A Voice Apart

Do not ever give up hope! Do not ever listen to the, so-called medical professionals prompting you to accept your voice condition and learn how to live with it! How pathetic is that?   Those medical professionals do not offer any solutions and could not care less that you had spent most of your life on stage singing and do not know, or want, any other lifestyle, but the one you like and love. One of our former clients (throat cancer survivor) was told exactly that and was encouraged to be thankful to be alive. Meanwhile, that very client had spent over 45 years on stage playing guitar and singing in a rock band. After C hemo and R adiation, his fingertips lost the sensation of touch and his voice was forever raspy and hoarse, (both speaking and singing). How frustrating could that be? My answer would be : A bove and B eyond !   Even though my client was suggested to accept it and “ be happy to be alive !"   H e certainly did not want to follow that guidance. To his...

I must have given not million, but billion singing, speech and voice repair designated hours, serving at least 20,000 clients for over 31 years running a professional vocal school. For the last three decades, I have been mostly specializing in Non-Surgical Voice Repair more so than the regular singing or speech lessons . It appears to be that more and more people are ruining their speaking and singing voices , not knowing how to properly use their voices, let alone knowing how to take care of their voices. Usually, their lifestyles are quite unhealthy – diet wise, fitness wise, and enormous stress wise. They live a very strained life, so to speak. Naturally, a lot of them, ( speakers and singer s ), are pushing and pulling their voices while concurrently gripping their voices into their necks, thus paving their way to what’s called Muscle Tension Dysphonia. While having these symptoms, naturally these people affected by them, are thinking of going...

A long time ago Citytv launched " Speaker's Corner ". Anybody could stop by and verbally express their opinion about anything. Some people were actually singing, while hoping to get noticed and make it big in the music business. And YES...BINGO! The band " Barenaked Ladies " were noticed, picked up by music industry professionals and then the band made a very significant mark, becoming icons in the music industry to date. Sounds like a fairy tale, huh? But that happened and it's real. However, at that time it was quite sensational. Today, we all own computers and we all can easily and quickly access YouTube . In a manner of speaking, it is a "Speaker's Corner", but in the convenience of our own home or at our desk at work. With that to be available, the well known manager,  Scooter Braun was surfing the internet and YouTube in particular, when he discovered a young boy who is now the well known artist, Justin Bieber . The " Biebermania ...

I've been in the music business, here in Canada, for over 30 years. I ran my professional vocal school , which is now a division of 4 A.M. Talent Development & Artist Management Group Inc., as well as, our own independent label, Royans Universe Records for over 27 years.  Over all this time, I've been vocally training people (estimated over 18,000 students) and also recording a lot of demos (first tapes and then CDs).  From time to time I was attempting to do the full productions with some of my prominent and talented clients, where I had to engage the services of a Music Producer, while myself, I was trying to play the role of Vocal Producer. "Vocal Producer?!!!" You may exclaim, "What's that?". For years, I was trying to answer this question to the best of my abilities and especially to convince and persuade those music producers who I have been (or potentially would be) working with. Some of them had no concept of it, outright; others had dif...