the most abstract concept there is for our brains to process - audible sound translated from the written page" and I'm very impressed that your wife talked you into joining your church choir, you catch on very quickly, and did a stellar job! Working with you has been delightful! Kudos to you!

Singing Lessons

Khadija B.

2 weeks ago

Hired on Thumbtack

She's very professional, encouraging, and knowledgeable to help you learn to sing or improve your singing.

Details: 26 - 44 years old • No, the student cannot read music • No formal training • What the teacher recommends • 45 minutes • At the pro’s location

Singing Lessons

Ofa T.

Dec 30, 2023

Hired on Thumbtack

She is the best and know a lot of techniques for vocal training. She is punctual very professional and the best. I recommend her for anyone who is looking or need vocal training.

Details: 26 - 44 years old • Yes, the student can read music • No formal training • Opera • 30 minutes • At the pro’s location • Remotely (phone or internet)

Vocal Mechanics Coaching by Amanda Jeanne Busch's reply

Thank you so much for coming to me and I really enjoyed our first session and did my best to tailor my knowledge to meet your needs. You are already so talented in singing the Opera songs so dear to your heart but unfortunately I am not trained or well versed to meet your needs, but tried my best to offer you news you could still use. Glad you found someone nearby to do in-person sessions geared towards your genre of choice. Best wishes to you!

Singing Lessons

Amadu J.

Nov 7, 2023

Hired on Thumbtack

Loved the techniques that she gives for me to sing well. Great coach overall.

Details: 18 - 25 years old • No, the student cannot read music • No formal training; some self-taught experience • Gospel • What the teacher recommends • Opera • Rap • Pop • R&B • 60 minutes • At the pro’s location • Remotely (phone or internet)

Singing Lessons

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Amanda Busch

FAQs

What should the customer know about your pricing (e.g., discounts, fees)?
My posted rates for one-on-one sessions online usually using the Zoom app are $80 for one full hour, $60 for 45 minutes, or $40 for a 30 minute online session, and every 4th session is FREE! I have special discounts for 2 people in the same house wanting sessions at the same time/back to back of $60 for one full hour, 30 minutes for each person whether 2 kids, a parent and child, or spouses. My rates for consultation with 2 people together is $120 per hour, ensembles of 3 or more people heading into the recording studio or trying to take their live performance to the next level is $150 per hour prorated by 15 minute intervals. My rates for one time presentations to choirs or theater casts is $250 per hour or $15 per person in the room if more than 16 people. Price is negotiable to come conduct for 2 to 4 rehearsals to prepare a group for performance, such as preparing a few carols to be sung during a Christmas pageant by a church youth group. Available in person within 100 miles of the 7 county Minneapolis/Saint Paul Twin Cities Metro, or via Zoom or I'm willing to try out some other online platform of your choice. For group presentations to choirs, performance groups, musical theater casts, or helping rock bands polish to perfection before heading into the recording studio with their original music compositions, or renditions of cover music they have reinvented to sound their own, or take their live performance to the next level before performing before bigger and better audiences. When working with choirs of any age group, but especially if it's a large group of children I have a great method I gleaned that can pinpoint and divide your sopranos and altos up into sections accurately all at once in under 5 minutes. For a nominal fee I am willing to leak my 3 sentence answer by phone or email. ;) I time sessions and charge based on time ACTUALLY TEACHING, not discussion time about what your experience is, what your goals are, selecting appropriate music to work on, what YOUR worries, concerns, and insecurities may be, "turning each other on to new artists" the other is unfamiliar with, etc - The first session will be about 15 minutes longer than scheduled, at no additional charge.
What is your typical process for working with a new customer?
We start with a few physical stretches and exercises to prepare the body for singing, then discuss breathing techniques because without breath there is no sound. Then we use scales and arpeggios moving up and down chromatically to get your vocal chords good and stretched out and warmed up so I can truly test and Identify your range. This helps in selecting songs that will showcase your abilities brilliantly, or give you skills you need to get where you want to be. For instance, with adult men who claim to have no idea which songs they want to choose - with bass voices aspiring for hip-hop, R&B, or church choir goals the first song I set them to work on is usually something by Nat King Cole, for quite a number of reasons, with excellent cross-over techniques to other styles, good clean "classic" neutral warm tone. The best song there is for girls of all ages or women familiar with the Disney movie "Frozen" the most technically challenging and beautiful song I am aware of is "Let It Go" from that soundtrack. I am a vocal mechanics coach. What I have to offer you I used to present as a 2 1/2 hour college seminar, and I am constantly still gleaning the industry online seeking new material to further hone my craft and improve the presentation I have for working with you. Vocal music mastery has been a life-long pursuit for me, and if you want me holding your hand thru your current musical journey I'm honored to do so. If you are ALREADY performing live shows you may only feel that you need 3-8 coaching sessions to polish up what you already have so it shimmers and shines (maybe 1-3 coaching sessions if you're already enamored with the sound of yourselves - i offer tools for your toolbox, not rules to live by). For bands or performance groups these 1-3 sessions can be to get everyone unified on the exact same page to polish and shine for your upcoming performance or recording. EVERY artist and performance group should have at least a one hour consultation with a vocal mechanics coach BEFORE RECORDING ANYTHING. It makes no sense and damages trust with your fans if you distribute or post a recording then have your time consulting with a coach to bring your performance up to the next level following it, and your sound changes significantly in how you perform live. The recording they purchase at your shows may sound very different than what they heard live and in-person. This is a breach of trust with your fans! I also offer, if you would like, crash courses in music theory (see below for greater details on this), or the "history of" which bypasses what took me about 8 years of struggling with by the book, the answers I somehow came up with make sense, follow the rules, and are based in facts, but for some dumb reason nobody else has heard of doing it MY WAY but I have confirmed it with at least 8 college music professors and almost everybody I explain it to puts their hand over their eyes and shakes their head laughing saying "are you kidding me??? I spent 4 or 6 or 8 years learning that by rote, and THAT'S why??? and it's ALWAYS true??? Arghhhh!!!!" my daughters taught their Girl Scout Troop in 15 minutes what it took me over 6 years to learn by rote. Always glad to pass on the history blip that changed the world, literally. Makes jazz become a cinch even...
What education and/or training do you have that relates to your work?
It's SO IMPORTANT to listen as much as you sing. I've really lucked out and literally been "in the right place at the right time" and worked my butt off every step of the way. I tried to enroll in the former college Music Tech in Minneapolis and instead of giving me a class schedule they hired me to conduct every other Saturday "Artist In Industry" seminars about a wide variety of topics but I can fill an entire 2 1/2 hour seminar on vocal mechanics alone. After they closed their doors I continued giving seminars at McNally Smith College of Music in Saint Paul Minnesota until they closed their doors as well. I had a speech impediment as a young child and had 3 years of speech therapy lessons k-2nd grade. This got me paying attention to the specific mechanics of how to manipulate isolated muscles to alter sound. My oldest daughter who is now 18 has only been able to hear well for about 10 years total of her life. She was significantly hearing impaired, had surgery at age 5, then a year and a half later ruptured her eardrum going back to 80% hearing loss so I have been working closely with speech therapists at University of Minnesota Fairview in Minneapolis, LifeTrack Resources, and Gillette Children's in Saint Paul over the years. She became First Chair of the soprano section for the choir ComMusication (3rd to 8th graders, they toured to Duluth and Madison and Omaha while she was singing with them) and she was in the choir performing "America The Beautiful" with Leslie Odem Jr at Super Bowl 52 right before Pink sang the national anthem. Their whole choir couldn't perform, NFL required everyone to be at least 12 years old, she made the cut by 8 weeks. She is now 18 and I love nothing more than encouraging her to put her blue tooth head band on and sing along with her favorite songs while the rest of us in the room can't hear the song playing at all, just her voice. I remember my uncle criticizing me telling me not to do that right after Sarah McLachlan's debut album "Fumbling Towards Ecstacy" had just been released and I just couldn't get enough of it. I can sing every song on that album a capella. I sang the song "Hold On" at my best friend Josh's graveside funeral service. He was killed in a tragic car wreck July 18th 2004. I can sing every song on Tori Amos "Little Earthquakes" album too, and Indigo Girls self titled debut album, "Best of Janis Joplin", Portishead "Dummy", and several others as these were released as I was graduating from high school (excluding Janis of course). These are my Generation X flagships of the music industry, Nine Inch Nails debut album was my 9th grade year, then Nirvana spearheaded a revolution in pop music bringing a new sound out of Seattle with a new genre labeled "Alternative" and a fashion sense known as Grunge. Both of these concepts offended me holistically to my core. I was a very classically trained musician whose patron genre where I found my solace and my soul was soothed was known as "speed metal" genius wrapped up in how fast they could possibly play it using modes of darkness that milked at my pain. This was modern day Mozart to me, and Kurt Cobain was ruining everything decent in music with indistinguishable lyrics that didn't even make any sense if you read them written down, I was raised in a home where musical instruments were considered members of the family, and here was this loser smashing his gear right onstage less than halfway thru the song or wrecking everything onstage only 3 or 4 songs into the performance, and all of Seattle followed this grunge thing, Alice In Chains managed to get one perfect recording to copywrite and sell but Lane Staley was almost never sober enough to hit the right notes live onstage ever again. Pearl Jam was just about as bad, managed one perfect recording they could never come close to duplicating live in concert. I was beside myself about the musical styling associated with my generation, so after my band "Dreamcorps: Army of the Dream. Making the Soundtrack for When You're Not Awake" we also covered 8 songs by a rather obscure band out of Sweden in the 1970s called "Curved Air", evolved into "Rhimshodt" (note to self: always pick a band name your fans can spell) we were asked what genre of music we were. I didn't know how to answer that at first. Our reviews in places like the rockwatch.org website described our sound as "Stevie Nicks meets Seven Dust". Thank you very much, I'll happily take that cake and eat it too. In the spot on our business cards to place what genre of music you are I filled in "{No} Alternative Rock" it just drives me insane sometimes wondering how much more incredible Kirkland Hrabik and I could have productively written together if Andy Haug had taken things seriously enough to try playing the exact same drum beat more than once or someone else had joined us behind the drumkit. I also wonder how much differently things would have transpired if Walter Kuntze (our bass player) hadn't argued with Andy to take the 2 unopen beer bottles out of his cargo shorts pockets before getting behind the wheel of his 2 door car leaving our band manager Shantell Sumpter's house from a midnight meeting. A 2 door car meant the passenger seat had to be flipped forward so Walter could get into the back seat behind me. I had to be at my office by 8:30 sharp so I went to sleep in the passenger seat with my seat belt on almost immediately but when the impact happened as we T boned the other vehicle that was running a stop sign, we were going 40 miles per hour and we had right of way but my seat hadn't locked back into place so when the impact happened my entire seat rocked forward and my entire face hit the dashboard badly. I suffered significant head trauma and woke up the next day to discover my third nose which I quite honestly think I like even better than the original one, but the neck injury was significant. That was December 15th 2002. I tried to rehabilitate and went to physical therapy twice a week, and I was still in physical therapy when I drove to Saint Paul to pick up our PA from Good Guys Repair shop and got rear ended on my way to deliver the PA to our practice space totally exacerbating my neck injury May 15th 2003 and after 3 more months of continued physical therapy it became obvious that I wasn't getting any better, slowly but surely I was getting worse so my physiatrist ordered me down to 20 hours a week and when you're used to being "The Overtime Queen" making the adjustment to a paycheck of 20 hours a week is pretty tough to do, and I had been footing the bill for absolutely everything that had anything to do with our band, practice space rent, merch which was t shirts, stickers, buttons, CDs, plus creating promo packs for booking agents and to be sent to local radio stations when we played out of town which we did once a month, plus quarter sheet flyers to be distributed by loyal members of our amazing Street Team 42 members strong standing outside of clubs of other people's shows handing out flyers to come to our next show as everyone came out of the club and headed to their cars. We had an email subscription of just over 2000 fans, we were nearly ready to go on tour, and had a few more really great merch ideas to invest in before heading out on our tour playing all age shows at nearly every student union building on every college campus down the Mississippi River from Minneapolis Minnesota all the way to Austin Texas and back again. July 2003 a local magazine did a review article with a 2 page photo spread labeling me as "The Midwest's Reigning Queen of Hardcore Music". (I'm not sure if the Midwest has ever had one of those before, or had one since, it's a genre pretty devoid of women) Andy Haug was such a waste of my time. Plus catching West Nile Virus shortly after the 2nd car wreck and my condition spiraling slowly further downhill even though I upped the physical therapy to 3 times per week twice in the water and once on land, but it just wasn't working. I'm a perfectionist and a control freak when it comes to writing and performing my own music. I don't invest hours and hours of myself in rehearsal so that I can get up under the spotlight and wonder what will happen onstage. This is where my "distinction" lies, my specialty in visualization techniques and critiques on different ways to improve, strengthen, lengthen, manipulate, and isolate individual muscles and resonating spaces making me a vocal mechanics coach versus giving singing lessons. I can help you utilize your potential and explore your diversity. Who do you want to sound like? Axel Rose? Max Cavelera? Michael Jackson? Jonathan Davis? Lane Staley? Elvis? Jonny Cash? Frank Sinatra? Prince? Snoop? Eminem? Luther Vandross? Ledisi? Gwen Stefani? Ani DiFranco? Reba McEntire? Lauren Hill? Yolanda Adams? Roberta Flack? Mama Cass? These are the most famous "unique" multifaceted versatile singers that I tend to lean on when attempting to "stray from the norm" and challenge yourself to mimic them and help you explore and discover your own unique sound, IF that's what you're after.