A Voice Apart

Evidently not… It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Let’s analyze what has been happening in the last few years and, nevertheless, recently: Majority of our very talented artists had experienced vocal problems in one-way or another. A lot of them had undergone vocal operations: Adele John Mayer Joan Rivers Megan Trainor Sam Smith Roger Daltrey Steven Tyler Keith Urban Michael Buble And that’s to name a few… All of the above-listed people are talented artists, but obviously, the majority of them had been lacking the proper vocal technique; and thus, they ended up having vocal issues (and some of them more serious than others). Could they have avoided the interruption of their professional lives, careers, joy and monetary loss? No doubts they could - They just could have been more attentive to the technical aspects of their craft and not just rely on their talents and love for music. Could you imagine a figure skater trying to jump a triple or quad...

How to Become and Remain to be a Professional Singer  (Part 2) But… What about the Vocal Style? Can it be taught? Let’s Find Out! In this article, I would like to talk about interesting observations that I have made over my 37 years as a vocal coach and voice repair specialist while being the founder of the Royans Professional Vocal School aka The Royans School for the Musical Performing Arts - since 1984. Since that time teaching voice has been our primary focus. Not too many people realize that there are several aspects that must be addressed with respect to the singing craft in general. Let’s elaborate on that, my dear reader: First of all, I would like to bring to your attention that when we begin talking about singing, we will be talking about two separate, but very much so related elements: physical sound and artistic performance. Before I will begin discussing anything further (regarding the above-described matter), I would like to bring to your attention, my reader, that t...

Since 1984, we have been receiving students who really wanted to make it in the music business. And a lot of them did. Many of them got signed with major record labels, as well as, had won many singing competitions including international ones. To name a few, please see below:  Brian Melo - Winner of Canadian Idol 2007  Lukas Rossi - Winner on the CBS TV Show Rockstar: Supernova Alex Norman of illScarlett (Sony BMG Music Canada)  Cindy Gomez - INTERSCOPE Records (Produced by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics) Trish (Patricia Campbell) - Signed with Capitol | EMI Records Candace Santos - Winner of the 2006 and 2007 Rising Star Contests & the 2008 Young Asian Canadian Idol Brian Pisani of One Second 2 Late (Produced by Greig Nori - Sony BMG) Jake Robertson - Lead Singer of the Any Zen rock band Jesse Dryfhout of Stabilo (Virgin Music Canada) Edwin (Sony Records) Brian Byrne of I Mother Earth (Universal Records) Rob Moratti of Saga (Inside Out Records) Nicole Hughes of Min...

Our Vocal Science™ Program can help your child achieve all of the above with guaranteed results. Let’s say that your child desires to be in a school musical play, may want to sing in a choir, would also want to have better presentations and thus, better marks at school. - Let’s make it happen, as no child likes to fail in front of their friends or feel rejected for that matter… I have always said that the voice is the “spirit” which needs to be discovered, uncovered and unleashed to its full potential… Once that happens, the clarity, annunciation, pronunciation and projection of the child’s voice will become more noticeable and thus will attract the attention of other children and, of course, the teachers and mentors. Once your child’s voice is “heard”, their confidence will also soar and he/she will become that much more self-assured. So, as a result of that, (the least to say) they will gain a lot more friends during the school years and for the years ahead. If the above does ...

Dealing with various voice disorders is my specialty. Over many years, I have attended to hundreds, if not thousands of people with different voice injuries of their speaking and/or singing voices. In general, they were all, one way or another, physically and, nevertheless, emotionally distraught. What was different about them was their reactional response to their voice disorder and its consequences. What was in common that all of them had lost their confidence, especially the singers. And even after the restoration of their voices, their physical demeanour has been expressing the tightness and fear, to say the least. And even after the voice sounded as good, or even better than before, the performance aspect has been significantly lost, as they could not bring themselves out of their shell and loosen themselves up in order to produce a required performance quality. In Russia, we have a saying: “The good dancers do not show their sweat”. Speaking of dancers, they work really hard a...

A Valentine’s Day Love Story Drama... The Result: An Absolute Beginner Signs with a Reputable Talent Agency! In previous years, I had worked a lot with amateur singers who were labelled as wannabe singers. A lot of them were recognized by various talent scouts and agents, especially when they were appearing in karaoke clubs or open mic events in a variety of bars and clubs. Once upon a time, one of my beginner students was brought up by her husband to a big karaoke club to show him what she had achieved with only 5 hours of instruction (by that time) with me. On top of it, it happened to be Valentine’s day karaoke night! Understandably, my student felt very nervous and insecure... However, she also told me that she remembered (what we still call to this day) “smile and bite”, and to also enunciate and thus pronounce her words with absolute clarity and to the best of her abilities. By the time she finished the song, (to my memory, it was a song called “Time After Time” – by Cindy Lauper...

Vocally speaking… Who do you think your worst enemy is... The answer is… Your Subconscious Mind!! You must know that the signal from the brain first comes out of the subconscious mind, and only then will it trigger the desired action... Evidently, the action always comes first before the conscious mind realizes it. That is why it is so difficult to get rid of old bad habits - like bad posture, which interferes with the proper projection of the sound, wrong speech patterns, wrong formation of the syllables, vowels, and words in general. Especially concerning MTD (MuscleTension Dysphonia) or SD (Spasmodic Dysphonia) sufferers, I found that they experience complete misalignment between their subconscious and conscious minds, as well as their physical bodies - and that’s where, as a result, their voice becomes completely out of balance… Needless to say that their coordination and synchronicity between their mind commands to the physical body and to the voice are totally not intact. Obvio...