A Voice Apart

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...

Vocal Science™ Method. “Save Myself From Myself.” This story is partially (as an example) about my former student Serge, an up-and-coming singer-songwriter born in Russia.   Serge initially came to me at 24 years of age. He seemed to be really interested in becoming a professional singer… But he was very inconsistent. He would come to my private lessons, stay for no more than a 10-hour course and then he would leave. In short, often he would come back just only for a vocal workshop, while there, he would get very excited actively participating in it and then he would leave again. This cycle repeated over and over again for 7 years… The last time we saw Serge was around the year 2017.   Prier coming back for his last round of lessons, Serge called me and said;” Diana, I need your help…”   I asked,” have you finally made a decision to become a professional singer?”   He replied, “not yet”.   I got a little puzzled and asked “ what is your purpose than…...

Overview of my recent trip to London, UK. Wenke L.G. – a sufferer of the vocal cord papillomavirus. Wenke L.G. from Birmingham, Solihull UK , met me in my hotel for a two and a half-hour introductory/exploratory session. Below is her feedback after the session was rendered and she and I proceeded to Camden Lock Market for an Afternoon Tea treat: “My voice feels a bit ‘Tired’ but a few people have said it sounds better, so I’m assuming the tired feeling just comes from, obviously, at this stage, having to work the mouth muscles harder to ‘smile and bite’; but it produces a clearer voice. So all good.” Wenke (Left) - Diana (Right) Stay tuned, as Wenke told us that she wants to send us more in-depth feedback via the next e-mail. We will bring it to your attention when it reaches us. ____________ Charlotte W – a sufferer of voice loss due to administered (unrelated) surgery Performance. Charlotte W. from South London UK had undergone serio...

At The Royans Professional Vocal School /The Royans Institute for Non-Surgical Voice Repair , we naturally get a large number of inquiries related to voice/vocal problems, issues and disorders. The majority of people who actually inquire about our services truly believe that the problem with the voice is physical as, in their opinion, something must have gone wrong with their voice and the sound; and now, via speech therapy or a vocal operation, they believe that they will solve all of their voice problems and thus will sound the same as before…or even better. Unfortunately, only the minority of voice disorder sufferers do realize that conventional speech therapy, or even a vocal operation for that matter, would actually change anything… Due to the level of their intelligence, they do have the understanding that something went wrong with their vocal mechanics; which, nevertheless, have to be fixed and put back intact and, needless to say, back in balance. Easier said then do...

Turn to vocal surgery? Embark onto conventional speech therapy? Choose homeopathic treatments… perhaps? Or choose an alternative method of restoration of the damaged and compromised voice via the unique and non-surgical approach to Voice Mechanics …? Take a wild guess… Given the nature of our business, we, of course, have been receiving numerous inquiries with respect to damaged voices which include: Muscle Tension Dysphonia Spasmodic Dysphonia Acid Reflux Nodules & Polyps on the vocal cords Cysts & Lesions on the vocal cords and the throat   The above is just to mention a few of the many voice issues… We, of course, begin the conversation with trying to bring to those sufferers’ understanding that, unless they would change the application of their speaking and/or singing voice, the non-surgical voice repair will not be possible. By the time they call us, many of them have already been attending conventional speech therapy and cont...

I am sure, my readers, that you, most likely, are puzzled by the very intriguing title of this blog.  What do we mean by “sweat and drench workout of the body”, you may ask? I have explained in numerous publications that the Vocal Science™ method is a very unique and holistic approach to voice mechanics and the human being as a whole.  The physiology and anatomy of one’s physical makeup, in this instance, is literally treated as a person’s  “instrument”  (in a manner of speaking). Any musical instrument (before the player attempts to extract its maximum capacity) has to be tuned and has to be, so to speak, intact, to say the least. Unfortunately, the majority of our clients do not come to our  organization  with "very sound" physical bodies; I.e., some of them are not at all fit and practically unable to “walk and chew the gum at the same time”, figuratively speaking. To restore someone's voice and put it back to balance, takes an enormo...

The Right and Healthy Modality of the Vocal Behaviour for Non-Singers. Being in the music and voice business for over four decades, I've met a lot of people with good voices, bad voices and also, so to speak, broken voices.  Some of them were singers, some of them had nothing to do with singing. Those who had nothing to do with singing, however, had a lot to do with a lot of speaking; and thus sometimes, they had been forcing their voices out and screaming from the top of their lungs and from the bottom of their throats...(basically, purely screaming)! Outside of the regular people, we are also talking about some professionals like: fitness instructors, martial arts instructors, teachers, lawyers, crown attorneys, public and motivational speakers to name a few. Due to their occupational (in a manner of speaking) hazard, they have been forcing their voices to serve others and one day, someday, their once precious voice seized on them "unexpectedly and out of the blue...

If so, we can help to restore your speaking and/or singing voice! Fix your voice, regain your voice and maintain your voice for a lifetime! - This is our motto! More often then before, we are getting inquiries from people who (at one time or another) had been involved in some kind of an accident; and due to that fact, their voices (and vocal anatomy in general) ended up being severely injured. Most common, of course, are automobile accidents; but there are also work-related accidents, bicycle accidents, slip and fall accidents and pedestrian-related accidents.      In our roster of voice repair clients, we had a person who, due to the bicycle accident, fell with his throat right onto the handlebars; and thus damaged some parts of his vocal box. We also had a person who was working on a construction site and, somehow, the electric saw fell DIRECTLY ON HIS THROAT…, in this case, the cut happened to be on one of the vocal cords. We ...

The answer is… if (God forbid) you were involved in a car accident and the body of your car got damaged, you would probably need to go to a body shop…. wouldn’t you? However, on the other hand, if your engine or transmission were acting up, then you definitely would want to check with a qualified mechanic who, nevertheless, specializes in “car mechanics arts” in a manner of speaking. One of my prospective clients had been diagnosed with two (nevertheless) voice disorders, which are clearly of a mechanical nature, as one of them is Muscle Tension Dysphonia and the other is named Sulcus Vocalis (unhealthy gap between the vocal cords). Both of those voice issues are caused by a misuse of the voice i.e., by straining the vocal cords and pushing/pulling the voice out onto the surface; and instead, by default, placing it right into the neck muscles. Needless to say, during those actions, Muscle Tension Dysphonia had been initiated. Meanwhile, the strained vocal co...