What to expect in a first lesson with me:

It’s always good to know what to expect for your money before those well earned and valued dollars are spent. In the first lesson with me I will conduct a voice evaluation.  I will ask you a few questions and then see what is going on with your voice.  The evaluation isn’t a big challenge, but it tells me a lot about any vocal issues you may have going on.

After the evaluation, I will ask you how it felt to get through the vocal transitions and tell you what I’m noticing.  Then I’ll let you know what we need to do to fix these issues, and proceed to do just that.  I am not saying everyone’s vocal issue gets fixed the very 1st lesson, but there are some people where that does happen.

Expect to learn a lot about your voice and why it does what it does in making adjustments to get to the higher notes and sometimes the adjustments you make to get to lower notes.  I involve you every step of the way to understand what’s  going  on in your body so that you will be able to sing correctly.   Voice anatomy is interesting and it’s good for me as the instructor to know what’s going on at all times so I can use a Speech Level Singing Tool to help you adjust and fix the problems.

Typical vocal issues encountered in the 1st lesson:

The Flip: some singers sing fine in chest voice and as they move on up the range they “flip” into a falsetto. You can feel and hear when that happens.  The voice cracks and you widen the vowel as you feel the awkwardness of this bridge or transition and then it flips and an inconsistent sound is made while singing higher notes, much lighter without depth.

Pull Chest: Some singers sing fine in the chest and as they move up the range they feel that “bridge or break” or transition beginning to occur, don’t want to feel it or let it happen, so sing louder and put more pressure on the note while widening the mouth a lot.

They will feel the voice getting stuck and not be able to go further without singing forced and loud and then the voice just stops.

No Chest: Some singers sing so breathy in the chest register that there is no basis for which to go up the range without just staying breathy.  Unless the teacher knows the correct exercises to fix this problem, they will remain breathy or airy in the bottom notes while going up and also when coming back down in a song or when singing scales.

Mixed: Some singers find it easy to mix. When you sing in the chest and you let yourself go into the head voice easily with no cracks , no pull chest, no flips and no breathyness, you are Mixing. You mix when your chest resonation easily gives way into the head voice (very limited definition provided here).

These conditions must exist for singing to be called Mixed:  The larynx needs to be stable (at speech level), as it is when conversing in a moderate tone.  The vocal cords or folds, as they are sometimes called, need to be closing/vibrating. And you need to sing in a relaxed posture without trying to help the note in any way.

Seth Riggs (www.SethRiggs.com) who started Speech Level Singing International, says that perhaps the best way to describe SLS is,”An absolute refusal to help the pitch for low notes or high notes.” As an instructor, I will work with you on not thinking of those notes going up so much as how to use the vowel.  The vowel is what you will concentrate on in every lesson.

In summary, the purpose of SLS training for all students, according to Seth Riggs, is to induce and maintain a healthy, naturally produced and relaxed vocal production through the use of “Tools” which create:
*  Balanced registration and connection between chest, mid and upper registers.
*  Seamless negotiation of the bridges of the voice
*  Appropriate vocal cord closure (not over compressed or under-compressed), and
*  A relaxed, low and stable larynx.

The Speech Level instructor goes through years of specialized learning and long hours studying so we can teach other singers how to sing the best without wasting time making mistakes. Look for our local Training for students and those curious of Speech Level Singing, in Austin Texas on Nov. 5th, 6th and 7th, 2009.

See www.speechlevelsinging.com for a list of global trainings.  When the word Austin is red, you can click on it and register for the event.  you can get a private lesson with Dean Kaelin, who sends many kids to Americal Idol, including runner up season before last, David Archuleta.

Meanwhile, email me for a lesson so you can get your vocal evaluation.

Thanks for reading my blogs, Jane.