A Voice Apart

While talking to one of my European clients the other day, who has  been diagnosed with quite serious vocal injuries, I found out that he  went to one of the most renowned voice institutes in Europe where they  promised that they will fix everything non-surgically, and after that  he will sing and speak the way he used to. Meanwhile, nothing has improved and the former professional singer is still out of commission, and still searching for ways to fix his voice, and fulfill his hope to go back on stage and do the real live singing again. When I ask him, what exactly has been done to improve your voice condition? He answered, that they were strengthening his voice by asking him to sing in rock-n roll style....? I nearly fell off the couch that I was sitting on while talking with him. The rock-n roll genre is the most “honest”, and thus the most difficult to perform. It requires a really good vocal apparatus, healthy anatomy inside of it, and absolute knowledge of the prop

It Could Be, Very Much So, A Life Altering Experience. For the almost three decades of the Royans Professional Vocal School's existence, I've been attending to people of all walks of life -- all heights, weights, colours and genders. Needless to say, some of them had more vocal talents than others; and some did not have any at all. But all of them, evidently, wanted to express themselves through music. Some of them came purely for singing lessons; some of them had other agendas. A lot of them were trying to find themselves through the means of music and singing, as some of them were lacking their own identity. The voice is an expression of a person's being. It is also an identification of who that person is. Throughout my practice, I have sometimes pictured the person completely differently while talking to them on the phone. Sometimes, for example, I wasn't quite sure if I was speaking with a woman or a man. Those people, have been experiencing the most prob

Evidently, Rock style singing requires more precise vocal technique than any other style. The fact is, that Rock singers are using much more aggressive sounds and, in the majority of cases, they are almost forcing their voices to perform the high level of what I call, "Vocabatics". I compare it to the "Snowbirds" airplane show here in Toronto at the CNE, where they do all kinds of aerobatics which indeed, are very fascinating to watch. No doubt, that the pilots have to be very experienced and have a lot of flown hours under their belts, to perform a high intensity and synchronized show like that, in the air. The Rock singing style is a very honest genre in my opinion. You either can sing and put your voice almost through the ringer, or you can't. You can not fake it. Like figure skating, you can either jump a triple axel or acquire a serious injury if you don't know how. It takes a lot of hours of training and proper technique to be able to surviv

Vocal Science Method represents an unconventional vocal technique.  Whereas the conventional vocal technique suggests, for example, to drop the jaw down loose, stick the stomach out, replicate the weird sounds and lip trills, the Vocal Science technique advocates exactly the opposite. I find the latter completely redundant, as it does not produce anything except the voice damage. The voice becomes drawn to the very low position in the singer’s throat, which flora’s becomes disturbed and thus, the voice may easily become husky and simply hoarse.  It has a danger not only to disturb the inner vocal parts, but also to meet the gastric acid and produce the acid reflux, which is very uncomfortable and very damaging for the singer’s vocal cords and vocal anatomy in general. On that note, our motto is : WORK SMART AND NOT HARD. THUS, ACHIEVE AND BE CONCERNED ABOUT YOUR VOICE SAFETY AT ALL TIMES. The sound is a physical material body and it travels as such.

Sometimes, people use their speaking and/or their singing voice in the incorrect manner. In fact, the misuse of the human voice begins from the voice being drawn in the lower throat position, which often results in a lower volume, and also, quite often results in a raspy and hoarse sounding voice. In some cases, it’s just a result of the manner in which the person speaks and/or sings. Unfortunately, in North American Schools, nobody teaches children and later on young adults, how to speak, i.e., how to conduct themselves (posture-wise) while speaking and delivering the message. Also, in North American schools, nobody teaches students how to articulate, as well as how to pronounce and announce the words clearly... That is, almost needless to mention, use the proper emphases and inflections while pronouncing certain words and/or singing certain phrases. If those components are not addressed, and thus, the voice is drawn deeply to the bottom of the vocal box, the person could ex

Over almost three decades of the existence of my vocal school , I had in my possession, estimated, close to 20 000 students to date, and that not to count numerous workshops and seminars I've conducted around the world.   My "claim to fame" for all these years has been: Beginner to pro-singer in a matter of (ten or less) hours, and not months or years. Therefore, the turnover of my clientele (singers and speakers) was quite high and still is. Many people over the years were commenting that I was working myself out of my business, by producing very fast and very good results with respect of my singing and speaking clients' voices. However, the "quick fix", (not always preferred by my choice) so to speak, was not necessarily sufficient enough as it could have been, opposed to when the singer or a speaker for that matter, would give me and themselves more quality time than just for example only ten hours of instruction. Nevertheless, for some pe

It never ceases to amaze me when people are only talking about the actual songs, i.e. how good they are, how original they are, how well produced they are and how catchy they are... Very rarely, you hear the comments about the singer, for example praising him/her about the strong vocals, about their vulnerability, original interpretation, perfect pitch, and overall perfect vocal performance delivery. How so you may ask? It should be two different commodities-the greatly written and produced song and well and professionally delivered vocals. Once upon a time, I had a meeting in a Sony building with a prominent producer and a manager to be for one of my clients. After we discussed my client, they told me a story which happened a day before my meeting with them. They, apparently, flew a so called artist from Vancouver, BC in anticipation to record the perfect original tune composed by that artist and then put it on the market. Little did they know... The so called artist co