The Determined Society with Shawn French
Singing as Medicine: How Liz Caplan Healed Through Music
15 Dec 2025
Chapter 1: How did Liz Caplan discover the healing power of singing?
At a very early age, Liz Kaplan found her own medicine.
Excuse me while I get my tissues, because that got me too.
Yeah, come on, right? You just gave me the damn goose bumps. Stop it.
I had asthma. Singing helped change the way I breathed. I could almost get myself out of it from my own techniques.
That is proof that the healing properties of music are happening.
Have an asthma attack, sit at the piano and start singing, no more asthma attack.
And there's so many people out there struggling right now. They don't know what their medicine is. They think it's chasing boys, chasing women, drinking alcohol, doing drugs.
Prior to every single vocal lesson, I do an incredibly detailed breathing series. They would come up from this big breathing series and go like this, wow, why use drugs? Cause the high you get from deep breathing is real.
Damn. And no hangover.
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Chapter 2: What role does intentional breathing play in reducing anxiety?
And then at the end, he came on and it was like magic, wasn't it?
Totally. And that's basically Ben in a nutshell.
Yeah.
That is awesome. You know, I really love having conversations with accomplished individuals like you because there's always a story involved, right? I want you to walk the audience through how you actually started because if they're coming into it and look you up, look at your website, they see all this amazing stuff, all this press, you know, amazing stuff.
amazing testimonials from like Stephen Colbert that, I mean, that, that testimonial you, people see that though. Like, I don't know how I can relate to this person because they're so big and they're so, they're so great, but that's not where it started for you. Can you walk the audience through how this, this massive momentum and this massive business started for you?
It's going to start so teeny weenie. I remember being six years old and being asked to sing God Bless America at the lip of a stage in some school auditorium. And I sang, and it was probably just a piano playing behind me. And I felt, I don't think I understood patriotism at the time at six years old, but I certainly felt that my voice... singing in general, but certainly singing that song.
Cause it's very broad. And I was like, Hmm. And the audience applauded. And I was like, Oh, that feels good too. Um, but mostly I felt my own instrument as a healing mechanism for myself and how sound at six years old made people respond.
Interesting. Interesting. So I want to stop here and I want to dive into this because you said two things to me that are very important. One, that your instrument, your voice was healing for you. That's big. So I want you to touch on that, but then I want you to touch on the reaction from the audience because those are two different things.
Those are two different winds and they're both very impactful.
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Chapter 3: How did Liz Caplan build her successful vocal coaching career?
I realized, like I said early on, that singing should be mostly a healing art form. And the teaching of singing should be exactly that too so and i had come from teachers myself all throughout junior high school and high school and college who were not particularly lovely human beings and i say that because i never felt very comfortable in myself with them so the feeling i had was
I mean, I don't think anybody used the word dysfunctional back in that time, but it was. It was completely a dysfunctional situation. And I kept saying to myself, I asked myself these questions as a young person, why is singing, which is supposed to bring joy to myself and to others, feeling so tense and tight and restrictive? And why?
I knew early on that whatever I was going to end up doing in my life, and I didn't know at that time, I always wanted to make sure people felt comfortable in whatever room I was in with them and certainly comfortable within their bodies and themselves when they were listening to me help them. So, and the word threatening should never come into play when you're learning anything, I think.
Right. Right. That's interesting.
That kind of like got the, the momentum beginning in terms of how I knew what I wasn't going to do and how I knew that what I did want to do. And I just had to obviously figure out where that was going to take place.
You know, I find it interesting and thank you for all that, all that context, because there are so many great things that you said, you know, early on, you know, when you talk about eliciting a response from a whole bunch of people. And then at the end, you touched on people feeling comfortable.
in your presence and whatever room you're in and feeling like, and just feeling just whole while they're there. You know, I feel like there's a big thing in this world that not enough people do. Cause some people say, don't like I've had people tell me, don't chase feelings. you know what, if I didn't chase feelings, Liz, I would not be where I'm at right now. I chase feelings on everything.
I'm chasing a feeling right now while I'm speaking to you because the moment deserves that. And when you can get a response from a client that you work with, a response from a crowd, that is proof that the healing properties of music are happening, right? And while the audience is listening, there's a bigger lesson here. You know, music for us in my house, my wife... There's always music on.
There's always music. And the kids know music. They listen to it. Every time a good song comes on, I get goosebumps. My wife does. And we really dive into music because it makes us happy. And it kind of helps us forget about where we're at.
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Chapter 4: What are the transformative effects of music as medicine?
Cause the high you get from deep breathing is real and it is clean. And it is something that you could give to yourself on a daily basis and multiple times a day.
Damn. And no hangover.
None.
Exactly.
You can wake up the next day and be like, breathe the day.
Hey, I'm going to need those techniques because my wife always says, hey, you need to breathe a little bit. I'm like, I don't know how.
You know, I think we're in a highly cortisol environment nowadays. And I think all of our adrenals are being so demanded upon and so challenged. crashed so often from just what comes at us on a daily basis, no matter who you are, what you believe in, all of that. I think just in general. So I think breathing and also purposeful breathing is something as a kind of cure, if you will, or at least
calming moment that you can say i can shut everything else out right now which you could do by watching television and being engrossed in a television series which is great i do that i love that i can do that say again
I said, I can do that easily.
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Chapter 5: How can deep breathing techniques enhance creativity?
So all this energy is always, always circling around. So we have to find ways, you know, I would say speaking for myself and my career, as well as singing to help, you know, get that off of you. So you find out who am I actually right now and not what I'm, who I'm carrying on.
So, okay, let's get to the fun stuff. Like they, we've, you know, we've gave the audience a lot of good stuff and I hope you stuck around because this is going to be really cool. So, you know, I get phone calls and text messages from friends that have watched me over the years build this show, this brand, okay?
And- Which, by the way, is extraordinary.
Thank you. Thank you. Seriously, thank you.
It's extraordinary, not because it's just you, because you are, by virtue of your energy, extraordinary, but what you're espousing is really trying to find ways to heal people and heal the world, right? Yeah. In the larger picture of things.
That's the goal. You know, like you said, it can't be about you, right? It's got to be about somebody else. I think that we're all here to serve. I know that for a fact. I think we're all here to make our impact, good or bad. You know, you guys get to choose what kind of impact you make on someone's life. You had a really bad, some bad teachers. I had some bad teachers. I had some bad coaches too.
But you know, I get these calls and they always ask me like, what's it like? Like, what's what like talking to all these people like Jay Leno? I'm like, it's really cool. Like, what do you just, that's it? It's like, I'm like, guys, look, it's just one of those things where, you know, I chose this as a career and I'm blessed that I'm here.
So now that I'm here, I operate in a, in a space that, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna acknowledge these wins, but I'm also needing to be super effective and efficient. So I can't go there in my mind and, But like now I'm sitting here, right, talking to you and blown away at the stars that you've worked with. You know, I mean, for the audience, just go to her website.
Like, literally, Liz Kaplan Studios. Check it out.
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Chapter 6: What strategies does Liz use to help clients release negative energy?
They're judged constantly. constantly, you're worried about being judged in your job in corporate America. These people are being fine tooth comb, too skinny, too fat, not muscular enough, not good looking enough. He's balding. He's aged out. She's aging out. She's done.
Like, this is so powerful, but like the way you're bringing this together is you're, you're painting this picture for the audience and for even for myself that like, You're painting the same picture I'm experiencing in my own life when I'm talking to these people. It's like, yo, they're a human being and we're going to have a great time. We're going to have a great conversation.
I sat down with William H. Macy and had a conversation with him. He's like, dude, this has been amazing. He's like, this is different. You do it different. Wow. I'm like, hey man, let me know when you want to come back on it. Whenever you want to promote stuff, I'm here. Let's do it. But To do what you do.
I mean, just backing up just a second. William H. Macy is major. And not just from his TV and film work, but he was one of the founders of the Atlantic Theater Company. And that is a huge teaching environment. They have a school connected to it. The theater... only puts out the most amazing pieces and all original work. And he is on the letterhead of that. So I know these things.
I don't work with him, so I don't know him personally, but I know how deep getting to talk to him actually is.
Yeah, it was pretty rewarding, right? Those are those moments you look back and most recently, Marcus Luttrell, a lone survivor. That was a big story, but his brother was also one too. That's 20 years of SEAL service between the two of them. I'm like, whoa, this is an amazing experience. My whole point is, is like, we get to do something really cool. Right. Really freaking cool.
In your experience and working with everybody and all the, all the things that you've done, what's been the most rewarding thing? And you don't have to include names if you don't have to, you can just give the situation, but what's been the most rewarding for you?
I just was mentioning this. Oh, interesting. I will drop names because it does kind of frame the story, but yeah, I worked on as vocal supervisor and vocal producer on the Lin-Manuel Miranda, tick, tick, boom, musical film. So, and he called me himself. I've been working with him all along from in the Heights and all the shows that he did, you know, experimentally for himself.
Um, and ultimately Hamilton, um, So when he has vocal things that he has to prepare for, I am so lucky And somewhat also continuously shocked that I'm being called upon to support Lin-Manuel Miranda.
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