Vocally Speaking… “Say No to Potato…” Huh??

A lot of you are most likely familiar with the show that is titled “Hudson & Rex”.

In our opinion, it is a very smart and intelligent show (truly Canadian), which possesses a lot of subtle humour…

One of the episodes, as usual, about some crime taking place, was about the woman who wrote the book about her own invented diet named “Say No to Potato”...?   
She ended up starving herself to death while documenting her own wedding…

By the end of the investigation of what exactly happened, Detective Charlie Hudson was handed that very book, and yes, it was indeed named “Say No to Potato”.
I found it extremely funny, but, nevertheless, quite to the point…

In this case, concerning the human speaking and/or singing voice, I would like you to state; “Say No to Digital, Old-Fashioned Conventional Vocal Coaching, Let Alone Some Spoof of the Voice Repair” - that is if you do not want to damage or lose your voice for good.

“Say Yes to Unique, Natural, Holistic, Alternative Voice/Vocal Coaching and the honest and, nevertheless, genuine Non-Surgical Voice Repair”, provided that you want to enhance, save and protect your voice for a lifetime!

Now jokes and metaphors aside, let’s examine what conventional vocal coaching nowadays offers on Zoom.
I have been working with a client who, before discovering me and my unique services, was trying to learn on Zoom how to sing, employing 30 different teachers.
When she finally reached me (was delayed due to the pandemic), I could not account for any teaching or any live note coming from her mouth.
It was indeed pitiful, to put it mildly.
However, she wasn’t too frustrated as she had a pretty wealthy boyfriend who picked up all of those bills for the countless vocal coaching sessions.
Then, she ended up with me (at first with no one note to account for), and now is singing 4 pretty advanced songs, which she could previously not even dream about.
She is coming to me twice a month from LA California.

Luckily for her, she has a new boyfriend, who is even wealthier than the previous one.
Way to go girl!

My voice/vocal coaching is not only about how to belt and reach high-range notes, it is first of all about safely and prevention of any kind of vocal injuries.
When you learn from scratch how to sing and do not have much patience before becoming Celion Dion, Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston, you may be very prone of any kind of vocal injuries… God forbid!
So since I am a Non-Surgical Voice Repair Specialist, I know more than anyone, what could happen if you are not using your voice correctly and promptly.
Not only will you have to learn to do it right, but also how to do it safely and without any turbulence.

So, her present boyfriend (number 2) is now also paying for my sessions - trust me, they are not cheap like anything else which is actually real, exquisite and of high quality. My client's boyfriend has been suggesting to my client for months now, to find somebody else in California and yet again go on zoom with them to learn singing.
And even though my client denies that she was trying to study with a few other people on zoom, I totally could see how my work (in front of my very eyes) was getting exponentially destroyed.
All of a sudden she started using her tongue like a snake would do.
Not only was it disgusting to look at, it was totally in the way of what we were doing previously and now are still doing, but, of course, at a more advanced level.

Then, the next development came by her dropping her jaw down straight to her knee, so to speak.
Please refer to the picture from my book “Vocal Science - Flight to the Universe”.
You will find ‘Fred’, who is dropping his jaw also right down to his knee.

The picture belongs to the chapter of the above-mentioned book titled “How to NOT Become a Singer and Work Harder at Doing It”.

I believe, my intelligent reader, that you already got my point.
My doomed client, while dropping her jaw down to the knee and below, nearly ended up with an injury in her throat, as well as her neck.
I warned her numerous times that it may happen and it almost did.

When the singer drops their jaw down, they are asking for big trouble, as they are beginning to push the sound of their voice on their throat, neck and chest.
The voice becomes not only positioned in the lower throat, but it often gets stuck in the neck muscles and that is what, in the final analysis, becomes a vocal disorder named Muscle Tension Dysphonia.
Trust me, my reader, you do not want to go there.

Moreover, if the Zoom student, insists on pushing and pulling that (stuck in their neck) voice, trying to recover it back on the surface, they will be “swallowed” by, in a manner of speaking, 'the swamp', as the more they push and pull, the lower down they will be drowning by being sucked into it.

At this point, the Muscle Tension Dysphonia may turn, God forbid, into what is called Spasmodic Dysphonia.
The latter is the worst nightmare for any human being, let alone for a singer.

That is where the sound of the voice gets spasming uncontrollably (a type of stuttering in the worst interpretation of that word), and in the conventional sense and medically speaking, it is considered to be untreatable, let alone, curable.
The only treatment they have for this voice disorder is the one where the doctors are sticking a long needle in one's throat with a poison in it called Botox.

So don’t be lazy, and do not try to learn how to speak or sing, or let alone treat your damaged voice online.
It will never happen, trust my word!

Moreover, what could happen, is exactly what I described above…

So like the deadly “diet” which was profiled on the show ‘Hudson and Rex’, it may turn out disastrous…

Now, my reader, it is at your discretion.
If you are so “brave”, go on zoom and do it.
You have my “blessing”, however, I will be keeping my fingers crossed for you and I will be praying for your, vocally speaking, safety. 🙏

However, if you have some mental capacity still intact, you will trust my word, as well as my extensive (close to 50 years) experience and unprecedented expertise.

Trust me, not everything can be done remotely.
Think about it… would you ask your massage therapist or Chiropractic Doctor to do your treatment online?

It would be, the least to say, funny if it was not so sad... indeed!

Almost as funny as the title of the aforementioned book…. “SAY NO TO POTATO”!