Welcome to the Joy of Effortless Voice & Music Coaching
Where Awakening to Authentic Artistry is Awakening to Self-Awareness
Find Your Heart—Find Your Voice—Find Your Song
I Offer A Unique, Transformational Approach Combining Traditional Teaching Methods With Techniques for Self-Discovery and Mindfulness
Easy-Going Well-Being is Key!
As a seasoned musician and meditation practitioner with over 50 years of experience, I invite you to joyfully discover a unique and heartfelt approach to unlocking your full potential as a singer or musician. My coaching is rooted in the understanding that true authenticity and excellence arise from relaxation, self-acceptance, and inner awareness.
Technical Skills and Emotional Depth is Key
I'll teach you as much practical skills and theory as you can stand, but I will also help you equilibrate your energy to make practicing these skills an effortless joy so that frustration doesn't sabotage you. It's more important to awaken your musical intuition than fret about a bunch of information!
Consider the Torus above; a symbol of unimpeded flow of energy; Stabilizing ROOT energy integrates loving HEART energy with expansive CROWN energy. Bottom up, top down!
Let's straighten out your energy to release your true potential.
Deep Immersion in Rhythm is Key
To have good rhythmic skills is to find certainty in your music and performance. As a fetus in your mothers' womb, you locked in to her heartbeat and anchored your reality in the comfort and safety of her rhythm. Finding skill in rhythm will anchor you in that same embryonic certainty you had even before you were born. This can dispel doubt and nervousness and connect you to the listener on a primal level. The groove will set you free!
Being in Touch with Your Felt-Sense is Key
Intimately knowing your bodily sensations—FEELING— is essential to authentic expression. But when we're anxious, we tend not to want to feel the unease in our viscera and we close our feelings down in protective armoring. But the bad feeling is not just from the nervousness; it's because the energy of anxiousness is then compressed, and that fist of compression is what feels awful.
But there's a wonderful way to compassionately accept how you feel, without denial and without giving in to nervousness: Two decades ago I came across a wonderful doorway which beautifully opens one to the world of inner sensations to bring balance and intelligence.
Your Love of Music is Key
If you can intelligently immerse yourself in your LOVE of music, that love will grow into your SKILL in music.
The problem for most of us is that we leave our love of music behind and descend into frustration and doubt.
I can help you focus mindfully on the SOURCE of the natural delight you have while listening to music, and help you maintain that delight as I teach you the practical tools to improve your skill in singing and playing.
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Scales and Modes are key
Familiarizing yourself with Diatonic & Pentatonic scales and modes can accelerate your musical growth and help you sing and play like a pro.
Learn to explore and create magical melodies by knowing all the possibilities revealed by scales and modes.
Improve your improvisational skills by exploring the infinite variations of major and minor pentatonic scales.
Knowing Who You Are is Key
You are MUCH more than a physical being; in essence you are a Light Being. Knowing your true nature brings that light into your voice and music and eliminates the stress and turbulence of trying to be someone else.
“Be yourself,” said Oscar Wilde. “Everyone else is taken!”
A huge part of being a musician is authenticity. And that entails being true to who your really are, inside and outside of music.
Accepting Where You Are is Key
Paradoxically, initially accepting your limitations helps you transcend then.
The key to attaining any skill lies in being at ease with where we are in that journey NOW even as we must work hard to acquire it.
Knowing our true nature, as free spirits at play in a creative universe, sets the conditions for a joyful exploration rather than a tedious, doubt-filled slog.
I'll show you some wonderful tools that can really make a difference here; both mindful and practical.
William Paul Young, NY Times bestselling author of “The Shack.”
Releasing Tension and Breath is Key
How many of us carry the tension—of playing or singing a phrase—into the next phrase. Discover how releasing the breath after every phrase can discharge stress and anxiety and GROUND you in EASE
Integrating Chest Voice & Head Voice is Key
If you have difficulty when you sing higher, you will benefit from my tools of merging the strength of your lower voice with the ease of your head voice.
If your higher voice is weak or you experience the “yodel” break as you sing higher I can help you move across your vocal registers seamlessly and robustly.
Contemplate the above image of the Torus where the lower and higher energies are integrated and free flowing. This flow is possible across your lower and higher ranges.
Checkout my page here on this skill across the Passaggio
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Your Mental State is Key
Educational science tells us that efficient learning is state dependent, meaning your mental disposition is the predominant factor in how effective your study and practice will be.
If your default mental state is frustration, impatience and doubt, your progress will be slow and painful.
On the other hand, if you can find your native state of easy-going well being, the path will be smooth and enjoyable, and here's the kicker--your subconscious mind will retain what you have learned in joy!
There is ABSOLUTELY no need for your musical quest to be frustrating and doubtful!
Actualizing Yourself as a Musician is Key
Many budding musicians shoot themselves in the foot by assuming that good musicians are born that way. There may be some small genetic advantage for a tiny few, but a steady, intelligent approach can quickly level that playing field.
Music is already inside you, it makes you tick! Music is the architecture of the soul and if you have a soul--and you do--you're a musician!! It's all there, in every atom and every cell, waiting for you to actualize it. But you must start to believe that your efforts WILL bear fruit. Beat doubt to the punch and tell yourself—and everybody else—I AM A MUSICIAN! Here's why!
Danny's bestselling Book; "The Boy at the Gate" Is still going strong!
Check out the Literary Trailer on Youtube. Buy it with all his 4 CDs here!
See reviews on Amazon here. Read the KIRKUS and BOOKLIST reviews.