Music Coaching
Guidance & Accountability To Help You Achieve Your Musical Dreams
Musicians
What Is Music COaching?
Unlike a Teacher or Tutor who teaches you a skill from scratch and creates lesson plans for you, a Coach helps those who already have a foundation to achieve the results they desire through encouragement, advice, and guidance. Think about sport coaches who help athletes improve so they can win medals and championships, or life coaches who can help someone take that next step in their career and improve their relationships.
There are many musicians out there, but only a handful actually get to where they want to be. It’s not that they aren’t talented enough, far from it! They do have the skills to get far, but some never put themselves out there in the first place. For others, they may lack social skills and drive to connect and network with others. Maybe they can improv and freestyle for days but lack the discipline to learn and master their songs for recordings. Perhaps they’re shy and hesitate to advertise themselves on social media. Or they don’t know the musical terms to communicate and interact with other musicians.
On the other hand, a musician may be taking steps and really working at their craft, but things still aren’t working out. For example, a musician is posting regularly, but they’re not getting the engagement or opportunities they expected. Maybe they can get accepted into bands, but they always get booted out and they don’t know what they’re doing wrong. Maybe they’ve been playing for years, but they know for a fact that they aren’t improving, and are in a block of sorts. There’s so many reasons, and sometimes we all need an objective eye to help us figure out why something isn’t working.
If you feel that you have a dream and the potential to do things, but lack confidence, ambition, clarity, or self-awareness to take your playing to the next level or to make music your full-time career, you can benefit the most from hiring a coach!
Always dare to dream. For as long as there’s a dream, there is hope,
and as long as there is hope, there is joy in living.
Dream Chaser
Nostalgia The Guitarist
It’s easy to look at someone who has ‘made it’ and assume they were gifted and/or had things handed to them, but that was not my case at all. In fact, it’s far from the truth. I took music all through school, dabbling in keyboard, clarinet, viola, but I never felt confident in any of them. Drum line was okay as they taught us all as beginners, we practiced regularly, and the focus wasn’t just on me, but when it came to standing alone, I honestly wasn’t that great. I performed on viola as well one time, practicing long and hard, but the nerves was high, and I was focused very hard on playing to ensure I didn’t make mistakes. While I could play, it was never easy for me.
I couldn’t read sheet music proficiently. Instead, I had to write down the notes and memorize the song piece by piece. I would play until I kinda got it right instead of playing until I couldn’t get it wrong, so I was prone to mistakes when pressure came. I was asked to play piano at church a couple times, and while I got through it, my hands were sweaty and I’d speed up and hit some bad notes. I couldn’t improvise, I couldn’t create, and I couldn’t just ‘ feel and have fun’ like others could. While I could sing and hold a note in choir, I definitely didn’t have a voice like Beyonce or Mariah like other students did. I believed others had more natural talent that I clearly didn’t have, and I retired because I figured I didn’t have a career in music anyways…….
But as the years went by, I kept being reminded of my childhood dream:
To play with a band on stage. I knew I would die with regrets if that never happened, but I didn’t play a rock instrument, nor had musical friends, so it was out of the picture for now.
Since graduating, I did try out a variety of hobbies and past times, but I wouldn’t stick to any of them for a variety of reasons. I considered and bought other instruments, like violin, harmonica, and ocarina, but they were too loud to play in a small apartment, especially with my little sister sharing the same room.
I then considered Guitar. Guitar Hero was a lot of fun and I could make my dream come true if I practiced the real thing instead, but I told myself if I were to buy one, I would have to stick to it and practice seriously because I couldn’t keep spending the little money I had on hobbies I wasn’t going to pursue, so I made myself that promise. Unplugged, it was quiet enough to practice with my sister sleeping in the same room, so I was able to commit to practicing everyday after work.
The journey started off well. I didn’t have internet at home, so I relied on printouts to learn scales and chords, but this allowed me to see patterns and shapes, like how the F major chord is just the E major chord moved up, or how A major and A Minor only had one note that was different. I realized school only taught me how to read sheets, but didn’t actually teach theory. As a logical thinker, things started to click and I felt more confident creating chord progressions and improvising. I felt a spark in me that I’ve never felt before.
6 months in, I felt it was time to invest in a teacher, and found one near by. The first lesson, he taught me the 3-finger-per-string scale instead. For homework, he told me to improvise over a backing track by next week, and I had 3 prepared within a couple days. He was greatly impressed and saw my potential, which gave me a confidence boost.
After my 2nd lesson, my homework assignment was to cover “Still Got The Blues” by Gary Moore by ear, as I have always learned songs off tabs. I figured out the notes and practiced hard, but when I came for my lesson, he said ‘”it was all wrong”. He showed me how to play it, on the higher frets (I haven’t passed the 12th fret yet), using distortion and muting techniques (never practiced that since I never used my amp), slides and bends (my guitar came with very heavy strings), and he wanted me to play it all at full speed.
I tried and I tried, but it was too fast, and distortion was unforgiving. I got frustrated with each try, and eventually gave up. He was disappointed, and said I’ll have to relearn guitar from the beginning, and that got me super discouraged, thinking the last 6-7 months was a waste of time. I said I’ll practice on my own until I’m ready to continue where we were…but I didn’t even like the blues much….and playing guitar wasn’t fun anymore, so I put the instrument down.
But in 2019, I got to perform with a Jpop dance group and be on stage for the first time since high school. I also went to my first concert ever, to see my favourite Japanese rock band, One OK Rock. I was feeling remotivated to play guitar and work towards my goals…and I didn’t see why it would take me years to make my dreams happen. It didn’t have to be complicated. So in I picked it up again as my 2020 new years resolution, GuitarTricks helped me fill the holes in my foundation, and I immediately started looking for band mates to make the dream a reality.
With a mix of research and knowing where I messed up as a child learning an instrument, I knew exactly what I had to do to make the dream come true. While I am not the strongest guitarist, especially having only played the instrument for 4 years now, I have made it much farther than my peers due to my goal oriented approach. Even when I was a beginner, I knew it was possible to achieve my childhood band dream in little time, as long as I kept my eyes on the prize. I didn’t want to practice for 10 or 20 years to make such a simply dream happen, time was of the essence!
Everyone doubted me and my dream, I had no mentors to advise me, nor any musical buddies to look up to or get help from. I was also aware that female musicians have it hard in the industry, never being taken seriously, but I didn’t let any of that discourage me from what I knew was possible to do. As long as I could cover a song well, my skill level or years of experience shouldn’t matter as much either.
It was definitely discouraging at times when I had questions about Japanese Music Theory and no one could help me, often claiming that I’m just biased when I said it sounded different, but I was willing to do the research and work on my own, and I was right. Knowing more about what was happening made it easier to memorize their 8 to 12-chord long progressions. It took a while to find bandmates as well, and I’ve been ghosted, found some egotistical and weird people, and others didn’t care to commit, so once I found a group of committed beginners like myself, I promised them I would make it work.
In my first year, I built an online presence by recording myself as I learned and progressed at the instrument. In my second year, I managed to find a band and I created this website which helped us get a couple gigs. In my third year, I reunited with the singer to become an acoustic duo and we performed at a convention and one of the biggest festivals. I’ve produced and released a couple songs for fun as well. And now in my forth year, I was recruited by a church to play each week, and was even found and asked to be part of a high quality music video production.
I’ve had other offers roll in since, to play at other conventions and to play with groups and on EPs, but because I never dreamed of being famous or making a living as a musician, I simply pick and choose what I love or what feels right to me. I started this just to make my one-time childhood dream come true, but because I’ve built an online presence, networked with some up-and-coming people, and have built a portfolio, it just kept on going!
So, if I can do all this with mediocre skills and a simple dream, I can only imagine how far someone with amazing skills and bigger dreams can go if they truly went all in. Nothing is impossible! It really just comes down to mindset, taking calculated steps, and running with all you have until it works out.
Always dare to dream. For as long as there’s a dream, there is hope,
and as long as there is hope, there is joy in living.
Real Life Advice
How I Can Help You
Our sessions will certainly cover various aspects, starting with your ultimate dreams and goals and creating practical steps, learning more about yourself and the thoughts or circumstances that are you holding you back, looking into ways to network and promote yourself, and also filling the gaps in your musical knowledge. I LOVE research (that’s literally my main job), I’ve made my own connections via social media and attending events, I ran all my personal and band’s social media profiles, created this website from scratch and wrote 200+ articles to build SEO on my own, had quite a few photoshoots, etc etc. Even if I haven’t personally done somet
I personally place heavy emphasis on music theory and terminology. Playing great is nice and all, but if you can’t understand what your bandmates are asking of you, if you can’t tell your partner what key or scale you’re using, and if you can’t do what the producer in the studio is requesting of you, people are not going to want to work with you. It doesn’t matter if the greats before you didn’t learn theory, they didn’t have all the free knowledge online that you have, and it just shows pride or laziness. Rock instruments have been lucky to rely on tabs and ears, but the majority of musicians learn to read sheets, keep time to a metronome, and can speak the lingo, so you should at least know the basics.
As for specific things we can work on, we can access your musical weaknesses, brainstorm and research local gig opportunities, figure out what is holding your band back, discuss how best to promote yourself, figure out your alter ego and work on stage presence, and so on. Even for things I’m not super experienced in, like studio recordings, I have recorded at home (example here) and been to a studio on a field trip where I sang, I’ve even done A/V at church for a couple of years, and I’ve watched videos on pretty much everything, so I’m quite familiar with a lot of things. While I can’t teach you how to play or master your instrument, I’ve dabbled with a variety of instruments in my life (keyboard, drums, viola, clarinet, harmonica, ocarina), so I can advise you with real insight and familiarity.
Unlike other coaches that trap you in with $1000+ long-term programs, I offer no contracts or obligations. I know money can be tight for many, and you may only need a couple sessions anyways. Everyone must first purchase the initial clarity session, and then you can opt for additional coaching services as needed. We can do zoom, calls, or text, whatever works for you! I’m pretty flexible as well! So reach out if you think I’d be the perfect coach for you!
My Coaching Services
Initial Clarity Session
$200 / 2 Hours (First Time ONly)
This mandatory first time clarity session will be jam packed! First, we’ll take a look at your current musical skills, knowledge, and experience so I can get a baseline. We will figure out your goals, think realistically about if and when these things can happen, along with breaking it down into smaller steps. We will spend time talking about your current mindset, and address things such as insecurities/low-self esteem, fears, anxiety, and other negative thoughts that may be getting in your way. And we’ll work on a plan on things you can start incorporating or working on now so you can start working towards your goals asap. This is a no-commitment call, and I promise to give you as much as I can without holding back so you can spread your wings and fly!
Additional Coaching
$75 / 1 Hour
If after the first session, you feel you still require some coaching, whether it’s for advice, encouragement, accountability, help with finding gigs and opportunities, an honest opinion on the songs you’re producing, or even just brainstorming, then you can always reach out again and I’ll help you in whatever way we can. If you would like a more regular service, such as bi-weekly or monthly, then we can both keep working on your plan, adjusting as needed so you can stay on track. When you’re feeling low or having doubts, I will be here to remotivate you, realistically of course. Optimism is great and works wonders, but I won’t set you up for disappointment. Sometimes, we just need to think of a Plan B and work on something else in the meantime. Whatever it is, we’ll get through this together.
