A Voice Apart

Yes, the answer is that unfortunately it does have a lot to do with the conventional vocal coaching or self-inflicted bad vocal habits. The conventional vocal coaching suggests to the artists to drop the jaw down, to stick the stomach out and to drown the voice as low and as deep as possible into one's anatomy...? Let's analyze this and examine if there are any logical grounds underneath of those methods. To my knowledge and everybody else's knowledge who at least attended Grades 6 or 7 physics and geometry classes, that the sound is a physical, material body and it travels as such. If you visualize a pitcher, would you visualize him pitching the ball downward or rather above and on top of his physical body, trying to establish a high altitude and thus, a high level of flight trajectory to achieve the aimed destination with his thrown ball? Respectively, the sound will also fly on top and above of the physical anatomy, taking the centre of the physical body for c

Let's imagine that a so called piano player, instead of playing properly the given instrument, is constantly hammering on it, instead of playing on it with both hands and using the right intensity, as expected. Please take a wild guess to what could happen next...? It is inevitable that their instrument (piano in this case) will fall to pieces. Then what? Then, the best piano technician will be employed to put together that wonderful instrument and sometimes even make it better sounding and performing than the original had ever been. And why not? Now the aforementioned piano has new strings, new PIANO hammers, and all together, new "bells and whistles". The only thing that would be needed is a good piano player who would make it sound even better and will not break that instrument in a short order again. But instead...? The player still has a "hammer" in his hand, which, unfortunately,  has never gotten to be removed in first place! And what do y

I'm religiously watching both television shows - The Voice and the American Idol . And I have to say to my pleasant surprise, both shows "raised their bar", almost to the max! The word "almost" suggests that I'm not 100% in the agreement with the judges of The Voice. However, even that proximity is pretty high. I would say, I agree with their choices at about 95% of the time. It looks like they are looking for something different, i.e. unique tone and unique delivery of the song, but they are not as much concerned about the pitch and the technical aspect of vocal performance . And I guess on those counts, I'm not 100% in agreement with them. Whereas American Idol , at least this year, is possessing incredibly good and sound performers. The female clan is almost unbelievably good. I'm afraid to say that some of them are better than the original artists. And also, to the credit of the judges, the participants are truly judged on their techni

I have to say that this 11th season of American Idol is extremely exciting to watch. The quality of the auditioners is much higher than in any previous years. The judges are much more objective and really looking out for the quality of singing more than ever before. I do agree with their choices close to 100%! For the record: Trust me, it's a very high mark in my standards. To their credit, they really did raise the bar of vocal performance quality. But for what cost though and on whose account? Unfortunately, on the account of the participants who are ultimately teenagers and young adults. I've never seen in previous shows, people literally falling off of the stage, passing out of the exhaustion and literally losing their consciousness and were not able to stand on their feet. In times I felt that I was watching some episodes of "Grey's Anatomy", "House" or in previous years, "Chicago Hope". All of those shows were dedicated to

Vocal technique, who needs it, you may ask? In my opinion, everyone who claims themselves to be even a beginner singer. I've been involved in the music business for almost four decades and had been having conversations and discussions with numerous music business professionals - producers, A&Rs and managers. I found that when I was pointing out that certain singers were obviously hurting their vocal anatomies, either pre-diagnosed or already diagnosed with vocal problems , and thus, could not perform their duties, concerts, tours and what have you, their take on it was that the certain singer/performer was so talented, wrote good songs and performed with a lot of emotions...? I acknowledged all of those components, but tried to mention that the latter is not all, and if the singer is shooting their sound out, so to speak, blindly, while concurrently keeping their fingers crossed and dying of fear, that they may not deliver the proper sound or even the sound at all, that

When I’m talking to any singer, I always bring up to their attention, that they do represent the instrument, so to speak, and the player. In this instance, I mean that their physical body, their mental state, anatomy and physiology integrated and synergized, represent the actual instrument. The support, the structure, the placement and projection of the voice to its aimed destination, represent the player. The late celebrity pianist “Liberace” had always travelled with his favourite pink grand piano. Being the greatest pianist of all time, he definitely knew how to extract the maximum capacity from that instrument. That’s what I call “The Total Performer”. I.e. He owned a great instrument and he was a brilliant player. When the singer gets into vocal distress , the industry and naturally the doctors are concerned only about how to fix the vocal anatomy of the Artist. And if it’s fixed successfully, they applaud to the highly qualified surgeon and applaud the Artist,

I remember watching one of my favourite movies-"Basic Instinct", with Michael Douglas and Sharron Stone in main roles. There was one of the scenes where Michael Douglas's character was making love to his girlfriend, which in real sense, resulted in the actual force, as he was already attracted to Sharron Stone's character and felt angry, because he intuitively felt that the outcome of it could be deadly for him in the end. I have a similar feeling when I am listening to a singer reciting a great song with great emotion, while actually "forcing/murdering" their vocal anatomy. The audience, who does not know any better, are saying "Oh my god, He/she is such a great singer !" while having not the slightest idea of what that singer is experiencing and what it does to his/hers vocal chords and vocal box in general. That's, in my opinion, qualifying as a "vocal rape", nevertheless. As a consequence, the singer will get a nasty gro