A Voice Apart

Approximately a month ago, I received a student from the US who has been a professional singer all his life, but for the past while, he had begun experiencing some vocal problems ; like a loss of high range, a raspy/hoarse voice and a collection of excess mucus in the throat, coupled with minor acid reflux . He was experiencing fatigue with his voice and could no longer sing for prolonged periods of time. That made my client very insecure and resulted in him refusing and cancelling upcoming gigs. He originally arrived to me, per-registered for 20 hours of non-surgical voice repair sessions, but ended up taking 30 hours to learn the new vocal technique and to lose the bad habits adopted for the last 40 years being on stage.  The voice repair was actually complete within 10 (maximum of 15) hours; the rest of the sessions were dedicated to mastering the actual singing performance . It was not easy, as I told him, jokingly, even before we started, that

Should you just work on your physical body, or should you just work on your voice? The answer is: NONE of the above mentioned choices are right! As per usual, I am receiving multiple e-mails from all over the world. 90% of those e-mails consist of quite long letters with all kinds of stories, primarily about the voice problems these individuals have been experiencing. The majority of them possess the notion that if something is wrong with their voice i.e. it sounds hoarse, their throat hurts and feels scratchy, they have excessive mucus in their throats and some have already been diagnosed with acid reflux , muscle tension dysphonia , and whatnot; it must be happening only on a physical level. They do not realize that the majority of vocal issues become present because of the misuse of the vocal mechanics (speaking or singing). However, you cannot dismiss either of the above. If the physical body is already out of whack, so to speak, the wrong mechanics of the v

I hope that you have enjoyed reading the “Vocal Buffet, blog. "Part 1” There, we were talking mainly about the amateur singers who were trying to sing anything and everything under the sun with no proper training, knowledge or even talent. In this blog, we will talk about the diet, nutrition and exercise for those who want to choose, or have already chosen singing and/or performing, as their career. There is a saying: “We are what we eat”. I would also say: “Because of what we eat, we are what we sing also”. How so, you may ask? The person who is at least reasonably fit and well-nourished would definitely sound much healthier i.e. much clearer and much stronger. There is also a saying that: “in a healthy body, is a healthy spirit”. My regular readers probably remember that in some blogs written in the past, I stated that the voice is a spirit, which has to be discovered, uncovered and then flown away from and on top off of the physical body. If the spirit is h

To my knowledge, at least 90 percent of the population loves to sing. Some of them are doing it for recreational purposes; others say that they do it for recreational purposes, but secretly hope that one day, someday, they will become singing stars. And lastly, the other category simply consider themselves to be already professional singers , as they occasionally perform in different venues and sometimes, they even get some remuneration. In this blog, I will refrain from talking about the real professionals with names and reputations, however, even they could stand some extra mentoring and instruction and not only vocal instruction per se. However, out of 90% of singing lovers, only 3 to maximum, 5% would make it to the big stage. Why is that, you may ask? There is a bouquet of reasons, which pertain to that occurrence. First of all, before reaching any heights at all, the majority of those wannabe singers end up with a variety of vocal problems. Some of them ar

Please Have Patience For A Complete Vocal Recovery!!! Over the years I have dealt with many vocal disorders and injuries, be it possessed by ordinary people with speech problems or by amateur or professional singers .  Almost all have had one thing in common, the absolute lack of patience with respect to their voice restoration and vocal recovery .  The minute they felt better about their voice and in general, they were ready “to run marathons”, so to speak. Those with the speaking voice , who have not heard their normal voice for some time, could literally not stop speaking (fast and loud) the minute they regained their voice. No matter how much and how long I have been persuading them not to start speaking too soon, too much, and too loud at all, none of them had listened.  The minute they came back home, they called all their friends and relatives and some of them even created coming home parties; and once again, some returned to yelling and screaming at their ch