A Voice Apart

The Royans Professional Vocal School , (a.k.a, The Royans School For The Musical Performing Arts), has been in existence for over 30 years now.  We opened it on February 15th, 1984 as The Children’s School Of Music. But then, several years later, it suddenly turned into the Adult School of Music with only a few children on our roaster.  In 1987, it, literally, turned into an adult Rock School.  We had a galore of rock bands, consisting of guitar, bass guitar and drum players.  All of them desperately wanted to learn how to sing, as singing is truly a good asset for a band musician to have, and it also makes them much more marketable for that matter. Now we had “Big Children” in our roster, so to speak. And truly, when I was pulling out those voices that were often stuck in novice, (and not so novice) singers’ throats, necks and shoulders, the “little boy or girl” would practically appear in front of my very eyes, figuratively speaking, of course.   Interestingly en

Lately, more and more people have been inquiring about their voice/vocal problems. It could be connected with enormous stress imposed on them due to the recession times, fear of losing their jobs, lack of financial stability and/or simply not taking care of their voices and themselves in general, or not knowing a simple voice/vocal technique which would empower their voice to the max, but would not promote the damage. Be it people who have speech difficulties or singers with vocal problems, they all have something in common. Both categories of people are looking for some “magic pill” which upon consumption will supposedly solve all of their voice problems.  We all wish it would be so. However, it is not as easy as it sounds. To repair the voice , be it speaking or singing, will take a lot more than just a “magic pill”, so to speak. However, some of the herbal remedies are so good and work so well on strengthening the vocal box and the vocal cords themselves

When yesterday I came home after a hard working day, I, as usual, tuned into CP24 - our most popular Toronto breaking news station.   For many years now, I established a habit to wake up with CP24 news and go to bed with the news update for the past day. I really like to know first what has been happening in my city and then embark on the international news. My husband, however, a native Torontonian, likes to know what’s happening in the world first and then maybe what’s happening in his city. Go figure! I guess, to each their own. Anyway, out of all the Mayors for the last 35 years that I have been living in this city, I precisely liked two of them, Mel Lastman and Rob Ford.   Both have been very useful for the city and also have had very entertaining personalities. Rob Ford in particular, has been “entertaining” Toronto, and nevertheless, the whole world at large for the last several years. I often felt really sorry for him, as the media really put him t

When somebody suddenly experiences difficulties with their speaking or singing voice, they usually get really concerned, but are still hoping that the problem will go away by itself. Weeks, and sometimes months, will pass and the voice problem not only hasn’t gone away, but has actually become worse. This person ends up trying to push their voice harder and harder to make it work the way it used to, not realizing that it is doing more harm than it’s worth. Eventually, after they seem to have tried everything, they end up getting a referral to an ENT specialist, hoping that the specialist will shed light on their problem and offer them a quick and “magical” fix.  And yes, after the diagnosis, especially with polyps, nodes, nodules, or cysts, the ENT specialist usually offers a quick laser or scalpel operation to remove the growth on their vocal cords or their throats. That operation seemed to also be offered to Joan Rivers, who evidently had some problems with her voc