Often I am referred to or introduced as a “vocal coach”.

While I do coach people for auditions and performances, I prefer to be called a voice teacher.  To me, the terms are not interchangeable. 

I am a technician.

Technique is the study of the anatomy, the breath, articulation, all the production of the sounds we make as singers.

The work I do is not unlike that of a piano tuner.  I teach people the proper use of the larynx and all its physical support structures.  The voice is often talked about as an instrument, but like any instrument, it needs to be built and in tune before it can play music.  

And like a finely tuned piano, it doesn’t matter what kind of music you play on it.

I have students who sing country, musical theatre, rock and roll, pop, even opera.

All different styles of music.

But the technique for training all of them is the same.

It’s about keeping the larynx in the best possible shape for the task at hand.

The process of building a voice is made more difficult by the fact that we cannot see the work being done, we can only feel it.

For example, if you turned your foot on its side, it would still get you where you want to go, but eventually it would become permanently twisted and painful.

Bad vocal use does the same thing to the vocal cords.  By the time pain and hoarseness occurs, the damage has already been done. 

And most people call a doctor instead of questioning their daily vocal activities.

And in my limited experience of ENTs, very few of them take voice lessons, or would even know good vocal technique from bad.

That’s where I come in.

My undergraduate degree was NOT in theatre. 

Or music. 

It was in Education.

I was trained first and foremost as a teacher.

And then I met Dr. Ed Dwyer who taught me how the voice worked.

That’s why I call myself “The Personal Trainer for the Voice”.

Most people I would designate as “coaches” are much better piano players than I am.

They can help arrange a song, cut it and paste it and then provide you with the sheet music in the key in which you sing it.

They can even accompany you to an audition to play for you.  I used to take my own pianist back in the day when there was a callback for a job I really wanted.  Alternatively, I would find out who was going to be playing the audition, call that person and make a date to go over my music so they knew how I planned to interpret it.

I regarded it as a good investment.  Leaving nothing to chance.

Still others can help you with emotional blocks -- often called “freeing up your voice” or “finding your natural voice” or even “singing with your speaking voice”.

But real confidence in singing is nothing more than knowing what you can do.  With your larynx itself.

How high can you go? 

How low can you go?

How loud can you get?

How much stamina do you have for rehearsals and performances?

How do you warm up?  Reliably.

How do you phrase your music so you never run out of breath?

And how do you take care of your instrument once it has reached a good level of development and you start to work professionally?

The voice is my instrument.

That’s what I teach.