A Voice Apart

We all know that whichever health problems we have, the best way to conquer them is, first of all, to prevent it. However, if it already happened, the second best way to deal with it is non-surgically , if possible. The third apparent way is to embark on a surgical procedure. However, the latter is much more dangerous than the other two options. Look at the case of Julie Andrews; after undergoing a botched vocal surgery in 1997, she lost her ability to sing forever and never regained her real singing voice ever since.  Joan Rivers , not too long ago, went to a prestigious New York hospital to the outpatient ward to remove a simple polyp and, as a result, she never came out of the operation room.  And lastly, there is Sam Smith , who luckily came out of the O.R, but with no ability to speak for quite a few weeks. The rest remains to be seen. I wish him all the best and a full recovery of his vocal injury . However, with the best scenario, what is going to change afte

I am a fan of all arts related talent shows.  The other day, I watched " So You Think You Can Dance " and one of the judges commented on the performance of one of the auditioners.  He said something along these lines, “It was so nice to watch you and even nicer to witness your talent paired with the great skill you own.” GOLDEN WORDS!!! I right away made a mental note and thought, “I would not say it better myself”. However, by the looks of things, it mainly applies to dance, but somehow not to vocal performance.  Over the years, I’ve been on a lot of panels and ran a lot of vocal workshops and seminars within the industry format, and the comments were always directed towards the great song, the great dance performance, while singing, the great overall talent, but not to the great singing performance or vocal skill, for that matter. It felt like the industry did not account for the skill required to produce at least a decent vocal performance. 

For Many Years, I am advocating non-surgical voice repair for my clients. Some of them are singers, some are not. Quite a lot of them have similar symptoms and often, similar causes of their voice loss. When we talk about those who are not singers, it is somewhat a different feel and perception from both sides, my own included. With the singers, it's usually a straight forward deal. Their career is based on the use of their voice. Before they could sing, however, not necessarily up to professional standards, (which is what caused the problem in the first place) but now they cannot sing at all. It is a tragedy to say the least, as all of their dreams are shattered and performances and tours are postponed until further notice, or even indefinitely like in John Mayer 's case. It is interesting enough that those artists are not looking for any gimmicks with respect of the means of how to fix their voices, and primarily, willing to do anything to get back on stage.