You can take lessons to become almost anything: flying lessons, piano lessons, skydiving lessons, acting lessons, race car driving lessons, singing lessons. But there's no class for comedy. You have to be born with it. God has to give you this gift.
I made quite a lot of money in commercials and I decided when I got out of school to take singing lessons so I could get into singing commercials, too.
I started singing about three years ago, I entered a local singing competition called Stratford Idol. The other people in the competition had been taking singing lessons and had vocal coaches. I wasn't taking it too seriously at the time, I would just sing around the house. I was only 12 and I got second place.
I took lessons since I was little; I used to pay for my own singing lessons and take myself. Just take the bus when I was a kid and go. But I'd been writing music for years, since the smallest age.
After three months of singing, Hef heard me practicing once. He tried to convince me to quit singing lessons because there was no chance of being good at it. Of course, I cried a lot when he said that, but it was my money that I was investing in lessons so I continued partly out of spite and partly because I really wanted to do it.
I've never taken vocal lessons. My early trumpet training and a fortunate talent for singing has always been enough for me. In the case of rock singing, I've always felt it was better to remain a bit untrained to maintain your individuality.
Performance is really an important part of how I edit. I sometimes take something out because I realize I put in a joke just to be funny and the audience laughed, but I should be ashamed of myself. I sometimes take out sentences, which are perfectly fine on paper, just because they don't flow when I say them out loud. I always read my work out loud now.
I took piano lessons when I was a little kid, but even before that, you're singing in the classroom and wherever. Gosh, children are always singing. But I took music lessons, some choir and things like that at school. I learned how to play the guitar when I was about 13... ancient history.
I remember growing up singing; even when I was just three years old, I was singing all the time in the house. My parents said I was singing before I could even talk properly.
When I first started singing - before 'Treat Me Like Fire' when I was working with a vocal coach - I realized that I wasn't even breathing when I was singing.
I'm also taking singing classes as well, not that I ever plan to sing in public in my entire life. I actually have a phobia of singing, so I decided to take some singing lessons to help me get away from the phobia.
I started dance class when I was a little kid, and then, when I turned 11, I started taking vocal lessons, guitar lessons, and piano lessons.
Lessons are not to take the place of practice, but to make practice worthwhile.
That's right, I take vocal lessons - done it for years. There's nothing wrong with it.
I never took any kind of vocal lessons or teachings of how to - I never even took piano lessons. And a voice just came to me and said, go play the piano in the church.
Every day, I start with a workout; I do vocal lessons, I do piano lessons.