A Voice Apart

If you look at the history of the music industry for the last three decades, we can notice that a lot of famous people are not with us today. A lot of them "went away" much before their time. Some of them died from drug overdoses, some of them died of AIDs, others shot themselves or committed suicide one way or another. Why is that happening you might ask? These artists seemed to have had it all - fame, success, wealth and everything else under the sun. But could they handle it? Evidentally not. The question is why. Yes, a lot of talent has been discovered by fluke and accidentally. Some of the talent was searched for and by different means: numerous contests, Canadian and American Idol competitions, Britain's Got Talent and what have you. And if you watch these aforementioned shows, you would see that it's not exactly about vocal talent. At least it wasn't always the case in recent years. It seems to be that the judges were almost looking for somebody who was, so...

Let's suppose that a patient needs brain surgery and then finds out that the actual surgery will be performed by a Doctor of Orthopaedics! "How could that be?," you might exclaim!!! It's true - it is highly unlikely that it will happen in real life. However, in the recording studio there is person who is usually called the "Producer" assigned to be a "jack of all trades" and, so to speak, "brain surgery is included". What do I mean by brain surgery is the actual narrow field of vocals? Primarily the producers are instrumentalists and majority of them are very good at their craft. But, very rarely, they are also the vocalists, least of all vocal mentors . Quite often, the clients come to our studio with their own recordings and reveal that the producer was excellent in everything else... until it came to vocals. Some of the producers, apparently, did not even care about the vocal performance and some of them were trying to give...

Over the years my clients and I have bought a lot of CD’s, especially in the past, and respectively attended a lot of live performances. Speaking of 40-50 years ago when artists literally recorded right off the floor, as technology was not as advanced as it is now, the live performances had a very close resemblance to what people heard on the records. As the technology was progressing and, at the same time, people’s talents for whichever reason were regressing, the gap between what was recorded using that modern technology (autotune, melodine and what have you) and the attendees at concerts were hearing was getting progressively bigger. In some cases you could hardly recognize some songs in the live interpretations of them. Some of the big artists were very lucky and had very big budgets which allowed them to dissect the song literally into syllables and then piece it together at the molecular level. However, when push came to shove and the album had to be performed live, some of them...

As I mentioned in my previous blog, Vocal Prosperity and Parental Management - When the Push Comes to Shove - Hats Off!?, I taught quite a few children as well as adults, especially in previous years. Once case specifically stuck in my mind. In 2000, I got a phone call from a parent who had an eight year old child who was actually already, according to the father, a child sensation in the singing and performing world. He even had a manager and was just about to break through to the music industry at large. After I agreed to the evaluation and assessment appointment (Introductory Session), I could see that the little boy looked like a young Michael Jackson and actually even sounded somewhat like him, with the exception that he was already experiencing some vocal problems . He was naturally talented but definitely “played it by ear”. I decided to take the case upon myself and our journey began. The father was not only a guardian but also played the role of the manager and later even a pr...

Over the years, besides adults I have taught a lot of children. Some of them were learning how to sing for fun, but the majority of them were addressed by me to the junior instructors, who were also trained and guided by me. Those children who were coming with very determined parents who sounded very serious are usually enrolled in my course provided that the child was showing a great interest and had at least a remote talent to be able to succeed down the road in the music business . However, it was not always a straightforward endeavour. My memory still possesses a case where the whole family walked into my studio in Toronto and the child (approximately 12 years of age) and both the mother and father were wearing cowboy hats. I found it was a little unusual and unique. I saw people wearing these types of hats in Calgary, Texas and Nashville, but definitely not in Toronto. In my brief interview with them, the father revealed that his daughter had been taking lessons all over the place...

Over 35 years of teaching and especially over the 26 years over running my professional vocal school , it never ceases to amaze me why people would embark on spending money to equip their rehearsal spaces with expensive PA systems, microphones, keyboards and what have you much before they know how to sing or sometimes even play. Moreover, the so called singers are going to expensive recording studios and paying for their vocal recordings which take hours upon hours as they the crafty engineers are trying to autotune it or melodyne it to death. I just received a client who was definitely at the end of her rope and already literally losing her high range and basically killing her vocal anatomy with every note that she was trying to embark on. Interestingly enough, she was referred to me by a reputable recording studio . Her sensible engineer probably felt that if she continues any longer she will run of her steam completely and he will run out of the technology means trying to save the...

Outside of the training school which I have owned for almost three decades, I also own an indie label, Royans Universe Records, and attached to it a Management Company, 4 a.m. Talent Development and Artist Management Group Inc. More and more I am going into the development and management of various artists and naturally my crew and I are constantly holding auditions in the hopes of discovering someone unique and unprecedented and then graduate him/her to the music industry at large. And, yes, people are very responsive to this endeavour and every one of them, just like on the American Idol show, think that they are the "NEXT BIG THING". Due to popular demand we requested to listen to their music online and naturally to look at some of their pictures. And now we have discovered three categories of people that are approaching us. One category which is actually quite legit are those that look decent and possess some talent and, moreover, are willing thrive upon it and acquire so...