A Voice Apart

Who is the Biggest Loser you may wonder…? LET’S FIND OUT! "Evidently, when it is concerning the human anatomy, there are no “cutting corners”.   A few years ago, sometime in November, my friend and I went to Niagara Falls to watch a Christmas skating show known as “Christmas On Ice”. We’ve been there all previous years and really loved that show, but I have to say, that last year’s show was the worst out of all. There were only about 10% of the original cast participants in the show (skating, dancing and singing). We were wondering then why there were young and inexperienced skaters desperately trying to resemble something remotely reminiscent of the original show? In all three categories, the performers were very amateur and clearly inexperienced. They were hardly rehearsed, the pace of the show was very fast, very loud and very chaotic. I have to say that it was also very poorly directed. In the most recent show that we watched, my friend and I were very pleased to see (for the ...

Transforming lives since 1984 - One Voice at a time!  Regain your voice! Enhance the Quality of your voice!  Claim back the meaning of your life!  We can help! ! You may feel and definitely sense that you have some kind of a voice issue, but your ENT Specialist declares that there is nothing wrong with you and he can not detect any voice problems from the medical point of view… So naturally, it makes you upset and confused, as you don’t know what to do next...? Since our motto is that ‘your better voice tomorrow will start with us today’, we can pinpoint any mechanical problem(s) which you may experience with your voice. The fact is that from the physical point of view, everything within your vocal anatomy may seem to be intact. Therefore, you not necessarily can blame your physician or even the ENT doctor, for that matter, for not identifying any apparent problems with your voice. If that is the case, you should realize that you have been using your voice incorr...

The answer is… if (God forbid) you were involved in a car accident and the body of your car got damaged, you would probably need to go to a body shop…. wouldn’t you? However, on the other hand, if your engine or transmission were acting up, then you definitely would want to check with a qualified mechanic who, nevertheless, specializes in “car mechanics arts” in a manner of speaking. One of my prospective clients had been diagnosed with two (nevertheless) voice disorders, which are clearly of a mechanical nature, as one of them is Muscle Tension Dysphonia and the other is named Sulcus Vocalis (unhealthy gap between the vocal cords). Both of those voice issues are caused by a misuse of the voice i.e., by straining the vocal cords and pushing/pulling the voice out onto the surface; and instead, by default, placing it right into the neck muscles. Needless to say, during those actions, Muscle Tension Dysphonia had been initiated. Meanwhile, the strained vocal co...

What do we mean by that? Firstly, any person should possess a healthy voice which is also consistent with the persons' height, weight and the their inner ‘make-up’ in general. Sometimes, and luckily not too often, you can see a quite petite woman, but yet hear her heavy and 'bassy' voice. A good example would be two well-known actresses (one of whom is also a singer). The singer/actress is Miley Cyrus and the other actress is Julia Stiles - pretty girls that are speaking with much heavier voices then their physiques would ever suggest.  We, in fact, at The Royans Professional Vocal School , would be able to get rid of the heaviness and thickness of their quite-low voices. If they (or them alike) embraced the Vocal Science technique, their voices would be lifted off of their (somewhat) heavy and thick vocal cords, which were given to them at birth. The thicker the vocal cords are, the lower voice will prevail. And, on the contrary, if the person poss...

“What do you mean by that”, you, my reader, may ask?’ To explain better, I first will give you an example concerning figure skating, which will be very-much-so related to our topic on voice mechanics down the road. I think, by now, a lot of you know that I am a big fan of figure skating (and ballet for that matter); and in my childhood and adolescence, I was taking skating for many years and taking it very seriously. Given that, I know a lot about it, even though that I did not become a professional figure skater myself (to my dismay and biggest disappointment). I just recently (watching live and on TV, Skate Canada) witnessed some skaters literally stepping out of the “circle”. Our Canadian pair (Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford) skated fabulously; but then Meagan fell on a free skate, indeed, stepping out of the circle.  The commentator, Tracy Wilson, said (with these the exact same words) “She gets out of the circle and really came down hard”...

Let’s find out what you’ve got! And also, let’s find out what I mean by definition of the “instrument” and the “player”. What I mean by the “instrument” is the height and weight of the person, his/her outer and inner “opening” of the vocal anatomy as well as the pitch and tonality of their voice; not to mention many other components, which will also come into play (in a manner of speaking). Quite often, I have been asked if it is possible to increase the capacity of one’s “instrument”. I can compare it with extending an average sized keyboard to a much bigger upright piano, so that it would be possible to recite on it, let’s say, a Concerto by Tchaikovsky (or something like this of that caliber). My answer is that it is possible to a degree. Over the years, I had singing students coming to me, possessing a very small mouth, short height and small body frame overall. Due to my  very specially designed speech and singing exercises , I was definitely able to s...