A Voice Apart

"She is talented and has a great voice!" People are exclaiming. Does it mean automatic success in the music industry at large? Sometimes it does. But sometimes, on the contrary, it means a lot of "thunder and lightning" during what appears to be a sudden discovery, recording, performance, fairly quick success... and all of a sudden - CRASH!!! Loss of voice , loss of tour, loss of millions of dollars and shattered dreams!!! Now what...? Now is the time to realize that the good voice and the good talent is only a prerequisite, but the prerequisite is not enough to sustain a long and successful vocal career.  What seems to be lacking? You may exclaim! The answer to this is:  - Simply the knowledge of the proper vocal technique , which would allow the health and length of one's vocal cords and vocal box. - Simply the understanding that anything in life is relevant and related to the science of the matter.  One client of mine who just arrived from L.A. for h...

We're just about to arrive to our 28th anniversary of the originally called "The Royans School for the Musical Performing Arts" and today's named, more to the point, "The Royans Professional Vocal School". Looking back and assessing our past, as an owner, president and master vocal coach of the company, I have to say that I'm proud of what we achieved over the last three decades. The fair amount of well known singers today in Toronto and some other cities and provinces of Canada, US and Europe, have come out of our school. At the time, we had a pretty bold statement " Beginner to Pro-Singer in 10 Hours, Guaranteed! ", and at that time, in the precious past, my clients and I lived up to this statement minimum to say 150%. The people then (in 80s and 90s) were much more "awake", much more alert, much more active - intellectually and physically - and had more desires. The immigration of those years was pretty active, especially from ...

For almost over twenty eight years of running my own vocal school , I've taught a lot of people of all ages, all races and all walks of life. The older clan, sixty years of age and over, are definitely in a league of their own. Both older men and women of that class finally finding the time and desire to realize their dreams which apparently they carried  inside themselves for nearly fifty years. As I've learned over the years that a lot of them, while growing up in very poor families, outlined the goal for themselves to become rich and successful, and a lot of them were putting on the line anything and sacrificing everything; love, lust, desires of their hearts, fulfillment of their souls... and much much more. While dreaming towards financial success they, in a manner of speaking, lost the sense of reality and with that the sense of who they actually are and what they actually really wanted out of their lives. Apparently, now working in a very respectful firms and making...

I have to say that I'm not a big fan of reality TV shows, with the exception of very few, one of which was Rock Star Supernova , which possessed real singers, real music and somewhat fair judges, and the last several seasons of American Idol . Everything else I've been watching concerning music was simply a failure and almost a funny parody onto the big shows, like I mentioned above.  Evidently, they did not have  enough budget or simply a class concerning the judges and the participants. On a parallel track now with X Factor have been running: Cover Me Canada (Canadian Show), Sing Off (American Show) and right before that, America's Got Talent . Let's analyze each of them. "Cover Me Canada" in my opinion possesses very mediocre and boring bands with some mediocre singers who are trying to pose for the best thing since sliced bread. In my opinion, practically all of them are quite pathetic to say least. "Sing Off" consists of some groups with...