A Voice Apart

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)

Lately, more and more inquiries I get are from people who suffer from a very nasty "voice disorder" called spasmodic dysphonia (SD) . In a real sense, it's not per se just a voice disorder - it can also be a neurological disorder, whereas the symptoms of the above-described, produce uncontrollable voice spasms. Below is the story of my female client (64 years old) from Missouri USA. She was diagnosed with spasmodic dysphonia disorder and naturally thought that something just incidentally happened to her voice...? She was diagnosed by an ENT specialist, but was never advised what she could do about her voice condition. When I got her and her husband on the phone, I naturally started to ask them questions with respect to how and when that happened and of course, if they could think of anything that could have triggered that condition. They both replied that their lives were pretty much free of stress and they couldn't see or think of any possible cause of that disorder

Yes, it could! I, my reader, would like to introduce you to some stories that we had come across. In the year 2014, I got an e-mail from a person who said that she had been diagnosed with Muscle Tension Dysphonia . In that e-mail, she said that her speaking voice was quite compromised and that she was seeking help in that regard.  As usual, I responded and asked her to give me a call so that I could hear her voice - and would know what I would potentially be dealing with in order to help her to the best of my knowledge. She had never called; thus it was left up in the air… In the year 2015, I got yet another e-mail from her, reminding me that we had already communicated (via e-mail) a year ago. In this e-mail, she was revealing that now, her Muscle Tension Dysphonia had turned into Spasmodic Dysphonia. She also warned me that her speaking voice got exponentially worse. I have an extremely good memory, and I could recall right away who she was. So right from my p

Ever since the Global pandemic took place, we (like everyone else) had to adapt to a new situation and thus make some adjustments with respect to how to continue helping people who are in need of our non-surgical voice repair services - and more so now than ever. The COVID 19 situation is very unusual for everyone. People who had their active lives all of a sudden got bound at home. Some of them had lost their jobs, others lost their (successful for many years) businesses… There is no doubt, this situation created a lot of mixed emotions. As I had written many times before, the thyroid gland, according to holistic teaching, represents suppressed emotions and it also could carry (in fact, for quite some time) a lot of hurts. In fact, the vocal box is located near the thyroid gland, and once the thyroid is affected by stuffed-up emotions, the voice gets stuck (so to speak) between the thyroid and the vocal anatomy. And as a result, the occurrence of the latter prevents the voice from wo

Our Vocal Science™ Program can help your child achieve all of the above with guaranteed results. Let’s say that your child desires to be in a school musical play, may want to sing in a choir, would also want to have better presentations and thus, better marks at school. - Let’s make it happen, as no child likes to fail in front of their friends or feel rejected for that matter… I have always said that the voice is the “spirit” which needs to be discovered, uncovered and unleashed to its full potential… Once that happens, the clarity, annunciation, pronunciation and projection of the child’s voice will become more noticeable and thus will attract the attention of other children and, of course, the teachers and mentors. Once your child’s voice is “heard”, their confidence will also soar and he/she will become that much more self-assured. So, as a result of that, (the least to say) they will gain a lot more friends during the school years and for the years ahead. If the above does

Dealing with various voice disorders is my specialty. Over many years, I have attended to hundreds, if not thousands of people with different voice injuries of their speaking and/or singing voices. In general, they were all, one way or another, physically and, nevertheless, emotionally distraught. What was different about them was their reactional response to their voice disorder and its consequences. What was in common that all of them had lost their confidence, especially the singers. And even after the restoration of their voices, their physical demeanour has been expressing the tightness and fear, to say the least. And even after the voice sounded as good, or even better than before, the performance aspect has been significantly lost, as they could not bring themselves out of their shell and loosen themselves up in order to produce a required performance quality. In Russia, we have a saying: “The good dancers do not show their sweat”. Speaking of dancers, they work really hard a