In this episode of Vocal Tips in 10, I’m opening up about a big, personal shift—rebranding my vocal studio to reflect not just what I do, but who I am.
This wasn’t just a business decision—it was a vulnerable and intentional choice to align my studio’s identity with my own journey as a vocal coach, teacher, and person. I’ll share the heart behind this rebrand, the lessons I’ve learned about authenticity, and how embracing my full self has deepened my connection to both my clients and my craft.
We’ll also explore how vulnerability, mind-body awareness, and self-acceptance play vital roles in vocal growth—and why showing up as your true self is one of the most powerful things you can do as a singer (or human).
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
00:00 – The Importance of Vulnerability in Creativity
00:40 – Rebranding and Its Significance
03:05 – Mind-Body Connection in Singing
04:58 – Overcoming Self-Doubt and Embracing Authenticity
07:00 – Final Thoughts on Sharing Your Voice
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Hello lovely singers and welcome to Vocal Tips in 10. I'm Amber Mogg Cathey and today's episode is going to be a little bit different. It's going to be more personal. I just recently rebranded my studio that was Nashville Vocal Studio for nearly 15 years, then evolved into Evolve Vocal Studio for about the past year and a half, and now I have finally settled on my forever studio name, which is just my own simpler than ever Amber Mogg Cathey Voice.
And I wanted to share the why behind that. Not because I think everybody here needs to be or is also interested in my personal journey, though you're gonna hear a little bit of it, but because I think it's relatable to all of us who create.
Nothing in my studio has changed. I'm still...
offering one-on-one coaching and vocal rehab support. still have the fantastic Eva Cassell with me.
teaching voice and songwriting. We still have our fantastic, inclusive Vocal Pro membership, our Vocal Pro Lite membership. I still have my Erase Your Break course, all about getting rid of those vocal breaks and cracks in your voice to create your best, most confident, connected sound. Everything's exactly the same. The only thing that's changing is the name, but it's impactful for me because
When I transitioned to teaching singers full-time 16, 17-ish years ago, I'd always been teaching in some form or fashion. Even when I was a full-time performer and full-time vocalist myself, when I was doing other jobs that weren't necessarily music related at the time, I was always still teaching voice and always had fingers and toes in it. But when I finally decided I wanted to make the transition to doing it full-time,
and no longer as a performer, but my real heart and passion was in teaching and coaching and helping other singers just get their absolute best voice and feel confident about it and have the tools that they need. When I made that decision, I'd been teaching under my own name. for years. And I still thought, I can't have a full-time studio just with my name.
it doesn't sound official enough, it doesn't sound good enough. And I just thought if I want it to be successful, it needs to sound bigger than me, better than me. And so I was in Nashville working full-time with Nashville vocalists, and so I called it Nashville Vocal Studio. And man, I loved that place, and we grew like crazy, and I was Nashville Vocal Studio for almost 15 years.
And it was wonderful.
And then my husband got an opportunity that he couldn't pass up to move to Denver, Colorado.
and we picked up and moved from Nashville where I had been for 24 years and moved to Denver in a month So it was a really big undertaking.
when I moved to Denver, I thought, okay, well, I can't be Nashville Vocal Studio anymore. And I really thought then, I'm just gonna go by my name. My name is good enough. A lot of people at this point know my name and know what I do, so I'm just gonna do that.
And I reached out to some people to say, hey, this is what I think I'm going to do. Some people who are more in the marketing and business end of things. And They said, no, no, you need to keep it as close to Nashville Vocal Studio as possible. And so I ended up going with Evolve Vocal Studio. because I love what Evolve stands for. It's that.
constant striving to be your absolute best, to always grow, to always learn more, and you know, as a singer, as an artist, and I also think just as people. So I really believe in that, and so I thought, okay, this really aligns with everything that I believe in, so this is what we're gonna do, Evolve Vocal Studio, and I trucked along like that for the past year and change.
all the while I've been going on this personal journey and more inner journey and inner exploration. for some of you, if that sounds woo woo, I really apologize. But it's been super impactful and super meaningful for me.
I was taking this course called Counseling for Singers. It was a 12 week, pretty intensive course, not to become a counselor, but just to have more knowledge and more tools to help support my singers as holistically as possible. Because our body is our voice and you cannot deny the mind-body connection. That's not woo-woo friends, that is biology and science, as you probably all have experienced. If you are really stressed, if you are emotionally, mentally having a tough time,
your singing is going to take a hit. It's just part of it, right? Because that makes our body tighter. Then that makes our voice tighter. It makes everything more difficult. It's not as fun. It's all of those things. So I was taking this course and I was learning more and more about it. I'd never done therapy before. I'd never done anything like that before. I'm Midwestern people and I'm from small town Midwest. We don't do that there. If you are feeling, you know, if you're not feeling totally confident or you feel like there's voices you should be listening to, turn them off like light bulb. Work hard.
That's what you do as a midwesterner. And I just realized like, wow, as I'm learning this to support singers, I want to give this care to others. I've never given this care to myself. So I started going to therapy. I started doing a soulful coaching group with Annalisa Lemming, which I highly recommend you listen to her episode. It so ties into all of this.
So
I've been doing all of this work and just, you know, trying to get down to some things like, why do I feel like the need to do X, Y, and Z? Why do I feel less than I wanna feel, less than I should feel? And y'all, that is a slog. It's important work. I recommend it to everybody, but it is also painful. It is not something that's just like, and now I feel great about me. All of us have wounds and stuff that we're dealing with. And I just think finally into my 40s.
I was like, hmm, it's kind of high time I look at these. I don't want to keep carrying these around. And I don't like how they're impacting me, keeping me from doing certain things. And that's where I think, this can tie into all of us because singing is such a vulnerable thing. And I work with singers all day, every day, that all they want to do, all that their heart and soul is telling them is you've got to make music. Whether you're doing it professionally or you're doing it just because it makes your life better, it's part of who you are. You feel this great calling to do it. And then you feel scared to death.
to be that vulnerable again, because you're so afraid of how it's gonna be judged and that it's gonna be judged by other people. Wicked movie has just come out a couple of weeks ago.
it makes me think kind of of the wizard, though I'm not evil, I'm a nice person, just in that, like, pay no attention to the little man behind this giant, glorious machine. And it's like the tiniest bit of that, feeling like I need to have, like, something snazzy or something more impressive than just me, just what I have to offer. And I do not feel that way anymore. Do not get me wrong.
I do not feel that way today. I'm on great upward trajectory. And then I have some days where I'm so stressed and so anxious and question everything and I'm looking totally outside for validation instead of just looking inside, which is what I wanna be doing. So it's a constant journey for me, but this is a big important part of it for me. So that's why I wanted to take the time and share it with all of you. I hope that it's helpful. I finally made the choice that like,
even though I just rebranded to Evolve Vocal Studio a little over a year ago. And my rational brain is like, no, we don't change again. I was Nashville Vocal Studio for 15 years. I'm not a quick changer, but every cell in my body was like, no, we're ready. What I do, what we do at the studio is incredibly personal. Singing is incredibly vulnerable and personal.
holistic, it's voice and mind and body and having this other name than me feels like a bit of a disconnect,
it's always been me, just me, which I think is just exactly right and just enough. And I wanna share that because I feel the same thing for you, for anyone listening. Where you are right now is just exactly right and just enough. And it's ridiculous, it puts a little bit of a lump in my throat
because I know of so many wonderful people that I work with that will go like, totally Amber, but deep down we don't fully buy it. And I think it's worth doing the work, whether that's just journaling and awareness or getting a coach or getting a therapist or just singing your guts out, putting yourself out there more and more. I think it's worth doing the work, just taking the time to look at it because your voice is needed.
We're all needed just as we are. It doesn't mean that we're not always trying to improve and get better and grow our craft and grow as people to continually be evolving. But where you are right now is perfect.
So I hope some of this was helpful for you. You can take little kernels and pieces of this to use in your own life and to just kind of think about as you're on your own journey that all of us are on friends. I don't care if somebody comes across as the most confident person ever and they very well may be confident and I hope they are. I hope they feel amazing about themselves. But we all have those places where we second guess, where we feel
less than, where we worry about how we're being perceived. Just every single one of us does, and they're not gonna go away. I just always wanna be working on not letting them run the show.
If you want to learn more about Amber Maud Cathy voice, we're doing the same things we've always done, but I'll put the links below in the show notes. Thank you so much for being here. The next episode will not be so personal. We'll jump right into some voice nitty gritty. Thank you for being here and see you in that next episode.
