Sienna Spiro and nodules

Sienna Spiro is a new artist that is making her mark on the music scene at the moment.

She is British, and still young, just 20 years old.

She might be most well known with her song “Die on this hill”, and she also has a song in the movie Devil wears Prada 2 “Material Lover”. Her pop, jazz, funk style is great to listen to and she is great at writing her songs. She is influenced heavily by the musicians of the 60’s.

Sienna has nodules. This is usually something that singers are concerned about getting, as it does affect your singing. When I first heard Sienna speak, I was genuinely concerned about her voice. It is incredibly husky, but I would think people find this sound appealing. As a singing teacher I would be concerned about this damage to the voice.

However Sienna doesn’t want surgery and is making the most of what she has got, saying she is working with a vocal coach so that she can continue to sing safely. You can hear it in her singing at times, the voice simply fails. Sienna is using this to her advantage, creating a very unique voice with her vocal style. She has great delivery of her music, singing with emotion and passion.

Sienna just released a live recording of her song “Pure” and you can hear the rawness of her voice.

What do you think? Watch and listen below.

Take time to recharge

There are times when we need to take a break and give our bodies a chance to recharge. It has been an incredibly busy first 6 months of 2026 for me. Apart from teaching, I participated in a performance of The Hunchback of Notre dame the first two weekends of March.

It was wonderful to be on stage again in a show. The last show I completed was Mary Poppins in 2024.

Performing in this show was so much fun. I had the pleasure of being part of the ensemble. I was thinking this would be a fairly easy for me, however, little did I know that the ensemble are pivotal to the show and are on for most of the show. Also as you can see from the set, there were lots of stairs, and I was running up and down these multiple times, especially in the first Act. Luckily I had prepared well, with months of training, swimming, pilates, walking and I was also getting vocal training during this time. I am also having piano lessons to improve my piano skills.

I got to the end of Term One, and the first day of holidays I got sick, just before Easter. There were some other significant personal challenges at the same time and it was two weeks before I felt even a bit better.

I had the joy of travelling to Japan at the end of April with my family.

Here I am at Fushimi Inari Taisha,

one of Japan’s most famous Shinto shrines in Kyoto

I would highly recommend going to Japan. It is a beautiful country. Extremely clean. Very organized and everything runs smoothly. The food is amazing and we had excellent accommodation. You certainly need to pick your time to visit. We went at the end of Spring. I would recommend going at this time if you want to avoid huge crowds. We saw blossoms, and it was in between Easter and Golden Week. Of course it was busy, but we never had to queue for more than 30 minutes, even at Disney Sea. It was more of an adventure than a holiday, walking on average 17,000 steps a day.

When I returned home, it was straight back into work and life. My husband David got quite ill. Needless to say I caught it as well, and although tried to keep going, was on and off work for another 2 weeks. I couldn’t shake the infection, so had more tests and finally got the medication I needed and within a week was feeling so much better. The end of Term Two was a flurry of mid year concerts, assessments and shows to watch. Winter is the busiest time of the year for local amateur shows. I had the joy of watching two of my best friends perform together in the musical “Come from Away”. I had worked with one of them in the past on their singing, and it was so wonderful to see her on stage singing at such a high level and at such a high standard. It was an amazing performance.

A couple of days before the end of term my husband suggested we go away for a week. We ended up in beautiful Merimbula.

The view from our apartment in Merimbula

I love staying in the Fishpen. We have the view of the lake and you can also walk around to the beach and into town. We slept, read, walked and enjoyed being outside.

Sometimes you need to take these breaks where you don’t have the rush of seeing the next sight, being in the next city.

Walking on the beach alone gives you a chance to think. It has been wonderful to let the mind wander and imagine so many things.

I have returned and feeling refreshed I am writing in my blog after such a long break from doing anything to my website.

It’s a wonderful feeling.

The beach at Merimbula in winter

Remember to take a break, take a breath and reflect. Its wonderful for the body.

Seasonal allergies and Singing

Spring has sprung! Anyway it has for us in Australia. And with it all the pollens, grass etc that brings on hayfever. This is never good for singers as the post nasal drip that occurs directly affects the vocal chords.

Sometimes it seems almost impossible for singers to perform at their best during this time of year, however there are a number of solutions that can be considered to ease the problem.

There is some good advice from the Osborne head and neck institute you can read at this link:

Tips for a healthy and powerful voice

Or you might like to watch the video below that I found on you tube (with thanks to Mark Baxter):

Wanting to work with Mary to achieve the voice you have always dreamed of?

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Click here to register your details and Mary will contact you to see if she might be able to help.