Brian Melo - 2007 Canadian Idol Winner and Lukas Rossi - Winner of Rockstar: Supernova

This past week my student Brian Melo was crowned as the Winner of Canadian Idol 2007 and, as a result, was awarded with a million dollar Record Deal with Sony-BMG. Way to go, man! As Brian embarks upon his singing career and gets ready to record his Major Label debut, we can already look forward to 2008 and wonder who will be the next Canadian Idol or what have you? Since my student was participating, I did watch every, in my case due to lack of time, prerecorded episode of Canadian Idol 2007. In my professional opinion, the top 22 were pretty good singers. The similarities between all of them were that they were all naturally talented. The difference between Brian and the other 21 was that Brian had a solid foundation (ie. training) to rely on. Yes, Brian, like the rest of them, had several breakdowns and his performances were not always completely sound, but yet again, he always had a solid base to bounce off of. Just like a ballet dancer, who had a solid base in bar training, the well and correctly trained singer can always come back to the base, ie. utilizing on automatic response specially designed speech and singing exercises and the understanding of how to apply them to an actual song at any given time. Everybody knows that you have to train hard for any sport, ballet, gymnastics, etc. But for whichever reason, there is a myth that a singer should be born with the talent and ability to sing properly. With the talent, yes, it helps. With the ability, most likely not, They have to be taught and the message has to be instilled in both the subconscious and conscious minds. The physical body has to be utilized along with the mental and emotional abilities. And only then, the singer will get the desirable outcome and will become the owner of his or her voice, ie. will be able to command the voice to do exactly what is required to be done. If you look back at the TV show Rockstar: Supernova, you will find the same similarity with the final 15 best in the world contestents. Those were even stronger than the finalists on Canadian Idol and, yet again, Lukas Rossi stood out. He was different, he was original and he had all three registers (low, middle and high) down pat. It was so peculiar that the judge Jason Newsted was commenting that Lukas has some kind of "unknown" vocal technique and suggested that Lukas SHOULD DROP HIS JAW TO REVEAL HIS "GIFT". To stay in the game, Lukas had to give in a little, but it luckily and upon design did not phase him. He won on every count. After all, the question is when people like Jason Newsted, who never sang a note in their life, get off commenting and "teaching" the accomplished singers with solid technique how to sing. Moreover, being quite observant myself, I noticed that on several episodes down the road of both shows, all of the contestants downgraded at least a level below. And then I learned through the websites that the contestants had to use an assigned Vocal Coach on both shows. The question is if they were already chosen as the best 15 and best 22 respectively, why would they need a vocal coach at that stage of the game? Perhaps to interfere with their natural talent or their previously adapted technique? I guess this is the three dollar question. I would welcome your opinion on those quite controversial issues.

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Recent Success of Royans School Students
Category: Music

I just wanted to take a moment to congratulate three of my students. Each of them have experienced great success recently and everybody should check out them and their respective bands on MySpace.

Brian Melo of the band Stoked was recently selected as a Top 10 Finalist on Canadian Idol 2007. You can check out Stoked at http://www.myspace.com/gotstoked.

Alex Norman of the band illScarlett recently released his first Major Label album 'All Day With It' (Sony-BMG). You can check out illScarlett at http://www.myspace.com/illscarlett .

Milenko Vujosevic and his band Lacerda on being chosen from among 13, 500 bands from across North America to play the Barrie date (August 11, 2007) of this year's Warped tour. You can check out Lacerda at http://www.myspace.com/lacerda.

David Stulberg and his band Vanderpark on being selected to play the annual Rock The Park Canada Day event. Featured along with Vanderpark were Canadian rock legends 54-40, The Rockstar House Band, Faber Drive, Marty Casey, Ty Taylor and a ton of talented up-and-coming indie acts. You can check out Vanderpark at http://www.myspace.com/vanderpark. 

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Vocal Science(TM) Interactive Workshop for Singers

World renowned Vocal Coach/Consultant/Voice Repair Specialist and creator of the Vocal Science^TM method - Diana Yampolsky - will be offering a 2 Day, 10 Hour Vocal Science Interactive Workshop in Missisauga.

Participants in this seminar will receive a complimentary copy of Ms. Yampolsky's 
book 'Vocal Science Flight to the Universe' (value of $35.00).

Location: 
Carolyn's Model & Talent Agency 
1965 Britannia Road West, Suite 210 Mississauga, ON L5M 4Y4
Date: June 16 & 17, 2007
Price: $325.00
Early Bird Special: $300.00 before June 1st 

For more information:
www.vocalscience.com
416-229-0976
info@vocalscience.com

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Vocal Congestion - In Need of a Cure? We’ve Got It
Category: Music

In this article, I would like to talk about a common problem among many aspiring singers: singing with the nasal voice. Often at both the amateur and even professional level you will hear singers that sound like they are literally whining instead of singing. The sound they are producing is very thin and nasal because they are incorrectly singing through their nose. The mistake they are making is that they are placing the voice vertically starting at the throat and out through the nasal cavity instead of the vocal chambers. This prevents any resonation and the sound coming out of their mouth is very unpleasant to say the least. One way of describing this type of singing is to think of the difference between broadcasting with a small antenna instead of a satellite dish – it sounds quieter, fuzzier and frustrates the listener a great deal.

Actually, for some people a nasal sounding voice is not the result of incorrect vocal technique but can truly be attributed to the environment in which they live. It's no secret that modern cities are very polluted and today's singers have to deal with polluted air and allergies that singers before the 20th century did not. A large percentage of the population has plugged up sinuses due to pollution and these sinus cavities need to be clear for singing.

Quite a few people have to deal with both of the above. They have both incorrect technique and plugged up sinuses. This combination is pretty common and has resulted in a lot of unpleasant sounding singers. An example of this was an aspiring singer who asked me to become her vocal coach. She told me one thing that had always bothered her was that whenever she performed and people heard her sing, they always asked her if she had a cold. The story did have a happy ending as I was able to help her though a methodology very similar to the one that I use for clients who have damaged their voices. For most people that have wrecked their vocal anatomy due to incorrect vocal technique I am usually able to help them regain their voice through a combination of natural herbal remedies and instruction in correct vocal technique. I apply similar methods to cure vocal congestion.

To modify the incorrect vocal technique that often produces vocal congestion and a sick, nasal sounding voice, I use a number of specific vocal exercises designed to condition them to bring the sound through the facial cavities and vocal chambers instead of through the nasal passage. The main vowels of the singing alphabet are: Ah, Ooo, Eh, Oh, Eee. If you visualize each vowel going in a circular direction around your face and above your head, you will be able to avoid a nasal cavity. If the sound becomes narrower than 360 degrees radius, the sound will most likely end up in your nose. Unless you need a little bit of a nasal sound for your style of music, I would not recommend using it.

To counter stuffed up sinuses due to allergies, I use a number of natural herbal remedies. SNX is very effective for clearing the sinuses and even alleviates chronic sinusitis. Fenugreek and Thyme is very good for treating sinus headaches. Two drops of Labilia in each ear 2-3 times a day will clear your mucus membranes and relieve congestion.

To conclude, I'd like to say that 'Vocal Congestion' is a common but completely treatable problem. As discussed above, it can stem from either incorrect technique or allergic reactions or even both. A combination of vocal exercises and herbal remedies will cure even the most stuffed up singer. However, some time I read an article by a singer who said that singing off a phlegmy, congested vocal anatomy helps him to achieve a rock'n roll "raspy" style. I can assure you that you can learn how to sing in this style (or any others) naturally and without the "aid" of any phlegm and congestion.

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Safe Voice Revolution?
Category: Music

If you spend any time reading music industry publications or follow music-related media, you might have picked up on a recent trend: a lot of high profile performers are "experiencing difficulties" with their voices. Not to sound insensitive, but in a way, this is actually a blessing in disguise. How so you may ask? They have been given a wakeup call that, if heeded, will make them better singers and their music that much more pleasureable to listen to.

Recently, a new client approached me because both his singing voice and his speaking voice were damaged. The person admitted that he had known about me for many years, had seen my advertising all over the place and had read my articles in Canadian Musician and other publications. Like the majority of singers, he did not see the need to consult a vocal specialist until he started having problems with his voice. (I believe this is akin to somebody realizing they should have taken some skydiving lessons after they have jumped out of the plane!) This fellow had damaged his voice by singing for years with incorrect vocal technique and did not decide to contact anybody until his voice was almost literally gone. The fact that he has all but lost his voice and finally decided to seek the help of a Vocal Specialist is actually a blessing because he will now learn how to sing without damaging his vocal anatomy and, as a side effect, will also sound exponentially better.

As strange as it may sound, I have found that these types of vocal problems are the norm rather than the exception. Furthermore, I must admit that I am not that impressed with the majority of "professional" singers I hear on the radio. Many can sing as well as I can fly an airplane and I most definitely do not have a pilot's license. Therefore, at the risking of sounding quite cold, I must admit that voice problems are actually a positive occurrence for many aspiring singers. The benefits are two fold. Firstly, they will learn to sing in a way that will not damage their voice.  Secondly, they will no longer be insulting listeners with off key singing, strained deliveries, and all forms of "meowing", "howling" and "whining"! If that is not a blessing, then what is?

A safe voice revolution is my take off on the safe sex revolution. When people realized that unprotected sex could harm their health and even kill them, they started to engage in safe sex. Most people were also motivated to change their sexual habits because they did not want to catch a sexually transmitted disease and pass it on to someone they cared about. Too many performers do not apply the same type of thinking to singing. As I already mentioned before, they strain their voice until nodes appear and often hurt the ears of the people they should care about the most – the audience. Just as it is insane to have unprotected sex in this day and age, so too is it to not consult a vocal specialist. Vocal Specialist's services should not be considered expensive at any cost as a safe voice for the performer and increased pleasure for the audience is guaranteed! We all know that the best medicine is preventative medicine, therefore, taking care of your health before illness occurs is a must. In many ways, instruction in the basic technical aspects of singing should be as central a part of a singer's life as a healthy diet and physical exercise.

Unfortunately, the majority of people do not even recognize the technical part of singing. In art forms such as ballet and figure skating the performers are judged on artistic merit AND technical ability. With singing most people only talk about the artistic aspects. I believe that vocal technique needs to be recognized and emphasized as it is in other art forms. I suspect that one reason that vocal technique is not really recognized by people in the music business is because there is no one, true established technique that is accepted by everyone.

However, I am encouraged that a safe voice revolution truly has begun. The increasing acceptance of the importance of my profession attests to it. One of the greatest truisms is that sometimes bad things that happen to you are actually just what you need. I would like to note that even though I can make a decent living repairing damaged voices and I believe that helping the sick is the most honourable thing a person can do, my preference is to work with healthy voices. In many ways, I would compare myself to a builder who prefers to build a castle with good marble instead of cracked and chipped bricks. Too often I have to work with the latter but I find solace in the fact that a Safe Voice Revolution is truly picking up steam. So please strive to practice safe (and correct) singing. You audience will thank you!

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Vocal Brain Surgery – Your Choice – G.P.? Or…?
Category: Music

I'd like to start this article by posing several common questions to you - the reader. Have you ever considered yourself as a vocalist? Or, for that matter, have you ever recorded your voice in a recording studio? If the answer to either of these questions is yes, perhaps you had a desire to become a pop or rock star? Okay, let's say you had a dream to become a pop or rock star and, therefore, even took some vocal lessons. In an instance such as this were you convinced that you had to train classically to achieve this goal? Maybe so, but you had a specific goal to become a pop or rock singer rather than a classical singer. How does that make sense? Or maybe it doesn't? Let's examine it more closely. It sounds like that people in the music industry are convinced that a vocal coach is a jack of all trades and that being teaching a classical style will miraculously be able to turn you as a singer into a Pop or Rock Star. It would be the same as a hockey player becoming a figure skater while training with the Hockey Coach. Respectively, the music industry is assuming that Studio Engineers and even Producers, for that matter, would also know how to record vocals sufficiently, while the majority of them have never sung a note in their lives! Yes, of course, if they are dealing with a singer the caliber of Celine Dion or Lukas Rossi, for that matter, there is no problem, as these artists do not require any help while in the studio. But what about up and coming artists? Who is going to help them?

I'd like to give you some examples. Let's for a minute imagine that you are in the position of a patient that needs brain surgery and you were suggested to have it done by a General Practitioner or, for example, an Orthopedic Specialist (go figure!). Would you have done it? Probably not, because everyone knows that a G.P. knows about the brain in a general sense and a Brain Surgeon is a specialist in neurological disorders and knows how to cure them. This brings to mind an example from the popular medical TV show 'Chicago Hope'. In a particular episode a young girl was brought to the ER by her parents who informed the ER Doctor (a G.P. "Jack of All Trades") that their daughter was fainting for what seemed to be no apparent reason while she was at school. This Doctor conducted all of the tests on her that he thought were suitable given the situation and he could not find anything wrong. After that he decided to conduct more comprehensive tests on the girl's brain and she died unexpectedly while inside of the MRI machine. The ER Doctor was extremely distraught as he could not understand why she had died. For days he was constantly pondering and questioning, trying to find out why a healthy 15 year old girl had died in his ER. Incidentally, one day he was walking through the hospital corridor with the patient's A.K.G. and he was stopped by a Top Hospital Heart Specialist. She had noticed the frown on his face and asked him what was bothering him. He explained he was having some difficulty with a diagnosis. Then she pulled the test results from his hand, looked at them briefly and said, "It is an inherited chromosome disease which if not treated will be fatal." She looked more closely at the results for a second and noticed a little dot which none of the other Doctors had seen before and said, "This is your answer – this spot." The E.R. Doctor exclaimed, "Almost the whole hospital looked at these results and nobody noticed that spot! How is that possible?". The heart specialist replied, "You have to be a narrow specialist for many years to be able to spot it. So don't sweat it." Incidentally, the girl who passed away had a twin sister and by the time she arrived at the hospital for a checkup, she was diagnosed with the same potentially fatal disease. But now having had her sister's disease identified by a Top Heart Specialist, her own life was no longer in danger.

Respectively, if you know that you want to become a Pop or Rock Star, you need to find a proper vocal specialist in these areas to teach you how to execute these particular styles, as well as to protect your voice from the damage that both of these styles can cause unless you are under the care of a specialist who knows how to access your inner vocal resources. Then once you have learned how to do it correctly, what is the next step? You need another specialist – you need to find the right Engineer who knows how to record vocals correctly. (I warn you that this is not everybody who has ProTools, a laptop and a basement studio!)  And lastly, your next step would be to find the appropriate producer for your style. If you are an urban artist you need to find a producer specializing in urban music. If you are trying to become a Rock Star, you need to find a producer with credits from bands that you like in your area of rock.

In other words, as the old saying goes, "If you want to become a millionaire, you don't ask a person receiving social assistance how to become one!" Instead, you go to a self-made millionaire and ask him or her how to do it. Therefore, ultimately the name of the game is to make your choices based not on how much it costs, but on whether or not the person you are planning to give yourself to actually has what you require and is willing to provide it. In other words, don't allow a G.P. to conduct your brain surgery. The end result may be fatal. However, after all…it's YOUR CHOICE!

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New Article: Vocal Box – Size XXX??? Newest Trend – “Opera Lessons”…?
Category: Music

As many people know, I have been a contributing writer to Canadian Musician Magazine for over 17 years. I have written a new vocal column 'Vocal Box – Size XXX??? Newest Trend – "Opera Lessons"…? ' that will appear in CM in the coming months. I have also posted this article to my website at www.vocalscience.com. This article deals with a common issue that I find coming up again and again in the music and music education industries: the use of classical and opera coaching techniques for the general public that wants to sing popular music, i.e. Pop, Rock, Country, R&B, Alternative, Dance, etc. Personally, I find it sounds completely incompetent when I hear someone trying to sing a Rock or R&B song and they are dropping their jaw down and attempting to apply a classical souding vibrato on it, which really does jar with the instrumental track.  

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Rockstar: Supernova
Category: Blogging

Lately I have been following the TV show Rockstar: Supernova due to the sheer fact that my former student Lukas Rossi is in this competition. Having taught in Toronto for the last 27 years, I have been promoting my very unique and revolutionary (and now trademarked) technique called Vocal Science. This method suggests that a singer who drops his jaw down is automatically setting the stage for vocal problems down the road. The fact is that the average person with a small, medium, large or even extra large vocal box cannot afford to drown their voice inside of that vocal box. There are two quite fragile vocal chords located in the bottom of the vocal box and, if those vocal chords are constantly triggered, they will become dry and promote some kind of a growth on them, ie. polyps, nodules, etc. Id like to note that professional Opera Singers can get away with dropping the jaw and triggering their vocal chords as they are possessing a 3x size vocal box that a horse would be jealous of! Since we dont have so many real Opera Singers with oversized vocal boxes, I had to create something for the ordinary people, who still would love to sing professionally or not. The Vocal Science Method suggests to lift the sound off of the vocal chords and restructure it into the facial muscles, which will play the role of the natural resonator. However, those facial muscles (vocal chambers) will have to work in full conjunction and coordination with the abdominal muscles and, thus, minimize the use of the throat, larynx and vocal chords. My former student Lukas Rossi performed with this very technique during the very first episode of the show. I do consider that performance (Rebel Yell) to have been his absolute best one from a vocal standpoint. The Producers of Rockstar: Supernova shortly after that first episode brought in a Vocal Coach to work with all the contestants on the show. She repeatedly suggested to all of the singers, and particularly to Lukas, to drop the jaw down.  All of these singers, including Lukas, started to sound like cats in heat pulled by their tails using their new found technique of jaw-dropping. I presume that if I was to have recorded any of them, the Auto Tuner would have broke as it could not have dealt with the extreme pitch problems that resulted from it. Thats not to mention the potential damage which could be done to ones voice. I find it interesting that one of the judges, who I dont believe has ever sung himself, keeps commenting that Lukas should drop his jaw in order to open up his throat?  Wrong!!! Dont ever open up your throat keep it closed unless you want to end up on an operating table and ultimately have your vocal anatomy butchered! I have been a musician for the last 44 years and I can definitely say that Jason Newsted is a top notch bass player and I would not dare to tell him how to play it even better since the bass guitar has never been my instrument. So where does he get off suggesting to a singer to open up the throat and drop the jaw down? I guess we shall see

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