A Voice Apart

Through my extensive practice I have been treating   a lot of singers (professional or not) and just regular people with speech problems .  Some of them are quite easy to deal with, while with the others it is extremely hard, to put it mildly.  In general, both described above categories are quite troubled.  Some of those people, unfortunately, have been suffering for a decade or two, if not even more.  Some of them almost lost hope for their vocal recovery , while the others never gave up and continued their search.  Finally, the person arrives to my studio.  They are trying to look and act brave until we start the process, which is in its nature very tedious, very intense vowel-on-vowel, syllable-on-syllable, word-on-word instruction with simultaneous herbal remedies intake.  It is indeed not for the faint of heart and also definitely not for the person with below average I.Q.  It requires an intellectual understanding, in depth; it also requires

I hope that you have enjoyed reading the “Vocal Buffet, blog. "Part 1” There, we were talking mainly about the amateur singers who were trying to sing anything and everything under the sun with no proper training, knowledge or even talent. In this blog, we will talk about the diet, nutrition and exercise for those who want to choose, or have already chosen singing and/or performing, as their career. There is a saying: “We are what we eat”. I would also say: “Because of what we eat, we are what we sing also”. How so, you may ask? The person who is at least reasonably fit and well-nourished would definitely sound much healthier i.e. much clearer and much stronger. There is also a saying that: “in a healthy body, is a healthy spirit”. My regular readers probably remember that in some blogs written in the past, I stated that the voice is a spirit, which has to be discovered, uncovered and then flown away from and on top off of the physical body. If the spirit is h

Please Have Patience For A Complete Vocal Recovery!!! Over the years I have dealt with many vocal disorders and injuries, be it possessed by ordinary people with speech problems or by amateur or professional singers .  Almost all have had one thing in common, the absolute lack of patience with respect to their voice restoration and vocal recovery .  The minute they felt better about their voice and in general, they were ready “to run marathons”, so to speak. Those with the speaking voice , who have not heard their normal voice for some time, could literally not stop speaking (fast and loud) the minute they regained their voice. No matter how much and how long I have been persuading them not to start speaking too soon, too much, and too loud at all, none of them had listened.  The minute they came back home, they called all their friends and relatives and some of them even created coming home parties; and once again, some returned to yelling and screaming at their ch

This Tigeress is Roaring Perfectly and, Certainly, does not have to undergo any voice repair!  Recovering the voice is my passion! I love what I do, and I do what I love! When a singer (amateur or professional) comes to me with a damaged voice, my biggest desire is to uncover and recover their voice and put them back on stage as soon as possible. “Thank you Diana for putting me back into my vocal shoes!”   - Cindy G. Professional Recording Artist of Interscope Records Los Angeles, California. The vocal injury could play a big impact on a singer’s psyche. In the year 2006, I received a professional singer from Hawaii, who previously was very much involved in their live music performances. Then he got diagnosed with a nodule on the right vocal cord. It was devastating for him, as he no longer could perform and sustain his role in the music scene. He had to quit his singing and due to his vocal injury was forced to become a pool boy to be able to survive financially. You

 As technology progresses, more and more, I have been asked if I could do my instruction and an actual voice treatment via Skype, FaceTime, or phone.  The people who are inquiring sincerely believe that the above is possible.  I have news for them, IT IS NOT!!!  The problem with the voice is a serious matter and it has to be treated seriously.  Yes, perhaps, you can learn how to play guitar or even piano remotely, but the voice is an “internal instrument” and it requires special manipulations with the body and body language to discover it, uncover it, and recover it from within; especially when it’s trapped in the neck, shoulders, and chest, not to mention throat and nasal passages.  In this case the physical body has to be completely balanced and centred, the subconscious and conscious mind have to be aligned, the intellectual understanding has to be totally coupled with motor skills, and thus the wholesome mechanism has to be in place to allow the voice to wo

Let's Find Out! Lately, more and more voice problems sufferers are coming to me with the most, seem to be, common diagnoses; Such as acid reflux negatively affecting vocal cords, and also (by osmosis) affecting voice performance, which, in turn, often leads to  muscle tension dysphonia  disorder, as well as to many other kinds of voice disorders...  Are there, perhaps, any additional voice/ vocal problems that people also experience? You may ask, my reader? The answer is:  Of course, there are!  The rest of them, however, are much more tangible; Those include  nodes, nodules, polyps , lesions, cysts, etc, usually located on one or both vocal cords.  However, what appears to be interesting is that the person, let’s say with the hoarse/raspy voice, and not diagnosed with any growth on their vocal cords, is immediately labelled with one or the other diagnosis; either gastric acid reflux which is burning the sufferer’s vocal cords or muscle tension dysphonia (MTD), which