A Voice Apart

This Tigeress is Roaring Perfectly and, Certainly, does not have to undergo any voice repair!  Recovering the voice is my passion! I love what I do, and I do what I love! When a singer (amateur or professional) comes to me with a damaged voice, my biggest desire is to uncover and recover their voice and put them back on stage as soon as possible. “Thank you Diana for putting me back into my vocal shoes!”   - Cindy G. Professional Recording Artist of Interscope Records Los Angeles, California. The vocal injury could play a big impact on a singer’s psyche. In the year 2006, I received a professional singer from Hawaii, who previously was very much involved in their live music performances. Then he got diagnosed with a nodule on the right vocal cord. It was devastating for him, as he no longer could perform and sustain his role in the music scene. He had to quit his singing and due to his vocal injury was forced to become a pool boy to be able to survive financially. You

Should you continue singing the same way you have always been singing?  Should you ignore the unusual symptoms like hoarseness and dryness of the voice, loss of range, change of tone, etc.? These are your answers; You are a singer and have been for a long time. Your voice has never let you down for some time now, but, as musicians like to say, there is no gig lasts forever! Now you are not just getting mature, but you are also getting older and have had a lot of shows under your belt. Suddenly, you started noticing that you cannot reach the same high notes which you never had a problem with in the past, your tone of the voice is not the same and at times, you are even experiencing pitch problems, which you never had a problem with in the past. After the show, your voice and nevertheless, yourself, feeling exhausted and your voice sounds raspy and hoarse.  Those are very unfamiliar symptoms to you and now you are puzzled, concerned and even in panic. Your livelihood depen

 As technology progresses, more and more, I have been asked if I could do my instruction and an actual voice treatment via Skype, FaceTime, or phone.  The people who are inquiring sincerely believe that the above is possible.  I have news for them, IT IS NOT!!!  The problem with the voice is a serious matter and it has to be treated seriously.  Yes, perhaps, you can learn how to play guitar or even piano remotely, but the voice is an “internal instrument” and it requires special manipulations with the body and body language to discover it, uncover it, and recover it from within; especially when it’s trapped in the neck, shoulders, and chest, not to mention throat and nasal passages.  In this case the physical body has to be completely balanced and centred, the subconscious and conscious mind have to be aligned, the intellectual understanding has to be totally coupled with motor skills, and thus the wholesome mechanism has to be in place to allow the voice to wo

Nowadays, a lot of singers are susceptible to a variety of vocal disorders.  That happens because in the first place they never “owned” the right vocal technique , the kind which would prosper their voice to the fullest capacity possible; and at the same time it would save and protect their voice for life.  The result – Voice Disorder .  Now the process of restoration of one’s voice begins.  A lot of those students, “who were really very good students,” have learned the wrong technique really well and formed it into their vocal habits.  Not only do we have to fix their “vocal instrument,” so to speak, but also have to get rid of bad habits, like: dropping their jaws down, sticking their stomach out, scooping and sitting under the notes, excessively using their nasal passages, or their very throaty sounds.  It’s easier said than done, though.  Those habits are usually deeply embedded in the person’s psyche and the body muscles, which are also retaining t

  REALIZE ·          REVIEW ·          RELIEF ·          RE-BUILD More and more people seem to be suffering from one or another cause of vocal damage. There are different symptoms and, of course, different causes. So the very first stage for the person with some kind of voice issue is to "Realize" that it is actually present. Something definitely changed in their voice quality, speaking and/or singing.  In the majority of cases the voice became raspy and hoarse, flat and dull. However, some people are totally in denial of it. Nevertheless, they feel a change in their voice quality anddelivery , but they would not admit it even to themselves. Then comes the time when the sufferers start self-analysis and begin to "Review" and analyze when and how the voice started subsiding and disappearing on them.  Next stage, they are looking for the "Relief" of their voice condition, as sometimes they have pain and discomfort in their throat, pain in

When I work with people (Seniors) over 65 years old on their voice problems , I very often have to literally revive them back to life before starting to work on their voice. When these people finally ended up under my care, they, most of the time, looked, felt and acted quite vulnerable, so to speak. Prior to getting under my care, they had a lot of health issues, not to mention, dealing with other aspects of life like; Their relationships, finances, marriages, children and etc. Besides the above described, some of those (now Golden Aged) people, had undergone various surgeries, including vocal operations. However, instead of expecting to get better, they, instead, acquired some usual, and not to mention, strange side effects...  Several years ago I attended to one of my clients who told me that due to her very disturbed upper and lower respiratory organs, she began to lose her voice. She also said that the tone of her voice now is much deeper than it used to be. Nevertheless, to

Lately, I have a lot of inquiries from seniors asking about singing lessons and how to improve their speech . Some of them were motivated because they have been experiencing some voice problems speaking.   The others, by trying to learn how to sing properly, have been trying to realize their younger years' dream.  A couple of years ago, I had a 72 years old student – a very successful business man, who’s dream has always been to become a singer and actor. However, living in poverty and watching his parents suffer with low paid jobs, he gave himself a promise that he will become very well off in the business world. And so he did. But the desire of his heart and soul did not get realised until he met me in his early 70s, and after participating in several of my Vocal Interactive Workshops, following by the private singing lessons with me, he landed a role of Santa Clause in one of the community theatres. Way to go Man, I exclaimed!     Now, at present, I am working w