A Voice Apart

Does anybody know…? Does anybody care for that matter…? Vocal Science… The Best or…Nothing.   Quite often, people who require voice repair have some other health problems to start with. These health problems could be a trigger to voice loss, or any kind of voice issues. Sadly enough, our Canadian singer Gord Downie has recently been diagnosed with Terminal Brain Cancer; and peculiarly enough, the tumor is apparently located near the speech center of his brain… I am not a doctor; though it makes me wonder whether or not his not exactly adequate singing (in my subjective professional opinion) and, understandably, a lifestyle of a rocker (which usually comes with the territory), has anything to do with it? This is just speculation on the matter, but it probably has some merit. Let’s also examine a very serious disorder called Spasmodic Dysphonia: I personally call it “Vocal Epilepsy”, as the voice of the sufferer spasms uncontrollably. The disease, in its nat

*Mind, body and soul... and your voice*  In 1984, we have opened the school, which was originally named: The Royans School for the Musical Performing Arts . Almost right from the start, we have enrolled over 100 students, consisting of children, teenagers and adults. After my partner (the second Royan) had passed away in 1986, a year after, (in 1987), I changed the name of the school and it became well known as The Royans Professional Vocal School . And at that time, the school became primarily an adult vocal school and children became a minority. However, we always have been working with teenagers and young adults, developing their talents for the music industry at large.   Nevertheless though, working primarily with adults, provided me with a lot of experience and education concerning North American mentality. Being an educator by trade and a very inquisitive person by nature, I have been tuning in to those adults who allowed me to get themselves under my care; and not

Teaching for nearly 42 years, I have dealt with children, teenagers and, nevertheless, with adults of all ages and walks of life. Children and teens definitely require more effort and more care. Some of them are very emotionally fragile and sensitive, especially when they are approaching puberty at the age of 12 to 14. A lot of them become practically silent and very closed-in inside. Naturally, they don’t speak much; their speaking voice becomes low and dull. They are basically living in their inner-world. Recently, I was travelling to Dallas, Texas to work on a person with a paralyzed vocal cord . She happened to have one of her granddaughters, who was about to turn 9 years old. My client’s daughter, at the dinner table, did confess to me that her older daughter was hardly speaking to her; and moreover, was put in a special class for children with dyslexia . When I met this beautiful girl, who hardly looked beautiful, as she was so down and obviously (in my opinio

Spending over 32 years running my own professional voice/vocal business, I have been working with (estimated) over 20,000 clients on their speaking and singing voices.  Luckily, the mechanics (which are applicable for the speaking and singing voice) are exactly the same. Both my speech ( The Total Communicator Course ) and singing course begin with exactly the same speech exercises. Those exercises have a very important purpose, as they are designed to relieve the pressure of the sound from the vocal anatomy as a whole. The wholesome mechanism takes place to allow the voice to work in the fullest capacity possible with no pain or strain on the vocal anatomy. The voice, restructured to the facial muscles, begins to work in full conjunction and coordination with the abdominal muscles, which play the role of the support for the lifted sound. And the upper diaphragm muscles (rib cage) assure the width and the body of the sound. When all of the components of that wholesome

One day, you wake up and you notice that suddenly, your voice is not the same as it normally is. You think to yourself; "maybe, its just morning raspiness and it will go away later in the day".  Five (or more) days pass and you realize that your voice is not getting any better.  It’s actually getting worse with every word you try to convey. On top of that, your throat feels like it is on fire and it has been burning severely. So, by now, you have come to the realization that something is definitely wrong there… Your  voice feels weak, and on top of that, it sounds raspy and hoarse . “What could I do to make it better” you ask yourself in desperation? Of course, right away, you turn to the “all reliable internet" for answers to your vocal dilemma, and find out that all of their “answers” are just generic explanation websites which, at most times, do not lead you to the best diagnosis and/or treatments. Now, you are lost completely and totally unaware

All you have to lose is your stress and fear; All you have to gain is your voice and overall health.   When a regular person suddenly begins to experience some voice problems , it becomes very devastating and, nevertheless, very scary. When a singer begins to experience a loss of range, and hoarseness of voice , not only does it cause stress and extreme fear of losing their career, but it becomes completely unbearable and extremely stressful for that individual; and of course, all of it effects his/hers overall health. The musicians in general are usually extremely emotional and quite passionate, which is not always beneficial to their physical wellbeing. It is a well-known fact that a lot of diseases are emotionally induced and then they manifest in the physical body. The stress alone can cause quite a change in the chemical composition and thus, can cause a complete imbalance in the body. If brought to the absolute boiling point, it will most likely attack the weakest

Lately, for some mysterious reason , I hear more and more from people who used to be able to sing (or even professional singers with voice issues) contemplating to receive the treatment for their voice problems from speech therapists or speech pathologists…? How logical is that? Honestly, to me, it does not make any sense, as none of the above were ever trained how to become a singer or, nevertheless, knowing how to sing and, furthermore, how to treat singers from vocal diseases. Moreover, some of them actually suffer themselves from MTD ( Muscle tension Dysphonia ) or even SD ( Spasmodic Dysphonia ). So their “claim to fame” is that they had (and majority of them still have) such vocal disorders themselves. They brag about it, trying to convince a potential sufferer that they know all about it, since they have been suffering from the same thing…? My question is: if they have been suffering from such disorders described above, how did they get it in the first place