A Voice Apart

Sometimes, people use their speaking and/or their singing voice in the incorrect manner. In fact, the misuse of the human voice begins from the voice being drawn in the lower throat position, which often results in a lower volume, and also, quite often results in a raspy and hoarse sounding voice. In some cases, it’s just a result of the manner in which the person speaks and/or sings. Unfortunately, in North American Schools, nobody teaches children and later on young adults, how to speak, i.e., how to conduct themselves (posture-wise) while speaking and delivering the message. Also, in North American schools, nobody teaches students how to articulate, as well as how to pronounce and announce the words clearly... That is, almost needless to mention, use the proper emphases and inflections while pronouncing certain words and/or singing certain phrases. If those components are not addressed, and thus, the voice is drawn deeply to the bottom of the vocal box, the person could ex

Over almost three decades of the existence of my vocal school , I had in my possession, estimated, close to 20 000 students to date, and that not to count numerous workshops and seminars I've conducted around the world.   My "claim to fame" for all these years has been: Beginner to pro-singer in a matter of (ten or less) hours, and not months or years. Therefore, the turnover of my clientele (singers and speakers) was quite high and still is. Many people over the years were commenting that I was working myself out of my business, by producing very fast and very good results with respect of my singing and speaking clients' voices. However, the "quick fix", (not always preferred by my choice) so to speak, was not necessarily sufficient enough as it could have been, opposed to when the singer or a speaker for that matter, would give me and themselves more quality time than just for example only ten hours of instruction. Nevertheless, for some pe

It never ceases to amaze me when people are only talking about the actual songs, i.e. how good they are, how original they are, how well produced they are and how catchy they are... Very rarely, you hear the comments about the singer, for example praising him/her about the strong vocals, about their vulnerability, original interpretation, perfect pitch, and overall perfect vocal performance delivery. How so you may ask? It should be two different commodities-the greatly written and produced song and well and professionally delivered vocals. Once upon a time, I had a meeting in a Sony building with a prominent producer and a manager to be for one of my clients. After we discussed my client, they told me a story which happened a day before my meeting with them. They, apparently, flew a so called artist from Vancouver, BC in anticipation to record the perfect original tune composed by that artist and then put it on the market. Little did they know... The so called artist co

Due to the high technological era we are living in, I had to learn a lot, not only about the "human computers" (figuratively speaking), but also about the actual computers.  I have to note that I am old-school, so to speak, and when I was born in Russia (sometime ago, lol), we did not even have a rotary dial telephone or TV for that matter. Now due to absolute necessity, I had to "indulge" myself into understanding about new technological devices such as high-tech smartphones and of course the computers with their websites including newly launched of my own.  Little bit I knew...! Since my old website was working for over 15 years quite flawslessly, I had no idea what was driving that website and how people were finding me (all of these years I had young computer geeks working for me).  I had to find out the hard way now, as the new website was looking pretty, but nobody could find it.  It took me a month of loss of business to realize that something is not going ri

Often watching figure skating (I'm the biggest fan), I'm also listening to the precise words of the commentators. The title which I gave to this blog is a quotation from one of the recent competitions I was watching on the TV. One of the Russian skaters representing Canada was showing a great talent on ice, but at the same time showing the lack of training and lack of maturity, which defines a professional skater. He was fresh from the junior competition, where he earned the title of the champion, but was still skating on a junior level, not defined and not strong enough with the execution of his jumps and even the overall skating. It was clear that he had the raw talent, but it was not supported by a professional coaching, at least it seemed to be that he did not have enough of it. The commentators expressed the hope that down the road, given his talent, he would be able to climb up on the top of the charts and perhaps, one day may be qualified for the Olympic Games,

Just several days ago, I have celebrated the 40 th  Anniversary of what was once called, The Royans  School for the Musical Performing Arts. In 1987, the school changed its name and profile and became the world-renowned, The Royans Professional Vocal School , specializing in singing, speech and non-surgical  voice repair . So generally speaking, the school henceforth specialized primarily in voice, and in whichever shape or form it does reflect the identity of a specific human being and defines the state of one's being. To date, the estimated amount of students and clients who went through our doors is over 30,000 people. I could sense their personalities. Therefore, I could simply guess the state of their relationships with their parents, boyfriends, girlfriends, spouses and even just friends. Also, I could see how all of the above affects a person's state of (vocal) being.  In fact, the voice is the hardest "instrument" to power... Even on an everyday basis

Over the years, I have attended to quite a few people with various voice disorders, speaking and singing. Interestingly enough, in the case of stuttering, in particular, singing could actually help to cure, or significantly minimize, this very annoying and unpleasant for the person and for the listener, disorder. In fact, watching the recent American Idol episodes, you could see a young, quite good-looking, contestant singing perfectly, but stumbling upon (stuttering), each and every word. It is quite a phenomenon, people might think. In reality, it is not. The Vocal Science ™ method, which I discovered, suggests that the speaking and singing sound should be placed and should come out off of the upper vocal chambers, (facial cavities) and not the vocal cords, at least, after the initial first syllable of the word is initiated. The contestant in American Idol does it intuitively and experientially, but not knowing the science behind it. Therefore, it works for him when he is singing, bu