Singing as Medicine: How Liz Caplan Healed Through Music

0:00At a very early age, Liz Kaplan found her own medicine. Excuse me while I get my tissues because that got me too. Yeah, come on, right? You just gave me the damn goosebumps. Stop it. I had asthma. Singing helped change the way I breathed. I could almost get myself out of it from my own techniques. That is proof that the healing properties of music are happening. Have an asthma attack, sit at the piano and start singing. No more asthma attack. And there's so many people out there struggling right now. They don't know what their medicine is. They think it's chasing boys, chasing women, drinking alcohol, doing drugs.

0:41Prior to every single local lesson, I do an incredibly detailed breathing series. They would come up from this big breathing series and go like this. Wow, why use drugs? because the high you get from deep breathing is real damn and no hangover none

1:13what's up everybody we're back i have liz kaplan today the vocal coach for the stars she founded liz kaplan voice studios up in new york and she has worked with some amazing people that you see on the screen a whole lot, right? Hugh Jackman, some people from Pitch Perfect and some other big names, but her story didn't start there. And that's really where I want to dive in today. See, she took small steps to get where she's at. She provided a service. She provided exceptional service. And then one person told one person and another and another. And then now here we are, this amazing vocal coach of the stars.

1:54Like I said, Liz Kaplan, welcome to the show. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. I'm so happy that you're here too, because one thing that people don't know about me, and I know this isn't all what you do. I know you've worked with some of them, but my wife and I are obsessed with Pitch Perfect. So, you know, I know anybody here is Ben Platt and they're like, yeah and he was actually like to me the big star right because he was the underdog throughout the whole film and then at the end he came on and it was like magic wasn't it totally and that's basically ben in a nutshell that is awesome you know i i really love having conversations uh with accomplished individuals like you, because there's always a story involved, right?

2:47I want you to walk the audience through how you actually started, because if they're coming into it and look you up, look at your website, they see all this amazing stuff, all this press, you know, amazing, amazing testimonials from like Stephen Colbert that, I mean, that, that testimonial you people see that though like i don't know how i can relate to this person because they're so big and they're so they're so great but that's not where it started for you can you walk the audience through how this this massive momentum and this massive business started for you it's gonna start so teeny weeny I remember being six years old and being asked to sing God Bless America at the lip of a stage in some school auditorium.

3:43And I sang and it was probably just a piano playing behind me. And I felt, I don't think I understood patriotism at the time at six years old, But I certainly felt that my voice singing in general, but certainly singing that song, because it's very broad. And I was like, hmm. And the audience applauded. And I was like, oh, that feels good, too. But mostly I felt my own instrument as a healing mechanism for myself. and how sound at six years old made people respond. Interesting. Interesting. So I want to stop here and I want to dive into this because you said two things to me that are very important.

4:40One, that your instrument, your voice was healing for you. That's big. So I want you to touch on that, But then I want you to touch on the reaction from the audience, because those are two different things. Those are two different wins, and they're both very impactful. Agree. Interestingly, the response from the audience was not for me, at least to my recollection at six years old. It wasn't so much based in ego as it was. it felt good to me, but it mostly felt good to me because I elicited a response from a large crowd. And it was because I also got to open my mouth and express myself freely, which was new for me at that time.

5:35And I certainly do not recall whatsoever what led up to me singing that song or being asked to sing it. I have no idea. I have to really go into a past life regression to do that. But it started me off understanding the truly healing formula of the human voice for oneself, and that's one of the questions you asked, and also for others. And I think I could sort of sum up that healing perspective of like, if I kind of kept going through my life, if anything like not fantastic was happening to me at any point, I'll cite examples. I didn't get a good grade on a test or somebody, a boyfriend broke up with me or something like that.

6:30I literally would go to the piano and start singing. And the perspective I actually have in my mind right now, based on what we're talking about, is Joni Mitchell's Blue came out when I was about just turning 14. So I would sit at the piano and play through the music on the piano, singing her entire album. And she wrote that as a healing salve for her, herself. and I felt that she was speaking for so many others and that you can be hurt and you could go through these dark periods and yet you still have creative use of vocabulary in music and you also can use your voice to cry in the sense of how it makes sound and you can use your voice to feel joy in how you make sound.

7:22So I have a distinct memory of that beginning my need to use my voice mostly for myself. Because if I think about my life now and how I'm completely dedicated to educating, you know, A-list people, but it didn't start that way, but entertaining and listening and hearing people's voices all throughout my teaching career, I never, ever wanted it to be about me. I felt like I wanted to be the clear canvas and let everybody come in and just like, you know, throw up their emotions at me. And I was all clear and ready to accept because I didn't have any business that needed to be intertwined with their things that they were going through.

8:14So I realized, like I said early on, that singing should be mostly a healing art form. And the teaching of singing should be exactly that too. And I had come from teachers myself all throughout junior high school and high school and college who were not particularly lovely human beings. And I say that because I never felt very comfortable in myself with them. So the feeling I had was, I mean, I don't think anybody used the word dysfunctional back in that time, but it was. It was completely a dysfunctional situation. And I kept saying to myself, I asked myself these questions as a young person, why is singing, which is supposed to bring joy to myself and to others, feeling so tense and tight and restrictive?

9:23And I knew early on that whatever I was going to end up doing in my life. And I didn't know at that time. I always wanted to make sure people felt comfortable in whatever room I was in with them and certainly comfortable within their bodies and themselves when they were listening to me help them. So, and the word threatening should never come into play when you're learning anything, I think. Right. Right. That's interesting. That kind of like got the, the momentum beginning in terms of how I knew what I wasn't going to do and how I knew what I did want to do. And I just had to obviously figure out where that was going to take place.

10:15You know, I find it interesting and thank you for all that, all that context, because there were so many great things that you said, you know, early on, you know, when you talked about eliciting a response from a whole bunch of people. And then at the end, you touched on people feeling comfortable in your presence and whatever room you're in and feeling like in just feeling just whole while they're there. You know, I feel like there's a big thing in this world that not enough people do because some people say don't, Like I've had people tell me this, don't chase feelings. You know what? If I didn't chase feelings, Liz, I would not be where I'm at right now.

10:57I chase feelings on everything. I'm chasing a feeling right now while I'm speaking to you because the moment deserves that. And when you can get a response from a client that you work with, a response from a crowd, that is proof that the healing properties of music are happening. and while the audience is listening, there's a bigger lesson here. You know, music for us in my house, my wife, there's always music on. There's always music, and the kids know music. They listen to it. You know, every time a good song comes on, I get goosebumps. My wife does, and we really dive into music because it makes us happy, and it kind of helps us forget about where we're at but the thing that i really enjoyed i want the audience to to start latching on if you haven't already latched on because i'm hit y 'all with something at a very early age liz kaplan found her own medicine and there's a lot of people out there excuse me while i get my tissues because that got me yeah come on right now you just gave me the damn goosebumps stop it I'm in completely teared up mode.

12:16Yeah. Well, thank you for that. I mean, but that's what it is. She found her medicine and there's so many people out there struggling right now that doesn't, they don't know what their medicine is. They think it's chasing boys, chasing women, drinking alcohol, doing drugs, becoming completely obsessed with the gym. I think it's a healthy obsession to a point, right? But more people need to understand how they can work themselves through hard moments in their lives. I want you to go into that a little bit more, please, because I think there's a lesson here that you can teach the audience as it relates to that.

12:55Absolutely. Well, interestingly, and I'm going to share major, you know, personal truths in that I grew up and it was discovered when I was, I think, three or three and a half that I had asthma. And how it was discovered was that I was riding my tricycle and it was squeaking. And my father kept oiling it, oiling it. And my mother was like, why is it still squeaking? And it turned out I was squeaking. My Lord. So that began sort of like, oh, I'm going to be having a challenging respiratory system. And at a young age, that's very, very difficult. And the medications that they gave even little tiny children were very harsh and very, I want to say if you imagine taking a steroid as an adult because you can't speak and you have to speak so you need to like get yourself you know inflammation down but i was given really hardcore medication when i was very young but you know the long view of that of that story is to say singing helped change the way I breathed.

14:17And what ended up happening was, even though I had teachers along the way, I would basically take the good things that they would contribute and say, I did not appreciate the way that was delivered to me. But if I were a kinder person, and a person that wants to be healed, I get a glimpse or a glimmer of what they were trying to say. And I've tried to make it more gentle for myself. So, I mean, I keep going back and forth to being a little person and being who I am today, many, many years later. And it truly was quite miraculous that I ended up getting scholarships to college for basically what I overtame with asthma.

15:10But by that time, nobody knew I had asthma and I still did have it. And I had bouts of it. People are like, you have asthma? It's like, we're going to give you the scholarship to college. Wait, we're going to give you the scholarship. People turning around going, But you're just saying in the high school play, how are you having asthma? So the idea was singing as a medicine, as you so beautifully put, was truly that. And it wasn't just the singing. It was basically learning how to increase my lung capacity so that even when I was having smaller issues with breathing, I could almost get myself out of it from my own techniques of trying to open myself up or have an asthma attack, sit at the piano and start singing.

16:01No more asthma attack. That's interesting. so so if i can continue just one extra thought yes is that what i'm known for beyond obviously teaching singing is prior to every single vocal coaching or vocal lesson i do an incredibly detailed breathing series and they're made of three sequences that involves it it's almost like It's a combination of if yoga met Pilates, met Alexander technique, met any kind of martial arts where you're becoming very, very aware of your movement and you're inhaling on one movement and exhaling on the other. So I've kind of condensed it into, you know, it doesn't take up the whole lesson because we'd never get to sing.

16:58But what I was going to say, the reason I want to say this based on what you just said earlier, is that I've had people literally complete and I do the exercises with them every single time and I'm watching them simultaneously. It's winter in New York. Pardon my mucus. They would come up from this big breathing series and go like this. Wow. Why use drugs? Because the high you get from deep breathing is real and it is clean and it is something that you could give to yourself on a daily basis and multiple times a day. Damn. And no hangover. None. Exactly. I'm going to need those techniques. You can wake up the next day and be like, breathe the day.

17:55hey i'm gonna need those techniques because my wife always says hey you need to breathe a little bit i'm like i don't know how well you know i think we're in a highly cortisol environment nowadays and i think our all of our adrenals are being so demanded upon and so crashed so often from just what comes at us on a daily basis, no matter who you are, what you believe in, all of that. I think just in general. So I think breathing and also purposeful breathing is something as a kind of cure, if you will, or at least calming moment that you can say, I can shut everything else out right now, which you could do by watching television and being engrossed in a television series, which is great.

18:55I do that. I love that. I can do that. Say again. I said, I can do that easily. Right. In a way, you know, and I have this conversation with my husband all the time. I said, television, especially when it's good TV, um, is, is a meditation for me because I'm not thinking about anything else except for what's coming at me. And quite frankly, because I'm giving out so much energy to so many people every day, every week, every month, year, years, it's nice to not be thinking about that for an hour or a binge. you know so whatever it is you need to you know quiet your mind and calm your body i'm all for it but in this particular case scenario i'm using significant deep breathing and physical movement techniques to also prepare people for their voices to feel ready to sing and feel open.

20:02And I always joke to everybody that by doing these breathing exercises, I say it's 50 % of your grade to complete them because you already feel halfway into feeling warmed up. And then we do the vocal technical exercises. And then we do the song at the end of the session where we use everything we just did to see what we created. And absolutely, 100 % of the time, by having done all of this gradual work, people are much freer. They're emotionally freer. They're physically freer. All their systems and the techniques I use are very, I call it internal, external, external, internal, because I'm dealing with organs and nervous systems and glands and things that all the things that I call it sort of basically when the compensatory muscles get in the way, then you're like trying to find your way out.

21:05So you almost feel like you have to tighten up more to like get rid of them. So finding a way to in general, and this would be life in general, like what's getting in your way and what's happening with your sound and where were you when this started happening? um i i love the diagnosis in that because i love trying to figure out what the answer and what the um best way to get through to that person is on any given day that's interesting that's awesome it's very academia you know very academia of you i it is it is but simultaneously my sneakiness is that i'm also dealing with healing chakras and all the energy centers in the body and how notes there's a note for each one of them, like that goes up the scale.

21:57And if somebody is locked up on a certain note, I actually either have them put a pair of glasses on that has that color, or I find them, I asked them to think about a certain color because I know that note is locked up because they're locked up there. So it's academic, it's homeopathic, it's holistic, it's spiritual it's like everything and it's not the same for each person i have to like you know keep changing ways in which i address somebody based on understanding who they are and what their needs are on that given day it's really interesting because you're tying all this together for me now right because that i i mentioned it before stephen colbert's testimony for your for you.

22:46And even like I, you know, even on his show, he's, you know, mentioned he misses that spiritual community. But at the end of his, at the end of his testimony, and I want to quote him because I know I'm going to butcher it because I didn't memorize it. He goes, I missed the spiritual message that your work provides. The spiritual message. It's really cool because, you know, there's so many different ways to do our jobs. Right. And, and I want to, I want to bring something up and then we'll get back to this because I just think it's so important not to glance over it. You mentioned when you go home and this is for everybody listening and watching, when you go home from a long day's work, whether you're a teacher, a vocal coach, podcast host, an actor, an actress, a big engine mechanic, I don't care what it is.

23:36there's a switch that you have to turn off and there's another switch that you have to turn on. And that's always the hardest for me, right? Because in what I do and what you do and what everybody else does, and they may not be aware of why they're so tired at the end of the day is because they're absorbing so much energy from others. Absolutely. And, and, and, and while, still, while I love that aspect of my job, it wears me the hell out. On days where I just have one, like today, I'm good. But there's days where I'll have three and I've got three different energies and three different conversation paths and all these different ways for me to steer a conversation, scaffold it, build here, go back there, now go to the front of the line.

24:23That's a lot. So I want you to walk through the audience of some, some ways, you know, that you can instruct them like, Hey, when you go home, you got to decompress a little bit, you know, they may not be able to meditate for an hour, but maybe if they can take two minutes in the car before they walk through the door, it can make for a happier place for everybody when they, when they finally enter the house. Listen, I will answer that. Of course, it was a beautiful question. And I think every one of us experiences this in some ways. What I have learned is, so the first thing I find is helpful is to have a little space to myself for a few minutes after the day is over.

25:09And one of the interesting ways of getting rid of the, we'll call it karma of your day, it could be good karma, it could be maybe darker karma, it could be it was a heavy subject matter that was talked about, and then you're kind of feeling heavy from it, is literally to sort of like spin around a little bit in a circle, like almost like male and female, women, men, anybody. Pretend you're wearing like a poodle skirt from the 1950s and literally just like spin around, around, around, around, around, change directions, spin around, round, round, round, round. And that helps just get that sort of, I want to say that noise from the day that got into you out of you.

25:57And that, that is like, if you don't have a whole lot of time, that's very easy to do. And the other thing that I like to do is I lay on the floor and I bring my knees to my chest and I kind of hold my arms around my knees and I just breathe into my lower back because what I'm also doing, the adrenal glands sit atop the kidneys. So when you're laying on the floor and you're bringing your knees to your chest and kind of buckling your arms around your knees, you're actually rebooting your adrenals. So you take deep breaths into your back and then I'll go one step further and I'll literally pretend I'm in the womb and I roll to one side with my knees connected.

26:40I roll to one side and I breathe on that side, I take a breath in, I come up and I roll to the other side and I breathe in and I come up and then I roll to one side and pull myself up and stand up straight. And I feel like day away. Interesting. That's very cool. That is literally some of the very many things that I will do in here in my studio where I am actually coming to you from. But I think what you're saying is so, so important because we could all crash energetically and it's not even from our own energy. It's from the energy that came at us during our work. It could be you walked along the street i mean i live in new york city primarily and you could get people's karma that what buy you and you're not even trying to get their karma and you're not trying to get their you take it in and if you're if you're an empath and you're sensitive because your work requires requires it and that's really great that you are we can't have everybody you know sort of like thick skinned when we need the people who are doing the emoting and helping people emote.

28:03So you can feel people's energy on you. So you have to actually try to remove it. And honestly, the other really very matter of fact way of getting people off of you, that's the way I put it, is getting people off of you is to get in the shower and really scrub, like use a washcloth and scrub yourself and just cleanse the outer layer of your skin of all the nerves that are on top of the skin and just like release them and that obviously we all know that taking a hot shower at the end of the day just feels so great but it feels great for more than one reason you're yes i'm clean and yes you know it is getting off anything that you may have taken in you know it's it's so interesting because I'm going to tell you a story.

28:51Okay. And I'm going to tell the audience a story, but I'm not going to say any names. Okay. I had a guest one time on the show and I'm trying to pick my words carefully because I don't want to give away if it was a male or a female. And it was such a heavy lift. I mean, just me receiving, me receiving, me receiving, me receiving i got home and my wife goes i've never seen you so tired i shit you not liz and everybody listening i broke down in tears and said i cannot speak the rest of the night i don't know what i'm gonna do i don't know what happened today but i am just worn the F out. Like I could, Liz, I fell asleep at eight o 'clock that night.

29:45Wow. I'm a very late night owl. So that would be like going to sleep in the morning. I usually go to bed like around 11, you know, 1030 or 11. Like I decompress. I watch shows with my wife. We, we laugh, we talk, but that night I couldn't do it. So like these, these, my whole point is I want the audience to really understand that when you come home and they, and they're getting so much value out of this episode, I hope, because I certainly hope so too, I hope so too, because, you know, you never know which way a show is going to go, but there's so, there's so much substance to you and what you do that, that literally can help these, you know, the audience that's listening that aren't singers.

30:29And we're going to get to all that fun stuff in a second, but yes, we're going to get there. Hang on with us guys. But, But everything you're talking about, even if they just try it for one time and see how they feel and just kind of disconnect from the outside world, what they had put on them that day and then come home and function. Because at the end of the day, I go home to a beautiful wife and three beautiful children. They deserve having me lit up and happy to see them. That night, though, I was like, I'm sorry, guys. you ain't getting nothing for me i couldn't shake it too you could pick up on the other people who you may have spoken to mood and what you're doing is basically that's not you that's somebody else's mood and you're just wearing it so that is also so crucial to acknowledge that if you're grumpy and you're feeling sort of like, I want to say, you know, even argumentative because you're being defensive because you're almost like you don't want this in you, on you.

31:41And yet there it is. I mean, I'm glad for you that you figured out I should probably get out of here and just go to sleep and sleep this off, which is definitely healthy. Crying is also really good yeah listen i mean i think about people in the mental health profession who are you know from the pandemic before the pandemic during and after the pandemic and certainly obviously still since the pandemic who are walking around with such heaviness from listening to what their patients are going through. And certainly one of my students, clients is somebody that came to me through, also not mentioning names, at a time where she was going through a very heavy time.

32:37She was going to school to get her MSW. And when you're learning about all the mental health potential crises that could happen. How do you not take that in? So, she ended up taking singing lessons. And that was her way of kind of having moments to clear her heaviness. And when you think about it, that's only one profession, but people who are, you know, very physical in their lives, people who, honestly, I think about all the trainers in my gym, And I'm at my gym multiple times a week doing a very, very intense workout. But they're seeing people personally who are personal trainers. And there are lots of people looming around also carrying a lot of their stuff.

33:25And they're at the gym to get rid of it. So all this energy is always, always circling around. So we have to find ways, you know, I would say speaking for myself and my career, as well as singing to help, you know, get that off of you. So you find out who am I actually right now and not what I'm, who I'm carrying. So, okay, let's get to the fun stuff. Like we've, you know, we've gave the audience a lot of good stuff and I hope you stuck around because this is going to be really cool. So, you know, I get phone calls and text messages from friends that have watched me over the years build this this show this brand okay and by the way is extraordinary thank you thank you seriously it's extraordinary not because it's just you because you are by virtue of your energy extraordinary but the what you're espousing is really trying to find ways to heal people and heal the world.

34:35Yeah. In the larger, in the larger picture of things. That's the goal. You know, like you said, it can't be about you, right? It's gotta be about somebody else. I think that we're all here to serve. I know that for a fact that we're all here to make our impact, um, good or bad. You know, you guys get to choose what kind of impact you make on someone's life. You had a really bad, some bad teachers. I had some bad teachers, I had some bad coaches too. Um, but you know, I get these calls and they always ask me like, what's it like? Like, what's what like talking to all these people like Jay Leno.

35:10I'm like, it's really cool. Like, what do you just, that's it. It's like, I'm like, guys, look, it's just one of those things where, you know, I chose this as a career and I'm blessed that I'm here. So now that I'm here, I operate in a, space that, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna acknowledge these wins, but I'm also needing to be super effective and efficient. So I can't go there in my mind, but like now I'm sitting here, right. Talking to you and blown away at the stars that you've worked with, you know, I mean, for the audience, just go to her website, like literally Liz Kaplan studios, check it out.