A Voice Apart

I have been running the Royans professional Vocal School since February 15th of 1984.  By the way, at that time, it was called the Royans School for the Musical Performing Arts. We opened it at first as a regular Italian neighborhood music school. Outside of myself, we had 6 or 7 junior instructors and not just for vocals, but for the variety of musical instruments we taught. Almost 29 years ago now, there was a vastly different world. We had over 100 students and over 7 teachers and a huge demand for our services from both children and adult populations.  For each musical discipline, we had a certain curriculum, the certain set of hours attributed to each of them, and definitely, a set price for each and every course we were delivering. Those were the days when we had a rotary phone on our desk, and a tape answering machine. And a few years later, we even acquired a typewriter, as strange as it sounds today. My assistant, who is to date 25 years old, while writing this

But if it is... We are here to help rectify any voice/vocal problem and fix it Non-Surgically and Non-Invasively. ASK US HOW... Being a vocal coach/consultant and non-surgical voice repair specialist, I fixed and restored a lot of voices in my 50 years of teaching and 40 years of running my own business. Granted, all of these singers and speakers came to me either with broken voices or with their normal everyday voices, which, VIA my efforts, experience and expertise, I was able to bring to new heights. I never in my practice, took a person with an already good voice and natural talent and tried to make him or her anything else, but what God gave them originally. If it ain't broken, why fix it? However, I see several artists who were discovered on various talent shows and who were absolutely fine, until some vocal coaching took place and then, their voices became unrecognizable. Let's take a look at Susan Boyle's discovery. If you compare to how she sounded whil

The voice is your spirit. It's also an expression of who you are and it also identifies the state of your being. That said, it is as unique as you are. The fingerprints and your DNA identify your being. The voice does the same. Some people have naturally unique sounding voices, sometimes just speaking or just singing, sometimes both. Sometimes, at the glance, some people are not sounding any different than anybody else, speaking and/or singing. Is it possible, though, to create their identity by making their voices identify with their beings? Can we directly connect, especially the singing voice, to the one's identity? The answer from where I sit, is a BIG YES. How so, you may ask? To answer your question, many years ago, I developed my own unique approach to voice mechanics, which I named the Vocal Science Technique and Method. While instilling the wholesome vocal mechanism into one's psyche, anatomy and physiology, I engage very deeply and also con

I've been religiously watching all of the available American and Canadian reality shows concerning vocalists. And now, finally, I stumbled upon a show for children and teenagers right "in my own backyard" in Canada. I've been occasionally watching auditions, which are pretty much cloning the auditions for American and, used to be, Canadian Idols. However, I have to admit that to my pleasant surprise, the judges were very sweet and positive with all of the kids - the good ones and not so good ones. On the other hand, though, that superficial sweetness, in my opinion, cause them to make some misjudgements with respect of some kids talents. I found that those who they chose - the top six so far - were not necessarily the best ones I've seen auditioning. However, the worst was yet to come. Now, they were showing the "true reality" on topics of vocal coaching , choreography, makeup and fashion. It all began with vocal coaching. What was show

Lately, listening to the radio, we hear a lot of monotone sounds. Nowadays, artists, seem to be, do not have an ambition to show off their voices, like before when they were trying to reach the highest notes possible, or even the lowest possible, for that matter. It used to be their pride and joy to say that they own a three or four octaves range. Today, the whole world is "stuttering"on one, or maximum two, notes in a non-indentifiable range, instead of what was known before as singing, at least by definition. What happened, you may ask? Honestly, I don't know for sure, but what I do know is that I have stopped listening to the radio, even in my brand new car, nevertheless, fully equipped with the sophisticated audio  equipment. All the songs sound absolutely the same and almost plagiarized, via music producers who are trying to follow the trend. They think that if the particular style of the song has once or twice made it on the charts, then they should im

Needless to say that, on a regular basis, I have been getting phone calls and e-mails concerning  voice/vocal problems from speakers and singers. To almost all of them, the doctors had prescribed certain medications to conquer their acid reflux (needless to say that, not in every case, the above diagnosis was correct). Practically all doctors (specialists or not) prescribed to people with voice/vocal problems, a vocal rest. "Vocal rest?" you may exclaim! - If so, how useful could it be? In fact, in the majority of cases, it is; as after all, if you break your leg, you should not be hopping on it and running marathons. However, the patient with the broken leg (at the very least) is offered a cast, or corrective surgery first... and then the cast. The ENT doctors evidently think that if the person would stop singing, or even speaking, the problems will correct themselves. And granted, sometimes since the pressure from the vocal box is removed due to the extensive,

Teaching and producing artists for over three decades in Toronto, I sadly have been noticing that the music industry in Canada and particularly in Toronto is subsiding to nothing.  In the previous years, the solo artists, the bands, the pop groups were, so to speak, popping out almost on an everyday basis. What is happening now in the precious present, you may wonder? Where are those exiting acts, what happened to them, and why are we not hearing anything about anybody from our own, so to speak, “backyard”? Three and a half years ago, the young Canadian band with a lot of passion, great aspirations, dreams and stars in their eyes, approached me with the idea of the vocal improvement for a lead singer (now she works for me as a junior instructor and personal assistant), and then the idea of the recording of their very good and original material, which I partially also assisted them with. Couple of weeks ago, I have asked my assistant if they are still playing, or at l