Understanding the Voice and Its Development
My aproach to the voice has been developed from the demands of both teaching and performing over a period of 50 years. Throughout my career I have been fascinated with the teachers of the late 19th and early 20th century, who managed to develop scores of great voices from basses to soprano coloraturas. These Maestros of old were aware of secrets of vocal development that have been all but lost. But based on their understanding of the technical workings of the voice any human voice can be developed into an exquisite musical instrument.
Through years of study and experimentation I have constructed techniques and exercises employing this age-old wisdom. This knowledge, effectively applied, produces uncanny results in the human voice, no matter if the medium be opera, broadway, pop, or rock. Indeed, the tendency to extend the female low register (or "belt voice") into extremely high ranges, normally the zone of the great pop divas is a hallmark of this technique.
The singer's low and high registers (chest voice and falsetto) are ultimately melded into what maestros from that "Golden Age" of singing called the "third register", a truly unified voice capable of producing a seamless wall of sound that is as beautiful as it is powerful and can withstand the demands of a long professional career.
This approach begins with the breath. Within the first lesson, my breathing technique will eliminate the feeling of reaching for a note or any sense of being out of breath. But this is only the start.
Every aspect of the vocal instrument is developed to its fullest. Any weaknesses or unsustainable aspects of the voice are diagnosed and rehabilitated using coordinated exercises in the proper sequence. Each exercise is demonstrated so you can listen to the sound and replicate it immediately. All lessons are recorded on high quality audio (wav format) and are provided at the end of every lesson so sessions can be reviewed in full.
Using these techniques I have built vibratos in singers that had none, corrected troubled virbatos, balanced split registers, increased vocal range by several steps, and ironed out countless vocal problems, even healing vocal cord nodules. In addition, I teach my singers to become masters of the voice, able to recognize signs of distress and make corrections.
The voice, when fully developed, has the potential of a Stradivarius violin that then can acclimate to negotiate all forms of music. The "pursuit of the voice" is among the highest strivings that a human being can undertake. I have the deepest regard for the arts and I am dedicated to the unfoldment of every aspiring performing artist.
"Its the singer... not the song." (Erik Geisen)