DGTL Voices with Ed Marx - The Power of Voice Training for Leaders in Any Profession (ft. Serg Sanchez)

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

On this episode of DGTL Voices, Ed interviews Sergio Sanchez, a multifaceted music writer, producer, singer, and vocal coach. They explore Serg's career in music, working with artists like Morgan Wallen and Bailey Zimmerman. They discuss pivotal moments that shaped his path, his influences, and the importance of vocal coaching for both musicians and speaking professionals. The conversation delves into the techniques for effective speaking and the role of technology in music. Serg Sanchez

Welcome to Digital Voices, where Healthcare and Life Science Leaders explore the real work behind transformation. This podcast is about people, leadership, and the conversations that move healthcare forward. Now your host, Ed Marks. Hey, it's Ed. Welcome to another edition of Digital Voices. This one's going to be so much fun because we have someone from outside of healthcare. My friend, Serge Sanchez. Serge, Serge, welcome to Digital Voices.

Hey, nice to see you. Great to see you. This is great because you are a music writer, producer, singer, and you're a vocal coach. Yep. That's pretty cool. And we're going to dive into that a little bit because that's one thing every leader needs, I think, is a vocal coach.

And you do it in music industry, but I bet some of the things that we'll talk about are transferable to just who's kind of a leader. So we first met really through my son. So my youngest son, Austin, Sean, he's a producer and writer and the two of you met I don't even know how long ago

like maybe three, four years ago yeah probably around four years ago maybe even five now I'm not sure but yeah I met him through Bailey essentially yeah

yeah through Bailey Zimmerman that was a common point and then we've got to interact in our families a little bit so it's really cool but sirs the most important question I will ask the entire podcast what songs are in your playlist

like what kind of music do you listen to you I know it's kind of funny asking you this song, you this question, because you're in the industry. Yeah, I mean, no,

it's actually, I mean, I can definitely narrow it down. I think I only laugh because of what I kind of go after every day. If I were to go turn on music, I'm, if it's a playlist type thing, I want something that I don't want to have to turn off or change,

right? Yeah. So it's got to be an artist or music that, that I can just listen to endlessly. So I can definitely listen to, And I can't say growing up it was the same, but now I can listen to like, you know, John Mayer endlessly, Coltrane, the Eagles, George Strait, stuff like that. So when it comes to just kind of having something around the house, those are the kind of artists that I can just kind of leave running. Yeah.

Going Tyler Childers even, I could just let that, that music go and go there. But if I'm hanging out, working in the studio, I turn in, if I'm working in the studio as in like fixing something or working out or doing something like that, I kind of turn into a kid again and listen to some. hard rock grunge music you know pearl jam sound garden irvon all that stuff tool but yeah pretty much it's kind of if if i just tell what i'm asking alexa to do is usually play some coltrain or john mayor eagles yeah that's very cool what about life message or mantra are there is there words or quote or sort of philosophy that you live by i don't know that it's necessarily consciously or that's something that I continuously say but I guess when I think about it hard enough it's definitely like a die trying type of thing I I definitely am like a you know even in the music

business I would consider myself kind of like a cockroach you know I'm still still around still doing it all these years so definitely just try you know almost in anything if I'm struggling if my day has been going kind of rough whatever just try give it a try give it a try tribe, you know, just keep going. Don't stop. Try, you know. Yeah, love that. So tell us a little bit about yourself before we get into vocal coaching stuff like that. Like, who are you? Where did you grow up? What's your life story? Okay. Yeah, I was born in Miami, Florida. My parents are from Cuba, and I lived in Miami for about 10 years. My parents split up. My mom met a guy from Alabama and we we ended up moving to Gainesville, Florida. So, and we kind of moved on to a little,

it'd be weird to call it a farm, but we did have a cow and a horse and all that stuff in about, you know, 12 to 14 acres there and kind of in the middle of nowhere, North Florida. So I grew up there and essentially kind of lived pretty much a very country life there. I have an older brother, so that's seven years older than me, but I spent pretty much from age 12. 11 and 12 and on as kind of an only child there. He had stayed in Miami and when we moved. So I had plenty of space and I had a lot of time on my hands and didn't have a lot of didn't have.

And I had friends and stuff. It's not like I didn't have friends, but I definitely was somewhat isolated after school in time and just kind of doing my thing. Yeah. And that's kind of where I started, yeah. Yeah. What's a pivotal moment in life that fundamentally change your trajectory? Like, did something happen in your youth or maybe as an adult?

that kind of changed like into what you're doing. I would definitely say that if I were to look at my career where I'm at now, probably it's going to sound like a cop-out answer, but it's not probably when I met my wife in my late 20s. That was a big change. My focus just really changed. And I sort of evaluated my career, which we can get into later. And when I met her, it was pretty much the catalyst as to getting me,

to move to Knoxville, Tennessee, where I then started teaching voice there and met Morgan there. So if I look at that year of, you know, sorry, I guess it was a couple years before I moved there, but essentially meeting my wife, shifting my location and moving to Knoxville, which was a huge change and a big difference in my life from touring, you know, and all the things that I was doing to go settle down a little town. And but I met Morgan Wallen and it kind of really sort of took things into a different direction. There was a big one. Yeah. So yeah, so you already bro, it's the topic of music. Yeah, tell us how you, how did you get into music? Like you talked about living sort of on the farm. I have to say when you have an older brother and an older sibling, especially in that era in the

early 90s, late 80s, early 90s, I was exposed to whether my mom wanted me to be exposed to or not. Yeah, I was exposed to a lot of pretty edgy music, you know, whether it was what was kind of happening in my you know in the pop scene um hip hop scene i should say but i always come back to a specific song it's a song called big empty by stone temple pilots and they that song was on a soundtrack for a movie called the crow and when i was a kid my brother had taken me to one of those dollar theaters or whatever and saw the crow and i guess if if i remember correctly there was some soundtracks for sale there he bought the soundtrack and we were listening to it on the way home and when that song came on I might have been around 11 or something like that, 10 or 11.

When I heard that, I remember being very enamored by it. And I heard my brother singing along with it because he kind of knew it. And I immediately was like, I want to try to sing to this. Can I sing this is cool. This is really, it was almost the first time most of us when we have music. You feel that there's something that's yours. Yeah. Like this music is mine.

This is not my mom's. Yeah. You know, this is this kind of thing is mine. And so I remember really getting into that. And I feel like just at an early age, kind of getting into some pretty deep, you know, even to an extent, dark music at an early age. And that was big because I feel like it set the tone for the rest of it. I can kind of go back. Every time I hear that song, I think about that moment.

Yeah. And then did you have this, like, dream? Like, is that when you started, like, picking up an instrument? Or did you have? No, actually, no, I didn't. I didn't probably was a couple years later in Gainesville when I was living there. specifically the town of Trenton, Florida that I grew up in. I like to give Trenton a shout out always.

Home of Eastern Corbyn, but it's also the home of me too, guys. Come on, you know. But I specifically remember them wanting to play drums. So I was obsessed with bands. So I got really obsessed with it. I just got really into that and the culture of that. And I wanted to be in a band. It was such a big departure from where I grew up, you know, some of those cool bands

that you would see on MTV and all this stuff. And I felt like, you know, I just wanted to play some drums. I just remember getting some drums from my mom and my parents got me. And they immediately were like, yeah, we love you, but I don't think that's going to happen. And I ended up picking up my grandpa's guitar. And that was kind of the deal that I can play guitar. Maybe they'd get me some lessons. That's kind of where it started.

And I have to tell you, as bad as it sounds, even though I'm a vocal coach, and I always tell my clients is, It's funny that in a way, my first few lessons kind of, I think that was a big moment for me because I felt like I didn't want to learn what they were teaching. I just wanted to go learn some Nirvana songs or write some songs. I had an inclination already. My immediate thought was I don't want to learn the things you're showing me, which is not good. But I definitely opened my eyes that I actually did have an interest in this. And I wanted to write music. I want to do my own thing.

I almost didn't want to go that route, which was pretty interesting. In other words, I think if I just stuck with guitar lessons, I don't mean voice lessons. If I had stuck with guitar lessons, I don't know that I would have actually, you know, really stuck with it. I just said, you know something, Mom, I'll make you a deal if you can let me quit these lessons, which, by the way, my mom does not like me quitting stuff, but I was like, I promise you, I will play this guitar. I love it.

I just want to sit at home and learn how to play some. power chords and some songs, and I became very obsessive about it. So it's kind of interesting that that was almost a little bit of a punk rock moment where I'm like, okay, actually, I don't want to do this, but actually I really want to make sure my mom allows me to still keep playing. I was only like 12, you know? Yeah. Yeah, that's big.

That's pretty cool. So fast forward to today, and we're going to get into vocal coaching in a second, but fast forwarding today generally, as a singer-song, producer and vocal coach. What's a typical year like? I imagine it's very varied, but what's a typical year look like for you? Are you on the road sometimes helping out? Are you, you know, in the studio? How's it go? You know, I could ask the universe to every day how it's going to go or how, wait, but if I look back the last few years, last few years have been sort of, it's almost a little bit more how my week looks, I guess, would be it's kind of like a couple, a couple days of writing in sessions

with different artists and various songwriters in town. And then there's always some form of production that's kind of sitting there for the most part, some sort of record that I'm working on recording or something that's pending there. But mixed in, I'm teaching lessons, you know, throughout the week on Zoom or in person. And then what it's kind of been just about in the summertime every year,

I find my way out on the road with some artists that need some help. and some guidance and some teams that, you know, that need some help and guidance and how to get, you know, just singers really on an optimal place or help them with injury, recovery, things like that. So I do a little bit of a little bit of all that throughout the year. It's pretty hectic, but it's, I don't know, I can complain some days, but then I'm like, I don't know, I think it's kind of kind of how I want it, you know. Yeah, yeah. Super cool. It's all surrounds music, you know. Yeah, no, that's super cool. Tell us one or two highlights in your career so far that, that, you know, are top of mind.

Definitely, it's hard to look at my journey and not, especially with how huge Morgan's become. It's hard to look at my journey and not kind of look at that, put a magnifying glass on that specific time where I met him and helped him develop everything, you know, just kind of worked with him, songwriting, vocal coaching, kind of essentially, I moved my life to Nashville. In fact, Morgan's band was the band I was in. So I recruited the band. The band that I was in, I recruited them to be a Morgan's live band. And still to today, still today they're his live band. The members of the band that I was in throughout all my 20s, a band called Adam Smash.

But yeah, I would see the highlights would be definitely being a part of his journey and trajectory. and I've had a couple of milestones with songwriting, you know, having songs, you know, stream in the billions and stuff, it's a pretty big deal, you know, in the sense of, like, for somebody like how I grew up and certainly would have never thought it would be in the country genre. So some of that stuff, but definitely, like, you know, really just, the highlights would be just kind of getting phone calls from certain artists

and their teams that are kind of in a tough spot and they need some help. and kind of being there for them. And the last couple years, especially, have been kind of like a highlight, one little highlight after another of just that kind of thing, just working with those artists being somebody that they would call for help there. Yeah, that's very cool. Yeah, and just an audience is going to want to know. And as we go into vocal coaching here, yeah, so Morgan, there's Bailey Zimmerman

that you've worked with. Who else? Parker McCollum There's a young guy that's out there now Doing great called Cameron Whitcomb I'm working with Dylan Marlow Josh Ross

Nate Smith I've worked with him quite a bit this year There's also stuff outside of country There's an artist named Briston Moroni That's an alternative act That's doing really well That I sort of worked with him When he was a teenager

I kind of have to go back Even though he's been a long time I was there kind of In those early days And but yeah, I've just worked with quite a few those acts. And it's kind of neat because like Bailey, oh, Bailey would be a really interesting highlight because he's another act that I would, I would have had songs that I've written with.

Yeah. Bailey that have, that have been released and all that, but also vocal coaching him. So that's kind of, you know, so as I was saying Morgan and Bailey would be artists that have that kind of sort of like, oh, that's kind of interesting. you were the vocal coach and you had some songs with them too it's you know so that's cool yeah so on vocal coaching now why why would an artist reach out for a coach and then what does that mean like what what do you do give us an example okay yeah uh that's actually a really good question so um i would compartmentalize that and say that if a person is starting off and they're just somebody that you know

you know, they're really just getting going. I would say that the phone call and the initial lessons are really surrounding singing on key and like giving them regiments proper vocal technique and breath support. But a lot of it is fundamentally seeing if they can hold a tune, right? Although I have, and I have worked with, you know, a lot of, I mean, I've been in Nashville for about 10 years and I've probably worked with close to 7,800 clients or something. I kind of lost track. My wife has a, if you call it, a Rolodex of stuff, but we have that. But definitely a lot of novice, a lot of people.

I've worked with a lot of people that are doing. And I think it's helped. One hand is wash the other. I think working with people that are getting going and just doing it for fun. But I get more calls now, hey, my voice is just hoarse. It's blown out. It's having, I'm having issues with sort of surviving as a singer through the touring process. Sometimes I get calls for pre-recording process.

like let's work on stuff before we get in the studio. Sometimes it's, hey, I need you in the studio with me. Yeah. To kind of be, that's actually how we met. Now that I think of it, we probably met like in that sort of thing. Like, hey, I'd like to have the vocal coach in the studio while making the record with Bailey. So, so essentially, but yeah, a lot of it really is, if I were to really narrow it down nowadays, the big phone call is I don't have a solid daily routine that I'm doing.

I don't, where do I start? And why am I losing my voice so much? Because I imagine, Surge, that it's, you know, someone just started singing. They had a band and they get popular and they get hit. And they've never had training, right? They never had formal training. And just like we do with exercise, like you got to lift weights. And that's what I was me.

Yeah. That was me. That was actually, you know, that's, by the way, I should probably mention this is very important to the journey, okay? Yeah. Because it is also, I experienced that. That's how I got into this at all was I, the band I was in Adam Smash got signed to Sony. And I'm not even kidding. Literally as I signed the document, in that, in that, that week, I lost my voice and I didn't get it back.

I was trying to tour through. I had not taken lessons. I really avoided lessons. I was like, you know, to punk rock to go do that through. I'm a lost cause. I'm screaming. But I blew my voice out. And it didn't come back.

and it was the scariest point of that time in my life because I'd worked so hard to get there and I had no voice to record the album that we were going to make. So I got lucky that the producer I was making the record with convinced me to go see this vocal coach in New York. And it's where we were making the album. And that vocal coach just really just sort of changed the game for me,

gave me all the daily routines that I could ask for, really taught me lifestyle things. I was not living right. just got me, just sort of set me on the right path and went on to seeing thousands of shows me on that and finish that record and become a sponge for, I was almost like fascinated with how it worked. I'm like, whoa, this is crazy. How am I getting through this, you know? Yeah. So by the end of it, so what I was getting at is I was the client. I was the person that was in a jam and had some. So now I'm kind of, I kind of get to go through that process again, although it's a little stressful, reliving that a little bit, but I've done. enough times that I kind of, the story, yeah, I've been very blessed in the story ends well, usually. Yeah. No, that's cool.

I saw it, you know, in a different way, but I saw the power of it, excuse me, speaking of voice. I saw it in a different way when, you know, I grew up seven kids, brothers and sisters, and we all had average voices. We always sing at Christmas time, Christmas carols and all sorts of things. One of my sisters goes off to college. One semester, she comes back in time for Christmas, and we sing. and her voice was amazing. And it was because she got coaching

because she was getting her degree in music and she got coaching. I saw it right there. Dang. It's not like she had a more blessed voice than the rest of us. We all had that raw voice, but a good coach brings it out.

Yes. Absolutely. Serge, that's where I want to pivot to now. So a lot of my audience, as I mentioned, are executives in health care. Many of them, all of them, have to perform, if you will, with their voice on a daily basis.

Sometimes it's formal, like speaking to thousands of people, or sometimes it's just speaking to a smaller number, but there's always this performance. There's always speaking. And so when we met and I'm thinking about coaching and music industry, I think the same in my profession. So what are one or two techniques that you might suggest, not for a musician, you know, a musical artist, but like professionals that have to speak for a living? Yeah. Listen, I think the reality is that public speakers or. leaders or people that are taking meetings or whatever it is. Essentially, you are singing. That is what you're doing. It's not a musical thing and there isn't something musical happening necessarily, but you are having to get a lot of words out, right? Getting the information out. And that's quite often how we lose our voice. The reality is just make sure you're breathing also while you're talking. So being conscious of inhaling and taking a breath. And sometimes we have to get quick. Sometimes we have to be very fast at it. So if you hear me, if I'm saying like,

one, two, three, four, five, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, you're hearing that I'm taking a breath. I'm supporting my voice, making sure I have some air while I'm talking. Be conscious of it. It's easy. It's actually a lot easier to forget to breathe when we're speaking than it is when we're singing because there's something rehearsed happening when we're singing, if you will. And then the next thing is everyone can use a warm up. It doesn't matter if you're a singer or that there's plenty of great little warmups on YouTube. You just vocal warmups doing any any warm up. There's there's some that are probably more effective out there in terms of for public speaking. But doing finding a warm up that works for you

in the mornings before you go into your meetings, five minutes, doesn't have to be a long thing and get your voice stretched up and warmed up a little bit for the day. You also notice a big one so you don't lose your voice is make sure that you find a spot in your voice and your speaking voice that you you hear clarity and you feel smooth. So in other words, if I'm talking down here, if I'm trying to lose this voice here, you know, like that, I'm not going to, I'm not going to, I'm more susceptible to hoarseness and I'm wearing down my voice. But if I find a spot where the voice is here, here, hear, here in my voice. So I'm working a little bit. So I'm actually projecting. I'm working a little bit to find smoothness in my speaking.

voice and I laugh because sometimes I hear it in like an AI voice. Yeah. Like I'll hear I go, oh, that's interesting. The AI voice has a pretty solid like, it's clear, it's not too fried. It doesn't have that tone in it. Right. So yes. Yeah, those are great.

I love that. And you mentioned tech. You mentioned AI. What about tech? Do you leverage any tech at all in what you do? Oh, yeah. And I'm not ashamed to admit it on the, on creative front of my journey as far as as a songwriter and producer,

there's no doubt about it. I mean, the way things are, I'm able to model Bailey's voice or someone's voice and actually have a little model of their voice. And when I write a song, I can put that vote. I could sing it,

replace my voice with his, pitch it, right? And, you know, to different artists, various artists, you could do things like that with AI. You can,

probably one of the huge ones in the creative side, would be if I'm, you know, if I don't want to rack my brain sitting all night writing a demo for a song that I wrote that day that I'm not even sure about if it's any good, it's nice to just like I write the song, put it down on an acoustic, throw it into one of these AI apps and it'll, it'll show you a demo and you're listening like, oh wow, that sounds done. Cool. Next day, next idea. Without having to sit there. The producer side of me doesn't use it much, like the producing that world. If anything AI is like what not to do for my style. of producing, like for what I go for as a producer, AI is a little bit more of a, okay, don't do that. Right. If AI, don't do that, go in a different direction so that you really stand out. So, but in vocal coaching, I do use recording as a tool. So if clients are in studio or they're at home even, I'll have them send me recordings, learn how to use a recording software to, like, record what they're practicing.

I'll send them little videos that has my, like you're basically looking at the notes like on, we call it MIDI in this world, like little piano notes. You see them on recording software and you see these little notes and it helps you sort of look at them and guide you through.

So I use technology quite a bit, honestly, in terms of, you know, in the, even the AI front of it all. The hardest thing about AI is it, I always tell people the hardest thing is when you throw that that demo on there or you throw that work tape as we call it like an acoustic and a vocal and you throw it and you hear it back and it does something different that you love yeah it's hard to unhear that right like oh boy what do i do do i not do that just because this thing kind of bend

the melody this way it's like that sounds so good so that's that's the tough part that's where it gets a little fishy just because you're like oh no like i didn't i didn't come up with that little movement, this thing did that. And you're like, oh, gosh, what do I do? How do I unhear that what it did? Yeah. That's super cool. Yeah. So, Serge, we'll put all of your notes on how to get a hold of you, your website, things like that, well, in our notes. And that way, anyone who's listening or watching has an interest in vocal coaching, because I think you should do this for professional speakers, or not even professional speakers, regular people like myself, executives, that speak a lot. And it's just And I have, and I certainly have, by the way, just, you know, it's not something I have worked with

clients like that. I also will see sometimes football coaches. And I'm like, man, you know, or a quarterback, you know, like, hey, man, this guy, this guy is going to lose his voices if you keeps using his voice that way. Right. So, yeah, of course. Serge, this has been so fascinating to have someone outside of healthcare like yourself and such a creative force and energy. And we talked a lot about yourself, how you, grew up, how you got into music, just how important your parents were in that journey. And sort of four or five hacks you shared with us on how to improve our own sort of self-coaching, if you will, but improve our own voice and be careful with. So thank you for that.

Super fascinating. Is there anything we missed or anything you want to double down on? I'll give you the last word. You know, I was a really, really terrible singer when I started. So I didn't mention that. I didn't have a natural ability or inclination. I actually was. extremely pitchy, didn't have great rhythm, not much range. It's kind of crazy. I have a higher register in range now than I did when I was a teenager. Wow. So it's very important to note that I basically knew that singing was my weakness. I could write songs. I could be a crazy frontman, but singing was my weakness, but I look back and I think I was very determined to somehow

turn that into a strength, you know, and essentially, so that's a big one, is as I'm actually, actually a vocal coach who is a singer, a singer that someone would want to learn from, it definitely blows my mind that that my journey was not started off. It didn't start off with someone saying, hey, you're pretty good. You should pursue this. That isn't how it started. Like I was not getting told you should go on a show or that. That wasn't my journey.

If you asked my parents, everybody, they were kind of like, we're just letting him do it. He loves it. We're just letting him do it. But I'm sure what they were thinking is, oh, my gosh. This is not good. So that's important to see that this, the 20-year journey or longer, 24-year journey that I've been on is kind of interesting. There's a ton of weaknesses.

And I have a way of just really trying to turn those into my strengths. Yeah. No, I love that. And like you talked about in the very beginning, like don't give up, keep trying and pursue your dreams and dreams happen. You've done amazing things, Serge. And I think you're going to do even more amazing things in the future. So thank you so much for being my guest.

Oh, thank you, man. Thank you. I'm a big fan of you and your family. Thank you for listening to Digital Voices. We hope today's conversation sparked ideas, reflection, and connection. Subscribe on YouTube, Apple, and Spotify podcast so you don't miss an episode.