GOALS:

VOCAL TECHNIQUE:




















SINGER'S THEORY:

As a private voice teacher, I consider myself a "vocal technician," specializing in the functionality of the vocal mechanism and its relevant components.  I am not a professional stage director, nor accompanist, and although I have both acting experience and piano skills, I instead consider myself a professional vocal coach, specifically addressing "behind the scenes" vocal refinement for beginning, intermediate, and advanced singers.  My education, formal training, performance experience, teaching experience, and research have all focused on the voice.  It is the culmination of this vocal knowledge and experience that creates the foundation of Buon Canto Voice Studio. 

My background includes classical training and performance, as well as experience in choral music, pop, ska, reggae, musical theater, gospel, jazz, blues, rock, and folk music of various cultures.  I also play piano and guitar and offer beginning instruction in both instruments. 

I welcome students with interests in any genre of music.  If I have repertoire experience in the genre of interest, I share it with my students; if I do not, I research and gain the skill level necessary to teach it.  I consider myself an "academic" of the voice, meaning I am a life-long learner.  My education did not stop after graduate school, but instead, proceeds through the duration of my professional career.  I am happy to expand my skill-set on behalf of my students.

In my voice studio, I teach the anatomy of the voice, how it functions to create sound, and what the student can do to "improve" this sound.  I realize that singers attend my studio lessons to sing; however, I believe that singing is not only a function of the voice and ear, but also a visual, conceptual, and tactile process.  I therefore incorporate music reading, music theory, ear training, and keyboard skills into the lesson schedule.  This provides my students with the ability to eventually become independent musicians, learning and enjoying repertoire at a faster and more skillful rate of absorption.



My goal is to make you, my student, an independent singer and musician.  This means that when you are singing, and I am not there to guide you, you will understand the methodology and physical techniques necessary to produce a healthy and beautiful vocal tone.  This also means you will learn the basics of music theory, sight-singing, and piano skills so that you can practice vocal exercises on your own, and eventually teach yourself your own music.  My goal is not to make you dependent on me, but to help you obtain a musical skill-set and vocal technique checklist that you will be able to employ and enjoy for the rest of your singing days.



On the first lesson day, I lay down the foundation of vocal technique in three mini-lectures: 1) Posture, 2) Space/Resonance, and 3) Breath Support.  By the end of the first lesson, the student should understand the general process of singing and what "vocal technique" entails. 

During proceeding lessons, the student will practice incorporating these elements of technique, training the vocal mechanism and its components to act with educated, involuntary, muscle memory.  As the lessons continue, technique instruction will include more depth of detail and breadth of informational topics as the student fine-tunes the process of singing.

I believe in a "freeing" of the singer's natural voice.  People who enjoy singing as a hobby, without formal training, often enjoy the pastime, but also feel frustration with the limitations of their voice.  Voice lessons help singers to understand the inner-workings of their voice, thereby increasing the range of capabilities and possibilities.  Trained singers will always have more tricks in their bag, and will always have the tools to fix any vocal problems that arise along the way.  Natural talent is a lovely gift, but I believe anyone can learn to sing, and everyone can learn to sing better.  The more developed the skill, the greater the enjoyment of the hobby.  Finding and "freeing" a singer's voice is a process of on-going experimentation, reflection, analysis, and understanding.  My role, as a teacher, is to guide the student through this process, helping to reveal the voice in its most natural, wonderful state.



As stated above, I consider singing a comprehensive musical experience, necessitating a range of vocal, aural, visual, conceptual, and tactile abilities.  To achieve this well-rounded skill-set, I have developed a method of "Singer's Theory" that incorporates elements of music theory, ear training, and keyboard knowledge into the on-going lesson program.  Visit the Theory and Ear Training page for more information on this method.