First Contest Is Always Frightening

Three more students joined in talent quest this month, I am very proud of them! First contest is always frightening. So many things go into your mind, the "what if.." is a killer and I applaud them for the courage to go on stage. Big artist like Beyonce, Aretha Franklin, Bruno Mars, Justin Timberlake, Stevie Wonder and all great singers started just like any other beginners. The first step is very important and I am simply happy that they did it. 

Congratulations to Angelique Goss, Chloe McDonald and Remalyn Burlat for participating! I hope to see you all compete again ;) .

Remalyn, do you have a photo last Tuesday that we can share here?

God bless everyone!

Winner "2013 Catch A Shooting Star" at the Imperial Shopping Centre, Gosford

I would like to thank the organisers, coordinators, judges, the Imperial Shopping Centre and all the sponsors for creating such a wonderful event. This helps encourage talented individuals of the Central Coast to gain more experiences on stage.

Congratulations Trinity Young for winning 2013 Catch a Shooting Star of Imperial Shopping Centre!!! She loves her trophy ;) .

Congratulations to Danikka Vassallo for winning the 2nd place!

Congratulations to Daniela for winning a special award. A 12 months  representation for acting and modelling work!

Congratulations to my students!!!! God bless!

2011 and 2013 of Daniela

It is always a great feeling when your students win in a talent quest. Knowing you have done your job and at the same time thinking that we still have a long way to go, excites me.

Daniela amazes me with her hunger to learn more at a young age. Let me just share two videos of her singing. The first video was when she was 6 years and the second video was this year, she is 8 now.





The last video was when she won  last May 2013 during The Gosford Regional Show Talent Quest.

God bless us!

WINNER "Catch A Shooting Star 2013"

Another win from one of my students, Daniela Vassallo at The Gosford Regional Show "Catch A Shooting Star 2013". She had quite a long day last Saturday when she sang during the first heat. She made it through to the Grand Finals along with her sister and another student of Dreamquest Singing Academy, Danikka. Daniela's winning piece is a song from the musical Annie "Tomorrow" while Danikka did a song from Christina Aguilera "Beautiful". They both made me very proud! Congratulations to you both! More winnings this year please hehehe... 

Watch her perform!

The Videos

Three months ago, a gentleman watched some of my students compete for the "Gosford Got Talent 2013" show. He was a fan of them and had asked me if they are in YouTube. I told him to visit www.howtosing.com.au and check them from there. I was in a hurry and didn't realise that there was no videos of them in our school's website. To the gentleman if you are reading this, my apologies.

 Here they are, in case you couldn't find them in YouTube. Enjoy!

Trinity Young singing "Loving You" at Newcastle where she won in the "Reach for the Starz Performing Arts Expo 2012".



Danikka Vassallo with the song from Adele "Rolling In The Deep". This was a Talent Quest held at Wyoming where she was the winner for the "LoudFest 2012" festival.



Daniela Vassallo singing "Louder" by Charice. She won "People's Choice Award 2013" in the "Gosford Got Talent".

A Busy Saturday For The Dreamquest Students

I always believe that a year end concert is not enough to develop confidence, exposures and experiences to my students. This is the reason why they get to perform in a crowd a few times a year. A student will have to undergo a lot of trainings from me and when I think they are ready they will be ask to perform in an event or even compete in a talent quest.

A job well done to Chloe McDonald for her two performances yesterday. One at Mingara Sports Ground for the Filipino Fiesta and another one at Gosford Progress Hall for a birthday bash party last night. She is one shy girl but I see a lot of potentials in her.

Angelique Goss surprised me with her head shaved. It was so nice of her to do such thing to show her support to the Leukemia Foundation's World's Greatest Shave 2013. I am proud her! Hey, I am seeing a lot of improvements from her too!

 Daniela Vassallo, who won the "People's Choice Award" at the "Gosford Got Talent 2013", made everyone jump on their seats last night with her song.

Danikka Vassallo, winner of "LoudFest 2012" Festival wowed the audience.

Trinity Young, winner of "Reach For The Starz Performing Arts Expo" held at Newcastle had a few fans last night including some little kids as young as 2 years old! hehehe...

Well done everyone!

A Priceless Gift

It was a long day yesterday,some of my students perform at Mingara sports ground for the Filipino Fiesta celebration in the afternoon. After that they had another performance at Gosford Progress Hall for a birthday bash party last night. 

Some highlights from last night is a casual student Mrs. Bregener who came to see me for a lesson 2 weeks before her husband's birthday bash celebration. What a passionate woman when it comes to her singing. She worked hard to be able to give justice to a Celine Dion masterpiece "To Love You More". It was a bit intimidating because she chose a tough song, but let me tell you this... she made me very proud! Her husband simply adored her for this gesture and what a priceless gift! 

Another emotional number last night was from my new student, Reymalyn. I had teary eyed when I saw the whole family hugged each other after she sang. It was her Dad's 50th birthday and she wants to sing a song for him. Her Dad's facial expressions when she started singing just gave me goose bumps all over my body! According to her Dad, the last time she heard her sing was when she was in Year 3 and that was like 5 or 6 years ago. She got so busy and concentrated in dancing and studies. So imagine Reyma's parents surprise when they finally heard her voice for her first singing performance last night. To hear her parents said "thank you" to me as well as Reymalyn made me realised why I love to teaching.

Happy 2013!

Happy New Year everyone!

Hope last year was wonderful and full of great adventures to all. We had quite a busy year last year and didn't even realize that this blog hasn't been updated. My apologies.

One of the highlights in our school last year are the winnings of our Dreamquest Singing Academy students in a performing arts competitions.

Danikka Vassallo, won the Junior division of the inaugural arts festival hosted by performing arts school Valley View Public school at Wyoming, "LoudFest 2012". She is 9 years old.

Trinity Young won the Junior category of "Reach For The Starz Performing Arts Expo 2012" held at Newcastle Jockey Club. She is only 7 years old!

Daniela Vassallo was a finalist in the Qurimbah RSL Talent Quest 2012. She is also 7 years old.

I will be posting more news from last year in a while. Cheers!

Dreamquest Students performed at Mingara!

Big thanks to Filipino-Australian Ugnay Kabayan (CCUK) for inviting our Dreamquest Singing Academy students to perform in the Filipino Fiesta at Mingara, Central Coast! 

To all the students, great job! You made me very proud!

“Is Singing For You?”

I often hear people say “I love singing but singing doesn’t love me” or “I wish I can sing but I just don’t have the talent” or “I really want to sing but I am too old for it now. I will just enrol my daughter or son. I am sure they have more chances to be an amazing singer than I do” or “I adore listening to people sing but I don’t think I could learn the art of singing”.

Let me tell you a story about one of my students whom I adore so much because of his passion to learn. Let’s call him Jimmy.  He called one day inquiring about singing lessons. Jimmy said, he never had lessons before and he is not a singer. He said he would only listen to his favourite singers and sing along with them. “I just want to LEARN HOW TO SING and oh by the way I am 62 years old” he said. “Wonderful!” I answered. “What are the requirements to be able to get some singing lessons from you?” he asked.  “I only need two things from you. The passion to learn and the discipline to practise as often as you can so you can achieve your goal” I replied. Jimmy said he possess those two things I mentioned. So after 62 years he started his first singing lessons with me.

Listen to Jimmy before he started his lessons. Below is a short recording of his version “You’re The Voice” a song by John Farnham.

 You're the Voice cover by Jimmy (Before) by Jonah Tomada 

You see singing is like any other talents or skills. It can be learnt as long as you have the passion to learn it. You need to work hard to be what you want to be. Singing is like going to the gym. If you want to lose weight or tone your body then you have to be willing to exercise as often as you can. You have to work hard to achieve whatever goal you set for yourself.

Jimmy practised a lot! He made sure he understood his singing instrument, which is our body by reading our “Singing Mastery” e-book. He bought other books and other products from our school to learn more. I am not saying that you also need to buy all our “Absolute Singing Mastery” products but Jimmy was so eager to learn how to sing.

The recording below is the result of his hard work and after a few lessons he can sing! Please take note of the words "few lessons". Listen to his version of "She's Not You" a song by Elvis Presley.

 She's Not You cover by Jimmy (After) by Jonah Tomada 

Singing doesn’t look at your age, race or religion it only wants your desire to be a good singer or even outrageously phenomenal singer by your determination, dedication and discipline to learn the beauty of singing.