A Voice Apart

How so; you, my reader, may ask? Our answer is; what else is new…? This story is about our former non-surgical voice repair client, Issac H – a Jewish community leader from Brooklyn, New York.  Once medical doctors had diagnosed Issac with such a disorder as Sulcus Vocalis ( a gap between the vocal cords), they strongly suggested to Issac to undergo a vocal operation.  On that note, Issac visited numerous speech therapists and speech pathologists…  Needless to say, he did not receive any meaningful help. Being only 36 years old at the time, he nearly lost his hope to be able to speak – using his normal voice again.  When he contacted us, he became very emotional and claimed that he was looking for somebody like us for quite a few years now.  He mentioned that he is a very significant person in the Jewish community and jokingly said:  “You know, Diana, we Jewish people are a very loud nation…”   Listening to his story, we, with absolute certainty, said that our claim to fame (so to spe

Get this: From Strep Throat - To Laryngitis - To Vocal Cord Paralysis... Isn’t that peculiar? More and more, in my practice (in over four decades), I have been hearing about the devastating vocal disorder - Vocal Paresis, also known as Vocal Paralysis. The interesting thing is that a lot of other vocal disorders are usually caused by speaking and/or singing in the wrong (and often aggressive) way. - Vocal Paresis, as well as, (for example) Spasmodic Dysphonia (SD) , quite often have additional reasons for their occurrence. Interestingly enough, I hear a lot about some kind of a virus (or even a simple cold) that had produced vocal paresis affecting one or even both vocal cords. When a person is under a lot of stress, their immune system subsides which means that they become more susceptible to all kinds of infections, colds, and needless to say viruses. Some time ago, a client from Atlanta, Georgia, USA came with one paralyzed vocal cord, which occurred after he experienced a really s

We are practicing alternative internal medicine while advocating the assurance of the best speaking/singing voice & nevertheless, non-surgical voice repair. We   Got   This!! Firstly , you, my reader, may wonder why we call Vocal Science the forensic science?  We do so because we are paying a great attention to the minutest details while working on the human voice (speaking or singing - damaged or not).  With our specially-designed speech and singing exercises, we build a, so to speak, “hurricane-proof” foundation for the future “house” to “stand on” and to be “built upon”…   Evidently, broken or not, and first of all the speaking voice (before the singing voice, if required to be worked on) has to be put in balance along with the person’s physical body, mind, and nevertheless the motor skills. To achieve the desired result while building the proper voice application (ultimate voice/vocal technique), especially with respect to the voice restoration, those aforementione

Case Study! For many years we have been fixing people’s voices which have been affected by acid reflux…  One of the cases - of a few years ago, comes to mind and stands out the most. A woman in her 40s walked into our studio and told us her story…  She was divorced from her very abusive husband, who happened to be a lawyer and also the father of her 10-year-old daughter.  So this beautiful woman of Middle-Eastern descent was now a single Mom and a kindergarten school teacher.  Due to her occupation (dealing with young children all day), she had to speak a lot and also sing rhymes and songs with quite a large group of preschoolers… Meanwhile, she told us that she got a hole in her esophagus (I strongly believe that it happened due to her high emotional stress and then it had manifested in her physical body...). Due to that fact, her gastric acid was uncontrollably shooting up from out of that hole in her esophagus, and then directly into her throat, naturally affecting her voice a grea

Evidently not… It sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? Let’s analyze what has been happening in the last few years and, nevertheless, recently: Majority of our very talented artists had experienced vocal problems in one-way or another. A lot of them had undergone vocal operations: Adele John Mayer Joan Rivers Megan Trainor Sam Smith Roger Daltrey Steven Tyler Keith Urban Michael Buble And that’s to name a few… All of the above-listed people are talented artists, but obviously, the majority of them had been lacking the proper vocal technique; and thus, they ended up having vocal issues (and some of them more serious than others). Could they have avoided the interruption of their professional lives, careers, joy and monetary loss? No doubts they could - They just could have been more attentive to the technical aspects of their craft and not just rely on their talents and love for music. Could you imagine a figure skater trying to jump a triple or quad

How to Become and Remain to be a Professional Singer  (Part 2) But… What about the Vocal Style? Can it be taught? Let’s Find Out! In this article, I would like to talk about interesting observations that I have made over my 37 years as a vocal coach and voice repair specialist while being the founder of the Royans Professional Vocal School aka The Royans School for the Musical Performing Arts - since 1984. Since that time teaching voice has been our primary focus. Not too many people realize that there are several aspects that must be addressed with respect to the singing craft in general. Let’s elaborate on that, my dear reader: First of all, I would like to bring to your attention that when we begin talking about singing, we will be talking about two separate, but very much so related elements: physical sound and artistic performance. Before I will begin discussing anything further (regarding the above-described matter), I would like to bring to your attention, my reader, that the p

Since 1984, we have been receiving students who really wanted to make it in the music business. And a lot of them did. Many of them got signed with major record labels, as well as, had won many singing competitions including international ones. To name a few, please see below:  Brian Melo - Winner of Canadian Idol 2007  Lukas Rossi - Winner on the CBS TV Show Rockstar: Supernova Alex Norman of illScarlett (Sony BMG Music Canada)  Cindy Gomez - INTERSCOPE Records (Produced by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics) Trish (Patricia Campbell) - Signed with Capitol | EMI Records Candace Santos - Winner of the 2006 and 2007 Rising Star Contests & the 2008 Young Asian Canadian Idol Brian Pisani of One Second 2 Late (Produced by Greig Nori - Sony BMG) Jake Robertson - Lead Singer of the Any Zen rock band Jesse Dryfhout of Stabilo (Virgin Music Canada) Edwin (Sony Records) Brian Byrne of I Mother Earth (Universal Records) Rob Moratti of Saga (Inside Out Records) Nicole Hughes of Minx (Sony/ATV)