The Unscary Singing Course
Comprehensive, practical, and completely unscary skills to help you sing your heart out.
This course is not taking any new members at this time. Please join to mailing list to find out when it reopens.
Already signed up?
The Unscary Singing Course empowers you to explore, discover and develop your singing voice.
It does this with warmth, clarity and humour and a genuine wish for you to discover the joy, connection and goodness that can come from singing openly.
With comprehensive and engaging information and exercises you’ll be singing your heart out before you know it!
The course is a self-paced online course, presented in two parts. In Part One, we go over all the components of vocal technique in a clear, encouraging and practical manner. In Part Two, we find out how to use those skills to explore the songs you love.
We’ll use big stories and ideas to tie together information. In the land of Unscary Singing, our two big, overarching ideas that help keep us oriented are the Singing Tree and the Song Maps.
The Singing Tree is a mind map to help connect and remember all the aspects of vocal technique. The soil is our foundational beliefs, the roots our brain, the trunk our body, the sap our breath, the leaves specific vocal and music techniques, the flowers the magic and the fruit the goodness we get and share. Also, I love trees.
The Song Maps are like a choose your own adventure story of singing technique. When you are learning online, you need to be able to guide and direct yourself as you work on new songs. The song maps show you how.
Hi, I’m your teacher, Rose.
I’m a singing teacher, singer and choir leader with a Bachelor of Music majoring in voice and over 20 years experience teaching singing and choirs. I am passionate, enthusiastic and well-practiced when it comes to sharing singing with humans, and will wax lyrical to anyone who will listen about how singing is simple a beautiful thing to DO, especially with other humans, and need not be based around polish and performance unless you want it to. I believe everyone is allowed to sing, as they are, and that everyone can learn things to develop their voice if they want to (but they don’t have to to be allowed to sing!)
What’s in the course? What will I learn?
You’ll learn enough to understand how your voice works, how to use it, and enough to demonstrate to yourself that you are allowed to sing and that there is useful stuff to learn! It’s not just ‘something you’re born with’- there are actual things to learn and you can learn them!
The course is in two parts. Part one covers individual vocal techniques, and part two looks at how to bring them together and use it in a song, with a focus on how to do these things when you are exploring them at home by yourself rather than with a teacher listening.
What’s in Part One?
Part One is where we go over a bundle of vocal techniques, one by one. These are the ideas held together by the idea of the Singing Tree. In each lesson you’ll find words, both of encouragement and of highly practical and applicable technical skills, as well as demonstration and explanation videos, and practice exercises and songs.
Our Part One Lessons are Foundational Beliefs and Baggage, Brain Tools, Body, Breath, Pitch, Groove, Register, Range, Words, Tone, Hungry Notes and Final Flourishes. All these are held together in our Singing Tree Mind Map, which helps us stay oriented and remember and connect each concept.
What’s in Part Two?
In Part Two, we draw all these elements together and focus on how and when to use them by introducing the Song Maps. Our song explorations demonstrate how to apply the Song Maps, so you can use them on other songs. It’s the difference between giving you a fish, and teaching you how to catch your own. There are two Song Maps- one fairly simple one to use as a basic for all songs, and one fairly comprehensive one to use as troubleshooting guide to explore techniques and problem-spots.
We’ll explore the song maps together, then I’ll give you some tips about how to learn the notes of songs and how to read/follow music as well as design your own warm ups. Then we’ll apply both song maps in three songs to show you how it works, so you can take them out with you and apply them to whatever songs you want to sing!
And becuase I couldn’t help myself, there are some Bonus Lessons at the end, where we explore some skills and songs for building harmony singing skills and some performance strategies.
Hurruh and tra la la, this sounds great.
What does it cost?
I use a two tier payment system and ask everyone to be honest with what they can do.
Choose according to what you can afford.
The full price is $149. In in-person singing lessons, this would get you just under 2 hours of singing instruction. In this course, you’ll get hours and hours and hours of information, songs, encouragement and tips.
This includes 18 months access to the online component, as well as downloadable content which is yours forever. This includes a Workbook, Songbook, Practice Guide, Mp3s and posters.
The lower income price is $99 and includes all the same things.
Please honour this system by choosing which tier is most appropriate for you.
This course is not taking any new members at this time. Please join to mailing list to find out when it reopens.
Everything in the course is underpinned and guided by
The Unscary Singing Manifesto
1. You are allowed to sing.
You are allowed to sing whether you think you are any good or not. You are allowed to sing whether you actually are any good or not. You are allowed to sing for your own reasons and purpose, and these do not have to have anything to do with performance or perfection, unless you want them to.
2. Singing is valuable as a process, rather than exclusively as a product.
Singing is a powerful and magical part of being a human. It connects us to ourselves, each other, as well as to something transcendent. Perfecting something then presenting it as a performance is not the only valid way to make music or to sing. You can do it for the sheer joy of it.
3. Technique is useful in that it allows you to express what you want to express.
Technique, if learnt purely for it’s own sake, is very dull. Technique if learnt as a way to have creative control, catharsis and choice is very empowering.
4. Singing is learnable
It’s not something you just have or you don’t. There is actual stuff to learn, which makes a big difference, and anyone can learn it.
5. Singing safety matters
Your felt sense of safety has a very direct impact on how your singing sounds and feels. By understanding how this works, you can be kind to yourself while you gradually become less scared, as well as learning tools to help you sing with more freedom and less fear.
Frequently Asked Questions
Got questions? You might find the answers right here!
Click on the plus on the right hand side to view the answers.
I'm a complete beginner, is this course for me?
Yes! This course makes a special spot of welcome for those who want to sing deep down but who are scared to even start.
What's in the paid course that's not in the free one?
Lots! The free Unscary Singing Basics course touches on one technical idea from some aspects of the Singing Tree. The paid course covers many aspects of each Singing Tree Point, and also covers parts of the singing tree not looked at all in the free course. The paid course also has the song maps, three songs with thorough teaching lessons showing how to apply the song maps, many more downloadable resources and bonus modules.
I’ve had some singing lessons and experience before, is this course for me?
Absolutely. This course will offer you a way to organise and utilize all you already know, plus introducing more ideas and things to learn and ponder. The Song Maps in particular are a unique and useful way of teaching yourself the songs you love to sing.
What does it cost?
The courses uses a two tier cost system. The full cost is $149, and the lower income cost is $99. Pay according to which you can afford. Both price points include all aspects of the course-18 months access to the online portion of the course and you own all the downloadable materials forever.
What's the time commitment?
It depends on how fast you want to do it! In the Practice guide I give you a twelve week plan which requires two 30 minute focused practice sessions a week, plus incidental practice woven into your life (I show you how). You could follow this plan but spread it over 6 months or 12 months, or do it at what ever pace you want.
How many videos are there?
Over 60 videos ranging from 3 to 20 minutes in length.
When can I start?
Right now! The course is self-paced and you can start at any time. Register here if this is your plan!
Is there a money-back satisfaction guarantee?
Yes. I offer a 7-day money back guarantee. If after giving it a good whirl you decide this is not the course for you, I will refund 100% of your purchase.