Wednesday, October 11, 2006

How Do I Get VOCAL FREEDOM?

The wonderful news about VOCAL FREEDOM is that you already have it inside of yourself. You only need to be guided to it.

The most important hallmark of VOCAL FREEDOM is that the singer is not letting the REAL PERSON INSIDE take second place to anything else– not to worries and anxiety, not to other people’s expectations, not to peer pressure, not to anything.

And the most simple path to unlocking VOCAL FREEDOM is learning to allow yourself to express your own personal meaning in the words of every song– by learning to TELL THE STORY.

At the Bel Canto House School of Singing I use the mechanism of telling the story of a song to lead students into their own VOCAL FREEDOM as singers. This was not a difficult concept for the students who first came to me when I established the School in Dublin. Irish people do not need to be told what great and gifted storytellers they've always been. In fact most of them are probably too busy spinning yarns to even stop and consider just how well they can tell stories!

Telling the story allows a singer’s own mind to take control of the voice in a completely natural and unaffected way. It allows you as the singer to free your thoughts from worries and anxiety and self-consciousness and to simply be yourself. To achieve VOCAL FREEDOM, you need only to take the shackles off of your mind. Once you do this, everything else is possible.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Four (4) Things Which Are NOT Vocal Freedom:

Every student who studies with myself and Edwin Williamson at the Bel Canto House School of Singing is working to achieve the same goal: to be able to sing with true VOCAL FREEDOM.

What VOCAL FREEDOM is not:

To truly understand what VOCAL FREEDOM is, it is first important to be aware of what the singer with VOCAL FREEDOM is not doing:
  1. VOCAL FREEDOM means the singer is not forcing his or her voice to make any particular sound that is not naturally occurring.

  2. VOCAL FREEDOM means the singer is not mimicking or imitating anyone else’s voice or disguising the sound of his or her true and natural voice that is uniquely his or her own.

  3. VOCAL FREEDOM means the singer is not pushing the voice in the hope that blasting volume will make up for lack of facility as a singer.

  4. VOCAL FREEDOM means the singer is not approaching the task of singing in a mechanical or athletic way that prevents him or her from expressing the true art and the authentically unique and individual gift inside.