Yesterday, I took a one-time voice training lesson. I grew up listening mainly to rock music, where taking instruction of any kind is often looked down on. Rock values freedom, so we play and shout as comes natural without teachers.

Fortunately, I came to realize that if I stayed on that path, I would never be able to sing the way I imagine in my head. I bought a voice training book, and since I liked it, I decided to take a face-to-face lesson with the author, Toshirō Sakurai.

He asked what kind of songs I wanted to sing, listened to me sing, and taught me a lot of interesting things. The lesson was twice as exciting as I expected. I have a talent for sniffing out good teachers — including Journalers!

The main thing he corrected was my breathing.

• Relax your upper body muscles.
• Breathe with your diaphragm.
• Focus on the back of your body rather than the front.
• Breathe into your hips and imagine the breath going down to your heels.
• Expand your body side-to-side instead of front-to-back.
• Expand even more when singing high notes.

He also pointed out that my tongue tends to rise and narrow my oral cavity. He told me to sing while mimicking brushing my back teeth with my right hand. I was surprised that such a ridiculous exercise actually helped separate my upper and lower back teeth and relax my tongue. I have to admit I underestimated the power of visualization.

After just one hour, I found I could sing high notes effortlessly. I think this will help me with the American pronunciation as well. American English is much more melodic than Japanese and you have to utter longer phrases in a single breath.

At the end of the lesson, the teacher said, "We're not using our full abilities."