A Voice Apart

"She is talented and has a great voice!" People are exclaiming. Does it mean automatic success in the music industry at large? Sometimes it does. But sometimes, on the contrary, it means a lot of "thunder and lightning" during what appears to be a sudden discovery, recording, performance, fairly quick success... and all of a sudden - CRASH!!! Loss of voice , loss of tour, loss of millions of dollars and shattered dreams!!! Now what...? Now is the time to realize that the good voice and the good talent is only a prerequisite, but the prerequisite is not enough to sustain a long and successful vocal career.  What seems to be lacking? You may exclaim! The answer to this is:  - Simply the knowledge of the proper vocal technique , which would allow the health and length of one's vocal cords and vocal box. - Simply the understanding that anything in life is relevant and related to the science of the matter.  One client of mine who just arrived from L.A. for h

We're just about to arrive to our 28th anniversary of the originally called "The Royans School for the Musical Performing Arts" and today's named, more to the point, "The Royans Professional Vocal School". Looking back and assessing our past, as an owner, president and master vocal coach of the company, I have to say that I'm proud of what we achieved over the last three decades. The fair amount of well known singers today in Toronto and some other cities and provinces of Canada, US and Europe, have come out of our school. At the time, we had a pretty bold statement " Beginner to Pro-Singer in 10 Hours, Guaranteed! ", and at that time, in the precious past, my clients and I lived up to this statement minimum to say 150%. The people then (in 80s and 90s) were much more "awake", much more alert, much more active - intellectually and physically - and had more desires. The immigration of those years was pretty active, especially from

For almost over twenty eight years of running my own vocal school , I've taught a lot of people of all ages, all races and all walks of life. The older clan, sixty years of age and over, are definitely in a league of their own. Both older men and women of that class finally finding the time and desire to realize their dreams which apparently they carried  inside themselves for nearly fifty years. As I've learned over the years that a lot of them, while growing up in very poor families, outlined the goal for themselves to become rich and successful, and a lot of them were putting on the line anything and sacrificing everything; love, lust, desires of their hearts, fulfillment of their souls... and much much more. While dreaming towards financial success they, in a manner of speaking, lost the sense of reality and with that the sense of who they actually are and what they actually really wanted out of their lives. Apparently, now working in a very respectful firms and making

I have to say that I'm not a big fan of reality TV shows, with the exception of very few, one of which was Rock Star Supernova , which possessed real singers, real music and somewhat fair judges, and the last several seasons of American Idol . Everything else I've been watching concerning music was simply a failure and almost a funny parody onto the big shows, like I mentioned above.  Evidently, they did not have  enough budget or simply a class concerning the judges and the participants. On a parallel track now with X Factor have been running: Cover Me Canada (Canadian Show), Sing Off (American Show) and right before that, America's Got Talent . Let's analyze each of them. "Cover Me Canada" in my opinion possesses very mediocre and boring bands with some mediocre singers who are trying to pose for the best thing since sliced bread. In my opinion, practically all of them are quite pathetic to say least. "Sing Off" consists of some groups with

One of my clients singing the cover tunes asked me if he ever will be able to find his own voice, whether singing cover tunes or originals. My reply was, evidently so.  The way I instruct singers consists of a very deep connection between me and them during the process. And since I literally engage into their "guts" I pull out the voice out of them, which reflects the state of their being and the voice, which identifies who they actually are. Like fingerprints and overall DNA, each person owns it individually.  Therefore, the newly found voice comes out with unique and very personalized tone from each and every individual I engage to and with. I do not work with them on an anatomical level. I work with them on the level of "being". I connect my energy to their energy and to the universal energy and the wonders come out of their mouth and their body language as well. Sometimes, looking at the clearly straight men, I notice that the newly found tone and mannerism is

What do you mean by that, you may ask? If you read at least half of written by me articles and/or blogs, you will understand that I'm not your conventional person, vocal coach or whatever other label you, my reader, or music industry people may put on me. I've been in the music business since age 6 and yes, I'm going on my 55th year of existence . Yes, I've taught an estimated over 18,000 people, I realized a lot of people's dreams and in my younger years, I served sometimes up to 70 hours a week of teaching alone. The word "teaching" in my case cannot be translated in the conventional sense of meaning, because I don't "teach", I navigate and I engage deeply into the person at the same time to establish a connection between our beings (almost like an umbilical cord between the mother and the baby). Then and only then, I can transmit what I call the Vocal Science(TM) technique and method. I don't do useless scales, funny trills, and st

For a fact we know that " America's Got Talent " wants something different, unique, exciting and dangerous. So the question is, how in a real sense does the vocal performance by anyone would fit in the show structure. My guess would be that a vocal performer for that matter has to weigh, minimum to say, 500 pounds (i.e. being morbidly obese), have leprosy disease, and preferably showing it on their face, and along with that, sing a well known cover tune with the angelic voice! It is unique alright, my reader may exclaim, but how is it dangerous? My answer would be, it fits the criteria of the show perfectly! Let me elaborate: The performers in general are quite pleasant to look at. They usually have beautiful faces and their bodies are quite fit. They, as a rule, do not possess the contagious diseases, such as leprosy might be and usually, not looking as big as a house, so that the stage, for real, would have a danger to collapse, just like recently two stages did: o