In the Press: Patience on Singing and Well-being

Patience spoke to the Waiheke Island Gulf News about how singing - even for just 10 minutes a day can improve your well-being by releasing endorphins (the feel good hormone) and say bye-bye to stress.

Original Source: Gulf News

Can’t sing? Won’t sing? That doesn’t matter  for Patience Scarles, who reckons her vocal coaching is perfect for people looking for a new hobby. 

Patience says singing is the perfect  activity for wellbeing, stress-release and boosting your mood – whether you think  you might be the next Tina Turner, Frank Sinatra or X-Factor winner, or even if you’ve  never been able to hold a note. 

She runs private and group sessions as well as tuition to professionals or aspiring singers in which she tailors breath-work, safe vocal technique, fun vocal work-outs and preparation for performances to each individual person.  

And her aim? Well, she believes that in six months, people who might never have considered singing before are feeling good about their voices, and have learnt how to use singing as a tool to unwind and feel good.

The seed for Patience Scarles Vocal Coaching was planted a little over a year ago  when she was working in a fast-paced job in London, surrounded by artists and performers. Instead of performing, she found herself organising and promoting gigs, interviewing artists and MC-ing shows.  

But a desk job was just not the right place for Patience. She told a friend she felt like she was treading water and received the “lightbulb moment” suggestion of combining music and yoga. 

As a qualified 200-hour yoga teacher and with eight years’ experience practicing yoga, Patience knows the effect it can have on singing. It really got her thinking:  maybe there’s a way to reinvent how to teach singing. 

She already knew what a difference it had made to her. At the end of last year, she was struggling with anxiety and chronic stress, and it was her daily vocal and yoga practice that really helped her push through. Making time for herself at the start of the day made a big difference and it soon became her favourite part of each day. 

Patience realised just how effective singing is at calming anxiety and overcoming stress and so has incorporated aspects of yoga into her teaching style. The yoga aspect at the moment really is purely breath-work and meditation, which she is slowly integrating into her classes and is used as part of the warm-up.  

Patience says her innovative new combination provides Waiheke with a whole new field to explore. It’s a fun, new activity that anybody can try, and it adds a new string to the bow of both the current health and wellness activities and the current performing arts activities. 

Patience says her aim is for singing to be seen in a similar way to exercise and yoga for improving mental health, “People talk about going to the gym, so why not a vocal gym?”

She has almost 20 years professional  singing experience and attended theatre school from age eight. She was part of the Children’s Choir for productions at Blackpool’s Grand Theatre in the UK, and has performed throughout her teens and early 20s as a solo artist and with bands across  Auckland, Dunedin, Lyon, London and, of  course, here on Waiheke.  

 On the business side of things, Patience was Executive Assistant to the CEO/Founder of global music events company Sofar Sounds, giving her years of experience in a fast-paced, do-it-yourself business environment organising public speaking engagements, writing publications, managing social media accounts and creating content for and coaching the founder through speeches.  

But now she’s keen to see her new approach to vocal coaching soar on Waiheke.  She says it’s not about singing to perform,  it’s for all those people who say “I can’t sing” and helping them realise that they can use their voice to feel good. “If you can speak, you can sing. It’s just making  noises,” she says. 

The sessions focus on singing to improve well-being; teaching you how to use singing  as a tool to destress and feel good – as she says, you have a voice, so why not use it? •  Will Toogood, Gulf News