A Voice Apart

We treat you and your voice above others! Your voice is sounding hoarse and raspy and your voice is almost lost …?  What should you do? Naturally, you would call your physician and ask for a referral to an ENT specialist. After waiting for a few months, you actually may get an appointment.  By that time, though, in the best scenario, your voice may get back to normal; but most likely, it will stay the same or it will get worse. It is much easier to treat any voice disorder at the beginning stages, so it is quite possible that the valuable time had been lost, and thus the non-surgical treatment may not be as successful as otherwise could be. On a personal note, I used to hire a private ENT just to clean my ears when needed. My ears are very important to me, as my super-sonic hearing (by the common opinion) allows me to hear the minutest details and changes in the human voice.  On this premise, I cannot allow just a regular nurse to attend to my ea...

We listen… We care… We are here to serve you with respect, integrity, and attention to the minutest details concerning your voice problems. If you think that you have a problem with your voice, we will be able to help . We have been specializing in non-surgical voice repair for nearly 30 years. If you have been scheduled for a vocal operation before you have contacted us, please consult with us first, as we might be able to save you from the surgical intervention, which, by itself, could be pretty dangerous. It could possibly leave scar tissue on the vocal cords; and thus, will deprive (especially singers) from pursuing their careers any longer. Also, to go under the knife or laser will not solve your voice/vocal issues. In the best-case scenario, your vocal cords will be somewhat fixed, but the application and conduct of your voice will remain to be the same. With that said, your original vocal issue (especially growths on the vocal cords; such as polyps, nodules, cysts ...

Regain your voice and your confidence back!   Your voice… desired and deserved!   More and more professional artists end up with the vocal injuries . Nearly every week, we hear that various concerts and tours have been canceled and the lead singers (either a soloist or band lead singer) just about to undergo a vocal cord surgery . How sad is that? Sad indeed!   Why does it happen and why it happens to so many artists? Is it because they are overworked and over-stressed? I think that definitely the above are the factors.  However, if their technical merit of their singing had been intact, less tragedies and cancellations of their performances would take place. So, human being puzzle (in a manner of speaking), like any puzzle, has many components and pieces, which have to fall into the right places. Those singers’ lifestyles, naturally, are very active and filled with a lot of appearances, interviews and performances. Due...

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...

*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;...

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 wholes...