A Voice Apart

This is an informative & educational story about Mary Ellen Stoll : Former Speech and Singing Voice Repair Client from Brockville, Ontario –  Now an active member of the Brockville Barbershop Chorus (Thousand Islanders Chorus) . "Hi Diana, I just wanted to let you know I survived about 10 different Xmas singing events with the chorus WITH NO IMPACT ON MY VOICE; and for some of those events, we were singing outside in all types of weather - (Christmas parades and Xmas tree lighting etc.)"   Mary Ellen came to us in the year 2017 soon after she retired from being a manager within the Government of Ontario. Interestingly enough, her husband had also retired from service in the Government of Ontario on the same day and in the same year. Even more interestingly, both of them were born on the same day… and the same year…!! A few days ago, they both turned 66 years old. Congratulations to both of you, Mary Ellen and Steve! Below is Mary Ellen’s story: Over 40 years...

________________ Can any voice/vocal disorder be treated non-surgically? Conversely..., can any voice/vocal disorder be treated surgically? To kick things off, let's find out the answer(s) for the above! Let the controversy begin!!! ________________ ________________ My answer(s) and point of view was inspired by an article from The Guardian Newspaper, titled "Why do stars like Adele keep losing their voice?" ( here is a link to that article )  ________________ ________________ A few months ago, this article (mentioned in the link) was brought to my attention by two of my clients. Both found similarities in the content of the article above with what I have been teaching them as well as with the content of my two websites. For the last 34 years, I have owned an international professional vocal school in Toronto, Canada. My vocal school is a division of a non-surgical voice repair institute The Voc...

Some singers who come to me for non-surgical voice repair are not necessarily the professional singers. Which means, that a lot of them have a daytime job or even their own businesses.  Some of the professions require speaking on the phone all day, running meetings, doing presentations, and what not.  After an 8-hour workday, the part-time singers would rush to their band rehearsal or even to an outright performance.  Perhaps being vocally very talented but not, per se, knowing about the proper application of their voice, they put the enormous pressure on their vocal anatomy. So let’s examine that: They use their speaking voice excessively during the working day and then even more intensely during the night through the late hours.  While they’re speaking at work, they primarily are doing it from the sitting position with a slouched back, thus drowning their voice onto the bottom of their throats and below.  They establish the low voice speaking habit....

“What do you mean by that”, you, my reader, may ask?’ To explain better, I first will give you an example concerning figure skating, which will be very-much-so related to our topic on voice mechanics down the road. I think, by now, a lot of you know that I am a big fan of figure skating (and ballet for that matter); and in my childhood and adolescence, I was taking skating for many years and taking it very seriously. Given that, I know a lot about it, even though that I did not become a professional figure skater myself (to my dismay and biggest disappointment). I just recently (watching live and on TV, Skate Canada) witnessed some skaters literally stepping out of the “circle”. Our Canadian pair (Meagan Duhamel and Eric Radford) skated fabulously; but then Meagan fell on a free skate, indeed, stepping out of the circle.  The commentator, Tracy Wilson, said (with these the exact same words) “She gets out of the circle and really came down hard”...

Over the years, I have possessed a lot of singers (or wannabe singers), and also speakers who originally came to me for non-surgicalvoice repair to restore their speaking and singing voices. Now, after certain amount of hours spent with me restoring their voices and re-learning how to really speak and/or sing , they naturally became very excited and began to practice on their own, in spite of my warnings to them to keep it in moderation.  I do understand that they are very excited to reach the new higher grounds with their speaking and singing voices, but they do not understand that the bad habits, which got them in trouble in the first place, are still there and have been there much longer then the newly – found good habits. There is a saying: “Bad habits die hard”.   Indeed!  So what happens is; once my clients start practicing on their own sooner than they were advised, the bad habits kick in and knock down the newly-instilled good habits....

If you can, you will be able to use your voice, by design, and think on a parallel track and in synchronicity with your speaking or singing . Nevertheless, this is an invaluable skill to have. The fact is that the majority of people do not possess that skill, as they are simply out-of-balance and out of alignment. Some of them think long and hard before producing the speaking or singing sounds and thus, evidently, “missing the boat”. The others, opposite; they speak and sing without boarders and think, if at all, after the fact. It is especially crucial for those who have been undergoing a non-surgical voice repair ordeal . In fact, the above-described imbalance was also a contributing factor to their voice disorder  in the first place. The human being who is, in fact, in balance, is most likely able to think and act on a parallel track, which means that his/her subconscious mind and conscious mind are aligned and thus, work on a parallel track with e...

I have just recently returned from my quick and somewhat short, but very impactful, trip from London. Within only a little bit more than a week’s period of time, I was able to provide my four UK clients with my voice repair services; speaking & singing . All of them were unique in their own way and, nevertheless, all of them were different. However, one thing they had in common is that they were extremely smart and sharp, took directions really well and complied with the procedures, introduced to them, to a tee. This whole process, for me, was extremely heart rejuvenating, as here in Canada & in North America in general, for some reason, people who come to obtain my services are, by far, not as alert, are taking directions much slower and mainly, after the fact, not compliant with the aftermath protocol. For example: speech repair clients, for some reason, seem to be unable to understand that after they complete their voice repair course and treatment, they cannot ...