Brooke Mattingly is a student voice teacher at Lott Music Studio! She absolutely adores vocal music and it is her goal to share that passion by guiding students towards success by gaining confidence and learning their own individual strengths!
Brooke has always felt an innate passion for singing. Teaching herself her favorite songs in her youth was how she relaxed and learned how to enjoy creative expression. Brooke began taking voice lessons at age twelve and quickly realized that not only did she enjoy singing, but that she also had a natural talent in it. From then on she participated in choir, show choir, musical theatre, opera, and voice competitions whenever she could.
Brooke has a large admiration for performing arts as it relates to vocal performance, specifically in musical theatre and opera performances. She loves diving into a character and telling a story with the music she performs and teaches. Most notably, Brooke has been recently recognized in the greater Des Moines Area for portraying roles such as Adele in Iowa State University’s Die Fledermaus, Emma in Boone Community Theatre’s Jekyll and Hyde, and most recently Lady Larken in Ankeny Community Theatre’s Once Upon a Mattress.
One of the main things Brooke heard in vocal lessons of her own was how the voice is one part of the entire human body/experience. Brooke is a firm believer that the whole body needs to be engaged for the voice to work at 100%. While this philosophy includes discussion of vocal and physical health, namely the voice may be struggling if someone is physically ill or injured, Brooke also makes it a point to prioritize the mental aspect behind performance.
Getting up in front of an individual or a group of people is innately vulnerable. People may experience performance anxiety or self doubt, in which case Brooke likes to focus on confidence building exercises and positive feedback and self talk in her lessons. She is a big believer that singing is meant to be fun or sometimes even therapeutic. Brooke operates under the belief that performing is not about being the best or getting outside recognition, it’s about being yourself and learning to appreciate your own strengths, and oftentimes, you have more strength than you think you do!
So far, in her lessons, Brooke has focused on proper stylization techniques, vowel placement and modification, breath support, vocal health tips and tricks, character development, physicality and movement, and confidence building. Brooke welcomes students of any age and skill level as long as they are willing to learn and have fun!
After all, Brooke has learned that making music is about having fun and staying positive. She’s all about championing personal growth over outside accomplishment! If you just want to make some music, have a laugh and feel a little more proud of yourself as you leave a lesson as opposed to when you entered it, Brooke may be a good fit for you!
