Not Good Enough?

Shame is such a powerful emotion that it can literally break your voice. For singers, that can cause a break in your career. Shame can interfere with singing studies or create problems with vocal technique.

Iris Seesjärvi, a psychophysical voice teacher, soprano, and doctoral researcher now introduces her pioneering work on how shame affects the singing voice and examines the wide scope of situations that can trigger vocal shame. The data sources for this research included interviews and inquiries with 19 classical singers and quotations from a book about the world-renowned Finnish soprano Karita Mattila.

Singers, like all musicians, have a tendency towards perfectionism. This desire can lead to anxiety, fear and shame following an imperfect performance. Receiving negative feedback can bring on a flood of shame and result in lower self-esteem. Shame is a very personal emotion, so what causes shame for one person may not affect another person in the same way.

When shame sets in, it can affect a singer's enjoyment of singing, or prevent singing altogether. To readers who feel restricted by shame, Iris offers ways to build shame resilience and regain a feeling of empowerment while singing.

• Learn about the importance of shame resilience, introduced to a wider audience by Brené Brown.


• Explore the research on professional singers' experiences of shame and how they interlink with career development.


• Allow the author to introduce you to various ways to relieve the psychophysical pain and restrictive tension in the voice caused by shame.