Posts

Why are vocal students (former and present) of well-renowned vocal coaches keeping "close relationships” with their renowned ENT Doctors?

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My answer(s) and point of view was inspired by a news article from CBC News | Entertainment, titled:  " What's robbing Adele, CĂ©line Dion and more singers of their voices " ( here is a link to that article )  However, to start elaborating on the above editorial, I would like to bring to your attention a comment by my former voice repair student, presently singing student under my vocal care - Mary Ellen Stoll of  Brockville, Ontario . Please read below and get her point of view on the above-mentioned article. I believe that she said pretty much all of what needed to be said: _______________ “Hello Eli: I listen to and enjoy your reporting on CBC all the time.  I also listened with great interest to your report on what's robbing singers of their voices. I have a very strong and personal interest in this topic and thought I might share some of my story with you, as a way of rounding out the perspective on the coverage. Forty ye

Communication Difficulties and Treatment for Post-Stroke Survivors.

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Written by  Tushar Shukla of Netechnocrats.ltd. One in three stroke survivors can experience difficulties in communication. Even after an extended time period of post-stroke, survivors can achieve major breakthroughs in communication with regards to the improvement of quality of life and the quality of their voice. This can be done with the use of intensive and alternative forms of speech therapy. Difficulties that arise due to a stroke affect everyone in different ways. Here are some major points that you need to know: After a stroke, you may have difficulty in speaking, it may also be difficult to understand others when they speak. Reading and writing may be difficult. Your alternative speech therapist will work with you to develop a rehabilitation program. They can also suggest ways of  how to communicate more easily, and aids that can help.  Types of voice difficulties post stroke Aphasia: Difficulty in talking, reading, or understanding other people

Surgical and Non-Surgical Care for various Voice Disorders...?

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________________ Can any voice/vocal disorder be treated non-surgically? Conversely..., can any voice/vocal disorder be treated surgically? To kick things off, let's find out the answer(s) for the above! Let the controversy begin!!! ________________ ________________ My answer(s) and point of view was inspired by an article from The Guardian Newspaper, titled "Why do stars like Adele keep losing their voice?" ( here is a link to that article )  ________________ ________________ A few months ago, this article (mentioned in the link) was brought to my attention by two of my clients. Both found similarities in the content of the article above with what I have been teaching them as well as with the content of my two websites. For the last 34 years, I have owned an international professional vocal school in Toronto, Canada. My vocal school is a division of a non-surgical voice repair institute The Voc

Whole Lotta Fakin’ (And Shakin’ too) Going On…

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"Does It Smell In Here? A look at the current state of the speaking, coaching and consulting industry." by Larry Winget and Randy Pennington: (Click  HERE  to see the article.) - Our article is inspired by the one above - - I have been consulting, teaching, coaching and repairing voices close to four decades now. All previous years, being true to my cause, I kept saying to people that I did not think that I had any competition with respect of what I have been doing for many years… At least, that’s what I thought at the time.  I knew that I was producing unprecedented results with respect to the voice work; and to my knowledge, nobody at all (of those who had similar claims of success) could live up to my level of results, expertise and experience. Then came the internet… and now it is in full bloom! All of a sudden, everybody is a  voice/vocal coach   and even a  voice repair specialist …? A lot of them, I have never heard about before.  Bu

“Speakaholics Anonymous”… What Do We Mean By That?

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For many years, we have been attending to various people with speech problems, who were possessing some voice disorders like: Muscle Tension Dysphonia Spasmodic Dysphonia Polyps on the vocal cords Nodules on the vocal cords Cysts and lesions on the vocal cords Acid reflux & simply… strained vocal cords My answer to a question of "What do we mean by 'Speakaholics'?" would be to go ahead and beat all the bad vocal habits; and once it’s done, keep practicing (ongoing) the new adapted skills (instructed), the new adapted application of the speaking/singing voice, the new acquired diet/nutrition, newly acquired proper posture,  and  physical fitness in general. All of the above listed voice issues would cause the sufferer (to say the least) a hoarse and raspy voice, unclear enunciation and pronunciation and could even cause partial or total voice loss… Given all of the above described, these (listed above) and other voice problems suff

Clearer Speech? More Sound Singing…? It’s Got to be the Vocal Science Method!

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In the previous years, I had worked a lot not only with professional singers but, also, with some amateur singers who, at the time, were labelled as wannabe singers. In fact, a lot of them were recognized by various talent scouts and agents, especially when they were appearing in karaoke nights or open mic events in a variety of bars and clubs. Once upon a time, one of my beginner students was brought up by her husband to a big karaoke club to show him what she had achieved with only 5 hours of instruction (by that time) with me. She told me that she was very nervous and, understandably, felt very insecure… However, she also told me that she remembered (what we still call to this day) to “smile and bite”, and, nevertheless, she also remembered to enunciate and pronounce her words with absolute clarity. Before she finished her song (to my memory, it was a song called “Time After Time” – by Cindy Lauper), she was helped down from the stage by a person who came up to

Have you ever had a thought, or were even told, that you could not sing… but really had the desire to do so?

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Were you also, perhaps, ordered to keep your mouth shut and not to sing…ever…? For the majority of you, it was happening in your childhood, but had this “minor insult” really left your mind now that you are in your adulthood?  Not really… as it appears to be. More and more people are inquiring about singing lessons who had never sung before and, nevertheless, would dare to sing at all!  How so; you, my reader, may ask? Apparently, the majority of those people were traumatized in their school’s music programs, choirs, auditions for music plays and what have you; or even some family gatherings like Christmas caroling during Christmas time, etc. Now these traumatized individuals finally decided to find out the truth and to discover whether or not they could actually sing. Luckily for them, the Vocal Science technique is designed to give the gift of singing to practically anybody! Very recently, we were running a Healthy Voice/Vocal Workshop and one of our participant