A Voice Apart

“…and can we stop the spread…?” Like any cancer, in my opinion, vocal cancer is also a serious disease. However, there are always stages. And if the real cancer is diagnosed and detected early, it usually falls in at stage 1, which means it is quite curable and if not completely, at the very least could prolong the patient’s life significantly. Unfortunately the vocal cancer, I would classify as stage 4, which in most cases is terminal and no cure could be offered unless something really alternative, out of this world and crazily outrageous comes along. Strangely enough, it actually has already come, like a lot of alternative treatments for the real cancer, which have been suggested by the alternative herbal and naturopathic medicines. The problem is that the people are so brainwashed and so believing in what they’ve “known” for years, ie. conventional medicine, which in a lot of cases is killing while supposedly “healing”. That said, no doubt, it’s very hard to change the herd menta...

Being teaching and producing vocals in Canada for over thirty years, it never ceases to amaze me how many people have gone for conventional vocal training , practicing, the least to say, nonsensical and leading nowhere exercises - and think that one day they are going to wake up with a wonderful voice and be able to sign a million dollar record deal . A lot of them were complaining that they were feeling quite strange making sounds, some of which reminding them of cats meowing and wolves howling. I'm sure if the latter would hear those people, they would be extremely jealous, as those singers were sounding "better" than the original mammals. A lot of these people after years and years are still trying to make some sense of it, while concurrently ruining their voices, as they were told that if their throats hurt to the point that they are losing any presence of their voices, that is good, because their muscles are working and they must be doing something right. Neverth...

Really... Guess what? Who ever told the contestants how to make the well known tune their own? And what, in any case, did the judges mean by that? I guess it's still somewhat a riddle to the participants and to the audience, for that matter. Watching American Idol for the last 9 seasons (not to mention Canadian Idol for at least 7 seasons) I couldn't help but notice that those young kids and even more mature adults, are stuggling to turn and twist the well known cover tune into something which is hardly recognizable, as the melody has often been changed, the vocal licks were inserted all over the place (most of the time not corresponding with the style) and that made it just unlistenable and simply left a bad taste in the listener's mouth. My husband and I are big fans of 50s and 60s music and therefore we're very familiar with the songs of that era. Occasionally, while both of us were watching pre-final stages performances (where these types of songs were required t...

Being involved in the music industry for over 30 years in Canada, I have a lot of observations watching it from inside and out. When I first came in March of 1980, there were a lot of things happening, musically speaking and otherwise, as music is always a reflection of what's happening in that present time. There were great artists rising up, like Celine Dion, Madonna, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler and many more. Specializing in vocals , I started my career with the garage bands and pop star wannabes. Those years the immigration from European countries like Russia, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Poland and others was at a very high rate. A lot of people were coming with children and teenagers and being brought up the European way, were willing to work hard to give their youngsters music education and helping them to succeed in the music industry . The children of those times were also very receptive, seeing that the music industry was happening and true to their cause new stars wer...

As it appears to be, the latest craze in the entertainment business is "everybody's favourite" Lady Gaga's act...? Is it really though? It no doubts is for the young generation. Sometimes even too young. On July 12th I was cordially invited by one of my artist's mom to attend the newest Lady Gaga tour "The Monster Ball". Let's first talk about the audience. Needless to say, there were a lot of under legal age kids, who I'm not sure should have necessarily had to hear it with their ears and see it with their eyes. The material of the show was quite explicit and definitely not for all ages. It was a lot of liberation presented by Lady Gaga on every level. You could not understand who was male and who was female in that show and who was seducing whom. She was reciting in between of her "escapades" how liberated she was, how free she was (I presume in her sexual preferences and what have you) and did invite the audience to feel free and...

Practicing vocal coaching /consulting/producing and whatever else connected to the music business for over 30 years in Toronto, I can testify that people have changed dramatically over last 3 generations. In my opinion, with technology progressing, the mental, physical and emotional state of human beings is dramatically regressing. Obviously there are quite a few factors related to why this is happening. One of them is that people are using technology instead of their brains, not along with the brains. It looks like their brain cells are dying one by one and they are unable to think straight, let alone make some viable decisions or, god forbid, try to put 2 plus 2 together without the computer or calculator. How scary is that? Taking into account this phenomenon, they are evidently not as physical as well. They spend the majority of their day staring at the computer screen and trying to figure out their whole life via internet. Sometime ago, I asked one of my young male students if ...

How “different” or perhaps weird do you have to be to make it in the music business? And why do you have to be “different” or furthermore weird to attract the attention of the general public? I don’t know if I have the answer, but I do have a few ideas and thoughts. In my opinion, people in general are bored and they are constantly looking for something that is not as mundane as their regular lives. And there is nothing necessarily bad about that, as long as it is not being taken out of proportion. Yes, we all want to watch and hear something new and unique. And that’s fine. However, especially lately those new and unique ideas are being turned into very weird and ugly acts. The music videos are becoming more and more explicit and are reminding of XXX porn more so than any music. The content of the videos outside of the porn is reminding of some type of Halloween in the absolutely worst interpretation of that word. That is one side of it. Now let’s touch on a couple of other sides. I h...