Delaney Simplified Singing Voice™ Training

In the January/February 2012 issue of Scientific American Mind, research is demonstrating that it is poor muscle control that causes poor singing.  This is exactly what I say and what my teacher and her teacher have said.  If you do not know what your vocal instrument exactly is, and thus don’t know how to produce a natural sound with precise physical awreness, then you are doing something that is not that effective, satisfying, or beneficial even though it is acceptable to your audience.

Small Muscles of Initiation…

Research info at OpEd News: LINK

A trumpet player has her/his instrument and learns to master it over the course of many years.  They train with someone who helps them learn to get the most out of the sound of that instrument.  Through practice and experience, they discover how to make beautiful sound that touches their audience hearts.

A singer is no different!  Studying with someone who has learned from a master of the singing voice is usually the only way to learn the secrets or inside knowledge that is passed on down through the ages from teacher to student in a unbroken line.  It is a rare individual who just begins to use their signing voice well and even rarer for that person not to hurt their throat over time because of lack of knowledge of how their instrument functions.  But i not impossible!

In physics it is called a transformational event; moving from one level of functioning to a higher (or lower) efficiency level.  This is possible when we sing.  There are levels of efficiency and effectiveness that most of us never find ourselves, or if we did find it once,  we can’t reproduce it at will.

The process of singing is the same process as speaking.  And what is called ‘placement’ is central to discovering your actual vocal instrument, versus your pseudo, or false, instrument.  And many singers use that pseudo-instrument all the time and when they do it is not their true instrument nor their real self.

Mizzar (Margaret Laughlin Riddleberger), as she was called by her students, had a voice studio in New York City and Washington, D.C., taught singing voice for her Montgomery County in adult Ed. for many years, and was a guest consultant at the Tomatis Institute teaching them how to accomplish physically what Dr. Tomatis accomplished with his listening improvement technology.

She was quite a fabulous woman! Having been taught to sing from a Washington, D.C. socialite/metaphysician who taught folks at the Metropolitan Opera In NYC for many years.  She had been recommended to ‘Teach’ by a protoge of her orginal voice teacher, Clegg.

A woman I know in town gave me an CD of her singing.  She sings jazz and I really was impressed with the fact that she sounded like herself and I could as well understand all the words which is pretty rare nowadays; and the power is in the word and the sound combined.  And  the musicians who backed her up were great!

By David Delaney, MA, CAR

david@singingvoicetraining.com

Shana comes to me through a recommendation of a fellow singer. She is having vocal difficulties and does not know why it is happening. I can hear over the phone the first time we talk that she has a mild ‘glottal fry’ and she is gasping for breath constantly. This is someone who speaks with a degree of tension in her throat and it produces a low popping or rattling sound when air passes through the throat. If you try to sing with this going on, you are likely to have at minimum a sore throat and at maximum more serious vocal difficulties. Shana is unaware of it’s existence though.

Shana comes to me through a recommendation of a fellow singer.  She is having vocal difficulties and does not know why it is happening.  I can hear, even over the phone the first time we talk, that she has a mild ‘glottal fry’.  This is someone who speaks with a degree of tension in his or her throat and it produces a low popping or rattling sound when air passes through the throat.  If you try to sing with this going on, you are likely to have at minimum a sore throat and at maximum more serious vocal difficulties.

Neurofeedback training and the performing artist…

George (not his real name) is a seasoned singer/performer with many years of experience performing for audiences.  However, he has always had to deal with a low self-esteem issue that, even though he is loved by the audiences her performs for, he questions his skill and this affects his performance of course.  He was referred to me by a voice therapist who knew about my background in the performing arts and suspected that I might be able to help him.