A Voice Apart

- Holistic approach to a person as a whole - Case study of our present student of Indian descent. G.B is our present student - a male of 27 years of age.  5 years ago, he came to Toronto from India to become a student in one of our colleges to take a business program. Prior to that, he attended a college in India (computer engineering) and successfully graduated from both programs - in India and in Toronto, Canada. You would think, my reader, that with two colleges under his belt, so to speak, he would be now a successful employee or even an employer of any of the companies/businesses of his choice. However, instead of the latter, he ended up being employed here in Toronto as a truck driver… Why? - you, my reader, may ask. My answer ( given 16 hours of my work with him to date ) would be: Somewhat voice delivery problem, Pretty heavy accent. And, nonetheless… overall insecurity. Let’s examine why he enrolled in our program which is called “ The Total Communic

The first question you have to ask yourself is: How did you end up with such a nasty diagnosis? You may ask yourself: What have I been doing wrong with respect to my speaking or my singing voice for that matter? Analyzing the above while looking for the answer, you may remember that you had a bad cold or virus… At that time, your voice got quite compromised and it became raspy and hoarse. You, meanwhile, were trying to clear your throat quite hard and pushed and pulled your voice (also quite hard) to make it clearer and louder… By doing all of those things, you no doubt strained your vocal cords , and are now have been experiencing the consequences of such actions. In the end, you ended up with pain in your throat, with an even more raspy and hoarse voice and, in some cases, perhaps with breathing difficulties. By the way, the latter may bring you to the next undesirable diagnosis - you may acquire asthma-like symptoms… God forbid. To get to all of the above, you perhaps u

Recently, we received a very talented (musically and otherwise) student who has been offered a major record deal in the United States. Three years ago, this singer/songwriter/producer felt that he could no longer reach the high notes, which he could easily reach before. He experienced vocal fatigue and thus could sustain any sound only for a short period of time. He acquired fear and emotional distress, knowing that his singing voice is not working in full capacity as before. He decided to withhold embarking onto the record deal; And rightfully so, as he felt that he could've lost his voice altogether if he continued singing (and speaking for that matter) in the same fashion. Within our introductory/exploratory session, we explained to him that if he does not change the application of his speaking and singing voice, he may actually lose his voice to the point of no return. What could be a bigger fear and frustration for a talented up-and-coming singer then to lose the

In January 2008, I picked up a phone call from a person who called himself "Orlando". Right away, I was curious to know if that was his real name or, perhaps, a stage name...? Nevertheless, this person assured me that it was his real name and also added that his mother was, in fact, very creative - and thus, gave him such a name. Orlando spoke with me with a quite raspy and hoarse voice and he told me that he just visited an ENT (he called me from Mexico, where he usually spends his winter time) and revealed that, while there, he had been told that he had a one-millimetre nodule  on one of his vocal cords. With that diagnosis, he was suggested immediate vocal surgery. On this note, Orlando placed a call to me - during which he was quite inquisitive (reminded me of a KGB interrogation). Surprisingly enough, with all the desperation, he seemed to be not in a hurry to make a commitment to come to Toronto to attend my course and treatment. He, however, placed another c