A Voice Apart

In the previous years, I had worked a lot not only with professional singers but, also, with some amateur singers who, at the time, were labelled as wannabe singers. In fact, a lot of them were recognized by various talent scouts and agents, especially when they were appearing in karaoke nights 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. She told me that she was very nervous and, understandably, felt very insecure… However, she also told me that she remembered (what we still call to this day) to “smile and bite”, and, nevertheless, she also remembered to enunciate and pronounce her words with absolute clarity. Before she finished her song (to my memory, it was a song called “Time After Time” – by Cindy Lauper), she was helped down from the stage by a person who came up to...

I have to say that, in the past, the above sentences were not even up for discussion. Everybody (or almost everybody) were more then willing to “spread their wings, in a manner of speaking; and thus, unleash their voices and their spirits. Of course, to unleash the voice/spirit is easier said then done… It is especially difficult if the person already has some kind of a voice disorder or even just voice/vocal issues. Obviously, some cases are more difficult then others (with or without voice problems ), but some are nearly impossible to deal with; and it’s not the voice issues I am talking about. I am talking about people who are nearly IMPOSSIBLE TO DEAL WITH!! How so, you may ask..? The fact is, that especially lately, a lot of people (being stranded financially and thus, emotionally) had lost their trust in anything and everything. They, in a manner of speaking, became Soul-dead! How sad is that? Given the political situation in the U.S. and in Europe , people now...

If you think that it does not, ask us how you can obtain it! Everybody lately is speaking about a “WOW factor”. During the vocal competitions like American/British Idol or shows like America Got Talent or Britain Got Talent, judges constantly looking for that WOW factor in their contestants. What do they mean by that? Well, first of all, they are looking for a good song suitable for the contestant and, of course, good and original interpretation of that song. Obviously a sharp performance with the proper technical and artistic merit should move the contestant to the top of his/her category. Similarly, during the speech presentation, unfortunately, a lot of times you want to “fall asleep”, a the presenter sounds monotone; and thus, very boring. He/she often does not have the proper emphasis and inflections in their sentences and, therefore, sometimes you can not even make out what they are actually talking about. This is especially annoying when those so called “presenter...

How The Suppressed Emotions, Lack of Talking in the Childhood Years (Due To Strict Upbringing), And Enormous Stress, Can Effect Your Speaking Voice Down The Road To Your Adulthood? Due to my profession and extensive practice, I meet all kinds of people; all heights and weights, all colours and cultures and (in general) people from all walks of life. Being situated in Canada for over 36 years and running my Professional Vocal School for nearly 33 years, surprisingly enough (and especially lately) my business took a different turn and became at least 95% international. Our primary market for voice repairs happens to be American. Quite recently, I completed two voice repair projects, one of which was from Seattle, US, and the other from the State of Minnesota.  Needless to say, both of those adults (nevertheless with speech/voice disorders) very-much-so succeeded in their voice recovery with intense implementation of the Vocal Science technique . They had different voice disor...

Over the years, I have been attending to many clients with voice problems who had undergone speech therapies of one kind or another. Unfortunately for them, they have not gotten anything out of it and some of them actually got worse. Needless to say that, at best, they left the speech therapy office feeling exactly the same as quite a few speech sessions ago and “quite a few” dollars spent. They were especially doomed if they came to speech therapy to fix their singing voice. The fact is that those speech therapists are not trained in vocals, thus they could not be knowledgeable in the restoration of voice mechanics . Some of the singers who have , so to speak, lost their ability to sing for whatever reason, actually have their speaking voice intact or close to normal. When they come to speech therapy, they are asked to blow into a kazoo or blow a bubble into the water. They are also asked to “moo and hum” some strange sounds, which really have nothing to do...

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...

The Royans Professional Vocal School , (a.k.a, The Royans School For The Musical Performing Arts), has been in existence for over 30 years now.  We opened it on February 15th, 1984 as The Children’s School Of Music. But then, several years later, it suddenly turned into the Adult School of Music with only a few children on our roaster.  In 1987, it, literally, turned into an adult Rock School.  We had a galore of rock bands, consisting of guitar, bass guitar and drum players.  All of them desperately wanted to learn how to sing, as singing is truly a good asset for a band musician to have, and it also makes them much more marketable for that matter. Now we had “Big Children” in our roster, so to speak. And truly, when I was pulling out those voices that were often stuck in novice, (and not so novice) singers’ throats, necks and shoulders, the “little boy or girl” would practically appear in front of my very eyes, figuratively speaking, of course....