Stepping Outside Of My Comfort Zone To Expand My Repertoire With Coach Kate

If you’ve ever had a voice lesson where your coach told you one thing and then in the next song something completely different - maybe even contradictory - then you’re not the only one! What needs to get adjusted can be vastly different from song to song. Or maybe you keep getting the same feedback over and over again no matter what song you’re working on - that’s also totally normal.

And that’s what makes learning how to sing so difficult - there’s no one size fits all solution for singers. I sat down with our very own Coach Kate to see how she coaches me through 3 completely different songs that I’ve never worked on before and barely know.

It was so interesting to see how some of the feedback she gave me was completely different from what I’m used to hearing and how applying her feedback helped through all three songs. So let’s break down what she told me to do throughout these different songs and what effect they had so you can see if those tips help you in your own singing too!

A Quick Intro to Coach Kate

Coach Kate and I met in college at The Berklee College of Music. Kate was the director of a musical and I was cast as the lead role. But that’s not where Kate’s singing journey started. She started voice lessons at a young age after being told by multiple people that she’s very talented. She did her undergraduate in Music Education, then taught elementary and middle school music classes before deciding to get a master’s degree in Contemporary Voice Pedagogy from Shenandoah University.

Beyond her education and experience as a vocal teacher, she also performed a lot in various groups, including a cappella competitions. Her fiancé is an a cappella arranger and they really enjoy singing together.

Kate’s teaching style comes from a science based background mixed with with performance and artistry. She really enjoys working with kids, offers gender affirming voice training for the LGBTQ+ community, and just loved sharing her passion for contemporary singing.

Song 1: “Gravity” by Sara Bareilles

Technique Focus: Singing Softer Without Losing Support

This song required a total mindset shift—especially for singers used to pushing or singing “strong” all the time, like me 😇. The main note here was to release and let it feel light, not labored.

Kate offered this brilliant check-in:

“If 1 is like sitting on a couch, and 10 is you screlting to get the note at a bar at 2 AM… this should be a 2.”

To help me get a well balanced and soft mix for the chorus (higher notes), here’s what Kate told me to do:

• Do it on a puffer fish - this lowers the larynx and overall effort.

• Keep the air flowing on the top notes - this keeps the vocal folds from closing too tightly.

• Keep the tongue low - just like when you say the word “human” (this blew my mind and worked so well!!!)

For the beginning of the song she asked me to do three things to keep it more intimate:

• Make it more breathy

• Smile to get more of the bright frequencies to come through

• Remove the vibrato (more straight tone)

This song wasn’t about power—it was about ease, space, and presence.

Singer Tip: Soft ≠ weak. If you're constantly pushing, you might be missing an entire layer of control and artistry that happens at lower intensities.

Song 2: “Die With A Smile” by Lady Gaga & Bruno Mars

Technique Focus: Reducing Twang

Usually I love singing songs by Lady Gaga, but for some reason, this song was not easy for me. I remember the first time I sang along to this song my throat immediately closed off and I was pushing so hard to get the notes out. Ever since then, I haven’t sung that song, I just completely wrote it off as “not for me”. Fast forward many months and now Kate’s asking me to sing this song. In the first run through my throat did exactly the same thing - it closed off. Probably because my brain remembered what this song felt like previously so I just fell right back into that same old habit. I knew that I needed to figure out how to release tension in this song to get the chorus out effortlessly. What I didn’t know was that in order to do that I needed to reduce twang in my sound - that’s what coach Kate pointed out.

Here’s how we did that:

• Puffer fish through the chorus (sound familiar? 😉)

• Change it to duh/dah with almost like a “numb”/very lazy mouth

• 60% lazy mouth, but now on the lyrics

• Keep the sound more in the middle of the mouth (rather than the roof of the mouth/hard palate)

After hearing my say over and over again that I want to reduce volume, Kate pointed out that I might be a bit afraid of being loud now. Makes sense! I’ve been working on NOT being loud for the last couple of years so that I could reduce effort and not it seems like the pendulum has swung too far in that direction. It was nice to hear that I don’t always have to pull back anymore!

Singer Tip: The goal is always balance. If you’ve been working on something for a long time, it’s possible that you now need to correct in the other direction a little bit too. Of course, that’s going to look different for every singer.

Song 3: “Good Luck, Babe!” by Chappell Roan

Technique Focus: Head Voice with Teeth

I went into this chorus with too much power - too “mixy”. Kate said that if I want to sing that chorus sustainably, aka over and over again, going into full head voice will make this a lot easier. Plus, we don’t need more there! Not even Chappell sings this in a mix voice.

“You don’t want to make it sound like you’re trying too hard… it’s supposed to feel like ‘good luck, babe,’ not like a climax.”

The vocal move here was to:

• Let the voice lift and thin naturally

• Reduce vibrato on the very top notes in head voice so they don’t start sounding “too classical”

• When transitioning into the chorus (on the word “baby”), keep the lower notes a bit lighter to transition more easily.

Singer tip: Just because a note is high doesn’t mean it needs to be belted or mixed. Sometimes thinning out the tone feels way better—and sounds more emotionally true to the song.

So… What Do Coaches Actually Listen For?

Here’s what’s interesting: this session wasn’t about hitting every note perfectly. It wasn’t about critiquing tone or calling out pitch. It was about watching how a singer uses their voice—where it flows, where it gets stuck, and how to make it feel easier.

Great coaches don’t just say “that was flat.”

They try to find the root cause of the note going flat and ask themselves things like:

• Where’s the tension?

• What’s the vowel doing?

• Are they using the right amount of air?

Treating symptoms will only get you so far. It will help for the song you’re working on, but then you’ll feel like you have to start from scratch again for each song. If you work on the root causes then you’ll feel progress over all that you can carry with you into the different songs you’re working on!

🎧 Want to watch the full session and hear these coaching moments?

Check it out here

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