Us People Podcast

When Music Finds You - Calin Blendea - Vocal Coach - Music Therapist - Singer/Songwriter and Founder of CASBI - Season 5 - #226

• Us People Podcast • Season 5 • Episode 226

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In a captivating podcast episode, Savia Rocks engages in a compelling conversation with Calin Blendea, a multi-talented individual known for his roles as a vocal coach, music therapist, singer/songwriter, and the founder of CASBI. The episode delves into various facets of Calin's life and career, offering valuable insights into his musical journey, expertise, and passions. Here are the key points discussed in the episode:

•⁠  ⁠*Origin Story*: Calin shares his upbringing in Romania and the cultural influences that shaped his musical inclinations.
•⁠  ⁠*Musical Journey*: Insights into how Calin discovered his love for music and embarked on his musical path.
•⁠  ⁠*Music Education*: The importance of teaching music and its impact on creativity, self-expression, and personal growth.
•⁠  ⁠*Breathing Techniques*: Discussion on the significance of proper breathing techniques in singing and how to train oneself for better vocal performance.
•⁠  ⁠*Vocal Health*: Tips on the right foods and drinks to consume for optimal vocal health and techniques for enhancing singing abilities.
•⁠  ⁠*Music Therapy*: Exploring Calin's role as a music therapist and the therapeutic benefits of music on emotional well-being.
•⁠  ⁠*Singer-Songwriter*: Calin's reflections on his passion for being a singer-songwriter and the creative process behind his music.

Through this diverse array of topics, listeners gain a comprehensive understanding of Calin's rich musical background and his deep-seated love for music in its various forms. The episode serves as an insightful exploration of the transformative power of music and the art of self-expression.

Website: http://casbi.co.uk

"When music finds us there nothing we can do but embrace the love of the melody within us" - Savia Rocks

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Savia Rocks:

Hey guys, we made it to season five of the ask people podcast. I'm your host, Savia Rocks. And in this season, we aim to empower and embrace creativity through diversity as we dive into the fascinating stories and experiences of a diverse range of individuals. Highlighting their unique perspectives and creative endeavors from artists and entrepreneurs to innovators and activists. We celebrate the power of diversity in driving creativity and fostering positive change. Join us as we engage in thought provoking conversations like,

Tony DaDa:

I made myself intentionally homeless in pursuit of my purpose.

J Harris:

We're aware that. A lot of people want to present were my position and what's worse, they weren't a white male, which is a joke. That's even still a thing.

Mel:

think my family never, ever say you can't do something. So for whatever dream. If I said tomorrow when I fly to the moon, they'll probably say, I wish you all the best Mel.

Savia Rocks:

So guys, I just want to say thank you for supporting the Us People podcast for the past five years, and we look forward to sharing another new theme song.

Calin Blendea:

Hello. my name is Calin. I'm a vocal coach music therapist and singer songwriter and you're listening to the us people podcast with sabia rock

Savia Rocks:

Hey guys, and welcome to another episode of the Us People podcast. I'm your host, Savia Rocks, and today I'm humbled to have Calin here with me, who is a vocal coach, music therapist, singer, and songwriter. Kalin, thank you so much for coming on the Yes People podcast. How are you?

Calin Blendea:

Hello, I'm glad to be here.

Savia Rocks:

No, definitely. Thank you so much. So my first question for you is, could you tell us a bit about your background of where you grew up and how that influenced you to be the person who you are today?

Calin Blendea:

Yes. So I come from Romania. I grew up in Romania and I've been there for 20 years and hit 20, I came to London. So four years now, in Romania, I didn't do a lot of music until high school in high school. I went and did mathematics and computer programming. I stayed there for like two years and after two years, I just went to music because my family had a musical background. My, grandfather was a musical director. my mother was a pianist. My father, played violin and so on. then I moved on to a musical college. after I finished that, I went to the capital, Bucharest, because I was born in the South of Romania. So I went to the capital and auditioned for a vocal school. it is a very prestigious vocal school in the East of Europe. I went through an audition process with like 300, 400 people and 40 of us were selected. Then the whole course was about one year and a half. And every three months was an exam. And if you failed the exam, you were, like, kicked out of the school.

Savia Rocks:

wow.

Calin Blendea:

yeah, it was, very strict. and at the end, from 40 people, 7 of us were still there, were still standing. So yeah, 7 of us finished the whole course. After I finished the course, I stayed almost a year in Bucharest after that, and then I moved to London. And when I came to London, I started to win BIM. So the British and Irish Modern Music Institute here in Fulham. And I started doing a polka course. I wanted to research what kind of techniques they do here and make a comparison between what I did and what has been done here. I stayed for a year because the whole course was three years, And then I stayed for a year in it because I didn't like the things that people were teaching here. The technique was, Something that you could find for free on YouTube. So the whole curriculum was, I don't know, you could find it online, like, for free, not for a thousand pounds, and the thing is, it wasn't about just the curriculum, it was about teachers. Teaching students how to scream literally, and it wasn't like a metal course where to scream or something like that. No, they were teaching them how to scream like in blues and rock and roll and R& B, which is screaming. And they didn't, they didn't tell them about the issues that this comes with. Dysphonia, nodules, vocal hemorrhages. The only thing that I told them about this, it was, this is a normal thing. This happens to singers and no, it doesn't happen to singers. Beyonce doesn't have this phone. You're not just Celine Dion. Never had it. Mariah Carey never had it. So yeah. People who know how to sing don't seem to have this issues kind of. Yeah. So that's the thing. It's not a normal thing to do. It's, it's something that you have. If you have like a bad technique if you don't know how to do it well, so I stayed there for a year and then I just stopped it and I started to analyze what I went through, why is this happening and the conclusions were people think that a raspy voice like, for example, Joe Cocker or Bruce Springsteen, people think that raspy voice is a gift from God or is a natural talent.

Savia Rocks:

Yeah.

Calin Blendea:

And it is not. It's an illness because people are not born with a raspy voice. You don't hear babies. shouting like a 50 year old smoking three packs a day. you don't hear them talking like that. They have like a bright voice, annoying voice sometimes, and it's really, really loud. So yeah, and people think about this as a gift from God, like the majority of the population, because They see this on TV, for example, The Voice, or X Factor, or American Idol. each one of these concerts has, People in the jury that some of them, most of them have no idea about what a singer should be about how the vocals work. I don't think Simon Cowell knows how the vocal cords work. I'm not really sure he doesn't. He's a good manager. he knows a good sound. He knows a good song. he can make a really great hit or really great band, but he has no idea about how vocals work. And then you have some people now at the boys. You have Jennifer Hudson, which is an amazing singer. She's an amazing singer. But the rest of them, I don't know. they tell people. And if you go to a contest like that, and if you are like a contestant there, they kind of like squash your dreams, because they make an assessment of you. That's not true. That's like so shallow.

Savia Rocks:

Yeah.

Calin Blendea:

And after that, you're just like left with no confidence at all. And you see people that are like. Much lower than you sometimes go on and win the whole thing. and you base your whole life on that kind of stuff, but this is the world that we live in now. And this is the view of the population now. So it's harder for an artist, for an original artist to launch in this market because of this because of what these things have done for the past 20 years. So this is kind of like my background.

Savia Rocks:

Define who you see when you look in the mirror. What does your reflection say to you? But how do you emotionally connect to what your reflection is saying to you?

Calin Blendea:

Can you put the question again?

Savia Rocks:

Define who, define who you see when you look in the mirror. What does your reflection say to you, but how do you emotionally connect by what you see when you look at your reflection?

Calin Blendea:

So when I look at my reflection, I don't think a lot of happy thoughts, because usually when I do an assessment of myself, I think of all the bad things. Why? What is it? What

Savia Rocks:

is it that you think is bad?

Calin Blendea:

I'm thinking? about issues of personality and stuff like that, because if I put too much thought into the good things, I'm just going to stay in one place. I'm not going to involve anyone because you don't have to work anymore for the good things that you're doing. You're already doing them. So I just focus on the bad things. the things that I'm not good at, sometimes you can be arrogant. Sometimes you can be rough on people. Sometimes you can think too much of yourself as a really great person or something like that. and I'm trying to reflect on that and fix them in some way. just go to the next level this is another thing that I learned in the book of school. Back in Romania, because it wasn't just singing there. singing was like 30, 40 percent of everything that we did. It was more of like, find yourself. And put that self on stage

Savia Rocks:

So tell me about your style of vocal training because say for instance, a client and the client comes to you and says, I sing, I sing, but they want to sing R and B or they want to sing rock. How would you. Train their vocal chords to for them to be able to change singing style so that their voice cannot be damaged like you were saying before, but for them to be able to sing in the way that they want to and also have a healthy voice.

Calin Blendea:

the first thing is, if someone comes and says, I want to sing pop, or I want to sing rock, I'm just going to ask them, why do you want to do that? Do you know yourself so well that you know you're going to be that good at this kind of thing? And I'm asking this to people who want to do this like a career. If someone wants to do this as a hobby, yeah. You want to sing, I don't know, you want to sing Aerosmith, but you don't have the power to sing Aerosmith. Yeah, we can try to go and sing Aerosmith, but if you want to do this as a career, the first thing that you need to do is like define your style. You can't, so let's say you're just started. And you're gonna say, yeah, I'm a pop artist. How do you know that? What did you do to, to get to this conclusion? That means you're a pop artist. For example, I like a lot of blues and soul music and R& B. I like a lot of black music. I'm not good at it. I'm just bad at it. I know how to sing it, but if you put me on stage to sing blues, I'm just, bad. But that's what I like. But I'm not good at it. I'm good at singing rock music. I'm good at singing Guns N Roses. I'm good at singing all the breaks. Like, I'm good at singing, like, really hard stuff. But that's style. So your style doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be something that you like. So that's the, that's kind of the idea is people like a lot of people think. That they know themselves and like a 90 percent of the case in that case, that's not true because you need some experiences to go through. most of the people need bad experiences to go through and to get like to the lowest point then from that lowest point to get themselves up on their own and just learn about themselves So. this is going to be the first step. after we go through this discussion, I'm going to start doing the basics of the technique, which is called the diaphragm technique. everything that you sing, you sing from your diaphragm. That's the part right underneath your ribs. It's between your stomach and your lungs, basic diaphragm exercises, breathing exercises. Exercises that athletes do, for example. Cause if you go for a jog and if you sprint and after the sprint, you're going to see that you're starting like breathing really fast. And if you look down, you look that your stomach is deflating and not your chest.

Savia Rocks:

that's true.

Calin Blendea:

Yeah. That's the natural way of breathing. People don't breathe naturally in their chest. So when you breathe, your chest doesn't need to be inflating. Your stomach needs to be inflating. Because your chest has like some bones on top of it. it's kind of hard to inflate that rib cage that much. Because you have like some sort of shield that's protecting it. And that's why you need to breathe in your stomach because your stomach can inflate really big. It can be huge if you inflate it. And if you look at babies, if you study a baby, you can see that a baby breathes in its stomach. And a child breathes in the stomach until the age of puberty, which something happens in their mind, like, psychologically happens that they make them to breathe in their chest. For boys, boys start breathing in their chest because it makes them more like, more macho, kind of like macho man, like they inflate their chest. And for girls, it's the same, they inflate their chest. So they start breathing like that. it's all about what they're seeing around them and on TV and something like that, and that's why at the age of 12 or 13, 14, the age of puberty, people change the breathing from diaphragm to chest, which for the majority of people, it's nothing wrong because you don't use it that much. You're not an athlete, you're not a singer, but if you want to be an athlete, if you want to be a singer, that's not good. So, Yeah. to teach that person to breathe through their diaphragm. And this process takes around 2 or 3 weeks of daily exercises. And it's like, daily exercises I mean like 20 25 minutes a day.

Savia Rocks:

Okay.

Calin Blendea:

Yeah, because if you do it for hours, your body is not going to learn. So it's like muscle memory. Just do it little by little. And your body is gonna understand. If you do it five hours in a day, your body's not gonna understand that that movement needs to come natural. Your body's gonna think about that movement as a workout. So if you go to a gym and if you go to a workout, your body is like, it's ready to do it. It's like it, it's in that state of mind. It's like, okay, now we're gonna work out. I'm just gonna flex. I'm just gonna do this. And after the workout, the body is going to relax. You don't need to do that with breathing. You need to do like little by little. To make the body understand that, Okay, you need to do this all of the time. Not just in like some periods of the day. No, all of the time. You need to breathe like this. And the easiest way to do this, to be sure you're breathing like this, is like lay on your back in the bed and just start breathing. And you're going to see, you're going to breathe in your stomach because physically impossible to breathe in your chest, Because of gravity, So that's why your body just breathes in the stomach when you're sleeping, when you're laying on your back or something like that. This is the second step. And then after the second step, we start doing songs while we're doing the diaphragm exercises, I'm just analyzing the person and just trying to see what songs are good for their level, like basic songs. And we're going to go through a lot of genres from pop to blues to rock to jazz. So we're going to go through all of them. In the beginning, this goes on for the first six months. for the first six months, we're just going to go through a lot of after six months, which is, I'm just going to analyze all that has happened and see which genre works the best for this person. And then after. we're just gonna stick to that genre and do like harder more and more more more harder song Yeah until we finish so this thing Is gonna take about a year and after a year that person needs to be able to teach himself

Savia Rocks:

Okay, talk to me about breathing exercises because breathing is such a huge part of vocal training. So is there any advice that you could give to people? Say for instance, that they couldn't afford a vocal coach for instance, but they do want to keep their voice healthy. Is there any breathing exercises that you would give to them? them, be able to train and become better within their vocals.

Calin Blendea:

So, in terms of breathing, it's, whatever breathing that you're doing during the day, if you're doing it diaphragmally, that's perfect. If you want to see if it's diaphragmally, put your hand on your chest, then put your hand on the diaphragm or stomach, and see which one inflates. If the chest inflates, it means that it's like chest breathing. If the diaphragm inflates, it means it's diaphragm only, which is good. If they both inflate, it means it's mixed breathing, because you can't breathe in your chest a little bit and then in your diaphragm, because air just like circulates through your body. So the thing is, just make sure that all of your air goes in your diaphragm. And I told you the easiest way is to lay down on your back and just start breathing. And you're going to breathe diaphragmally no matter what, and the hard part is to take that breathing and put it while you're standing upright. So that's the thing. Yeah, you can breathe diaphragmally when you lay on your back, but the trick is to breathe diaphragmally while you're standing normal, while you're standing upright. And yeah, the way that you're doing this is just like breathe a lot while you're standing back and analyze it. So don't like breathe like mindlessly. No, stay on your back and just analyze how you're breathing. And see what's happening in your body. And then try to do the same process while you're standing upright. And just breathe in your diaphragm. And breathe in. Just like concentrate on your breathing. And do this for like 2 weeks or 3 weeks, like everyday for like 20 25 minutes. And it's gonna, it, it, your body is gonna get used to it. And you can do a lot of variations of breathing. you can like breathe deep and then exhale. You can like breathe like in steps or to like, like your side or something like that. So whatever you decide to do with your breathing, if it's done by a family, it's going to work. so that, that's the point of the whole, of the whole course, kind of like the vocal course, is to create your own exercises. It's not like a set of exercises that you need to do. Yeah, you have basic exercises, but you can change those exercises. You just need to do them well, you just need to do them diaphragmically. Like, I started with three diaphragmal exercises, and then I started creating more of them. Exercises that I like, Do push ups and breathe diaphragmally. run up the stairs and breathe diaphragmally. So, whatever breathing you want to do, just do it. But make sure it's diaphragmally. That's the only rule.

Savia Rocks:

No, I totally get that. So what about, what about what you eat and what you drink? Does that also affect your voice as well? how does what you eat and what you drink affect your voice?

Calin Blendea:

So, if you drink fizzy drinks, it's not going to affect your vocal cords, it's going to affect your stomach. So, if you sing diaphragmically, your stomach moves. So, you sing with impulses. The impulses come from the diaphragm. Like, think of it like punching your stomach all of the time, without the pain. So, you're just doing like, huh, so that's kind of the idea. Your stomach moves. And if your stomach moves and you drank something, or you've eaten something before, you're Naturally, you're going to burp. And you can't sing anymore because you're burping. So it's not going to affect your vocal cords. I'm not saying if you drink something I don't know, that's boiling. Of course it's going to affect your vocal cords. It's going to affect your whole mouth. Yeah, of course. So don't drink something that's boiling. Or eat something that's really, really hot. if it's too cold, you're gonna get a cold. So, it's gonna affect your vocal cords in terms of, I don't know, you can do like laryngitis or something like that. Because you're drinking too cold. But it's not something that's, like, just for the vocal cords. It's, people say if you eat honey, it's gonna make your vocal cords better. No, it's not gonna make your vocal cords better. it's, the thing is, it's gonna make it worse because honey is sugar. And if you eat too much sugar, your mouth is gonna feel weird. Or for example, lemon. If you drink lemon, your throat is going to feel weird because of the citric acid, and it's going to make you like kind of, annoying to say something or to sing something.

Savia Rocks:

Yeah, that's true.

Calin Blendea:

But it's not going to affect your vocal cords on the long term. If you eat a lot of lemons, it's going to affect your body on the long term, because you're going to feel sick or a lot of sugar. So just eat what you want, drink what you want. Don't do something that makes you feel sick. For example, spicy food. If you eat spicy food, your stomach is going to feel weird. And you can't sing. If you sing diaphragmically. and your throat is going to burn. And it's going to make it annoying for you to say something. But it's not going to burn off your vocal cords or something like that. It's not. I did a lot of exercises with this in the beginning. I took a cigar. I tried to, a cigarette. I tried a thing while I was smoking a cigarette. it didn't affect my singing, but it was annoying.

Savia Rocks:

Yeah.

Calin Blendea:

It was really annoying. The sounds were the same, it wasn't any different, but it was annoying. I'm not saying smoke while you're singing, because smoking gives you cancer and all that stuff. But I'm saying that it's not affecting your sound. So for example, smoking is going to affect your sound if you smoke, for example, one pack a day, like 20 cigarettes a day for like 20 years. Your vocal range is going to decrease, so you're going to get more bass. Which for some people is a good thing. That for me, I like bass. I like people who sing in bass and who talk in bass. I find it really, really nice. But yeah, I'm not saying smoke a pack of cigarettes, because if you think just about the vocals, you're going to be wrong. You need to think about the issues that that's going to come up with. Again, cancer. Yeah. But it's not going to affect your vocal cords that much, like the sound that you're doing. and yeah, going back to what you need to drink, what you need to, yeah, don't drink too hard. Don't drink too cold. Lead a normal life. Normal life.

Savia Rocks:

That sounds good to me. So what is a music therapist? What does a music therapist do and, and how does that work?

Calin Blendea:

So, therapy through music is trying to communicate with people that have disabilities through sound. And not just disabilities, so people who go through depression, people who have mental breakdowns. Yeah, you have people with autism, people with Down syndrome. Yeah, you have them, but you can do music therapy with everyone. You can be healthy and you can also do music therapy because it makes you happier. It makes you want to do stuff. For example, in music you have certain chords that express a certain feeling. You have major chords that express happiness, triumph, pride, and then you have the minor chords that express depression, sadness, and all of that stuff. This is like the basic stuff. If we go deeper into it, we have the whole spectrum of feelings, like in just one chord. But yeah, and with music therapy, for example, if you have someone with autism, someone who can communicate with you, you just teach them how to communicate through an instrument or through sounds or through vocals. For example, if they're happy, they're going to play some happy sounds. If they're sad, they're going to play some sad sounds. Or they, if they're sad, they can listen to a sad song and so on. but yeah, if we go deeper into it, you have chords and then you have certain kind of sounds or the kind of tones. Yeah. You can take a chord and play it in different tones, in different sounds. For example, you go into, into a DAW in Logic, for example, Logic Pro X, into a workstation. And you take like a synthesizer and you play a certain chord with different sounds. It's going to express different things, even though it's a major chord, it's not going to express just happiness. It's always going to express like triumph, like pride, like a certain major chord is going to express love. And then you don't just have chords, then you have progression. For example, a progression in F major, that progression is going to express joyfulness, for example. So yeah, it's a whole language. So music, it's a whole language. You can, and it's nice to see that people can communicate through it.

Savia Rocks:

what are you most proud of that you stand for as a person?

Calin Blendea:

that question, proud of, I can teach myself a lot of stuff, part of that I'm not dependent.

Savia Rocks:

That's good.

Calin Blendea:

And everything that I see that I have an interest in, I can push myself to do research about that thing and just learn about that thing. And if I find someone that's smarter than me, I want to be with that person and learn from them. So I'm proud of this thing that I can do this thing because I know a lot of people. that are so full of themselves, they don't want to hear from anyone else. They don't evolve. They just stay in one place because of the pride, their ego and stuff like that.

Savia Rocks:

When was the last time you felt totally at peace with yourself?

Calin Blendea:

so a few months ago, I started building a computer, which is not a hard thing to do. I had no idea how to do it. I took all the components, and then I started doing research on the internet on how to put, where to put the screws and stuff like that. And I messed it up a lot of times, but I finally did it like in a few months I did it.

Savia Rocks:

Yeah.

Calin Blendea:

And I was happy with myself and I was like, I was just looking at it and I was like, wow. And I was disappeased with myself because I finally did it. But in those months I was angry with myself because I couldn't do it. I saw a lot of people that managed to do it. I was why can't I fix why can't I build it? And it worked for months. And I was so invested in it, I just like went into kind of like mini depression. Oh. yeah, because I was invested in it, and I am invested in it now. but yeah, I managed to do it, and that was like a relief. And then it was another thing, because I'm also doing piano with children. I'm not doing professional piano, I'm doing like basic, like first step piano. With seven year olds, six year olds. And I was that peaceful myself. So after a few weeks of teaching, the kids finally understood what they were supposed to do. Ah, okay. I was like so relieved. Oh my god, yes.

Savia Rocks:

That sounds cool to me. So I've only got two more for you. My second to last question for you is what would you like your legacy to be after you've done everything you can to help people produce great albums, to be a great vocal coach? How would you like to be remembered in the world?

Calin Blendea:

So if I'm thinking like, if I'm thinking about greatness. I want to like change the perception of the world about vocals.

Savia Rocks:

Yes.

Calin Blendea:

Like, I don't want people to admire, something that is wrong. Like, for example, I told you the voice, it's factor, right? I want people to find joy in singing and don't Think about what everyone else is saying and to do it in a healthy manner. I like to teach kids how to sing properly and how to filter what they see and what they hear. Because kids nowadays have access to a lot of stuff and most of them are live.

Savia Rocks:

Yeah.

Calin Blendea:

Which is the world that we live in. And yeah, if you can teach someone how to filter that and take what's good for themselves, I think that, that's a good thing. That's a good enough purpose.

Savia Rocks:

My last one for you is, could you tell us where we could find you on all your social medias? And if anybody would like to get in contact with they find you?

Calin Blendea:

So, I have the LinkedIn profile, which is just my name, Kaylin Lindell. And then I have profiles on Tutorful. If you just search my name on Google, Caden Brindad Tutorful, you can see my vocal coaching profile. And you can check all the reviews And, yeah, I also started like a company which is developing an app now for vocal coaching. It's called Caspi. But we don't have any social media at the moment because we're still in development. We're still doing the prototype, so that's going to come in the next month towards the end of the year.

Savia Rocks:

Oh, that's fine. Not everybody has an Instagram. Some people, some people just don't like it to be honest with you. I do understand why. So yeah, Caelan, I want to thank you so much for taking your time to speak to me and give your knowledge to everyone.

Calin Blendea:

my pleasure. Thank you.

Savia Rocks:

Oh, you're welcome. Guys, thank you so much for listening to the Ask People podcast. And please remember, you can listen to us on Spotify, iTunes, Google Play. And any other platform that you prefer listening to, please also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Guys, thank you so much for listening. Stay happy, stay positive, and as always, please, continue to be kind to one another.

Calin Blendea:

To that person to breathe through their diaphragm. And this process takes around two or three weeks of daily exercises. And it's like 20, 25 minutes a day.

Savia Rocks:

Okay.

Calin Blendea:

Because if you do it hours, your body is not going to learn. Just do it little by little and your body is going to understand. If you do it five hours in a day, your body is not going to understand that movement needs to come natural.

Savia Rocks:

wings let journey.