Virtual Voice Coach

“Do I Really Need Voice Lessons?”

I am con­stantly read­ing this ques­tion on blogs regard­ing the impor­tance of tak­ing or NOT tak­ing voice lessons. The answer, of course, depends on who’s blog you are on as the answers go from;“Yes voice lessons are impor­tant.” to “No,voice lessons are a waste of time and money.”

Here is My Answer to That Always Per­plex­ing Ques­tion. . .

I was giv­ing a work­shop on Voice Sur­vival at the National Speak­ers Asso­ci­a­tion Con­fer­ence in Hol­ly­wood, Cal­i­for­nia, when one of my fel­low pre­sen­ters approached me in the hall­way. “Joni, can you help me?” she asked in a raspy voice, “My speech is in two hours and I don’t know what to do… I have to speak in front of eight hun­dred pro­fes­sional speak­ers and my voice is com­pletely gone.” She stared at me hope­fully, wait­ing for my answer.

Stop right there and hold that thought while I back­track ten years to the time when I had just fin­ished writ­ing my first book on voice tech­nique, The 3-Dimensional Voice: A Fast and Easy Method of Voice Improvement.

Hav­ing spent the week­end in an inspir­ing moti­va­tional sem­i­nar with Mark Vic­tor Han­son (who endorsed my book) and Jack Can­field, the authors of all those Chicken Soup for the Soul books, I was fly­ing high with enthu­si­asm and untapped poten­tial. I was ready to estab­lish myself as “THE” voice expert—not just another voice teacher.

My Story…

Over the years I had attended many work­shops and con­fer­ences, some­times as the presenter/speaker and some­times as an attendee and at most of the events—following my pre­sen­ta­tion on voice techniques,—singers, speak­ers and busi­ness pro­fes­sion­als often approach me look­ing for answers to what seemed to be their never-ending voice prob­lems.

As my rep­u­ta­tion as a voice expert grew, I also received tele­phone calls and e-mails at all hours of the day and night from peo­ple search­ing for answers to those success-robbing voice dilem­mas that seemed to pop up at the worst pos­si­ble times. The prob­lems, which ranged from chronic vocal fatigue to total voice loss, often occurred for no appar­ent rea­son. But, of course, there is always a reason.

In my years of teach­ing voice, I’ve worked with teach­ers, lawyers, politi­cians, speak­ers, singers, busi­ness exec­u­tives, media pro­fes­sion­als, amer­i­can Idol con­tes­tants, and even stay-at-home moms, all expe­ri­enc­ing voice prob­lems caused by strain­ing their voices as they tried to be heard above life’s bois­ter­ous noise and chatter.

My Own Voice Gone Missing

I under­stood their frus­tra­tions, because I too had lost my voice at a piv­otal time in my life, and that cat­a­stro­phe almost ended my singing and act­ing career just as it was about to take off. I was twenty years old, singing in Las Vegas with the world by the tail, when my voice prob­lems began. I had just been booked as an open­ing act for Elvis (the real one!), and I had won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ties fly­ing at me from all direc­tions and a secret fear—that I could not trust my voice to be there when I needed it most!

This fear kept me from act­ing on any of them, and like most peo­ple with voice prob­lems I just kept push­ing my poor, abused voice by tight­en­ing, forc­ing, and stran­gling it into sub­mis­sion. In my igno­rance, I actu­ally believed that I could make my voice per­form by push­ing it harder and forc­ing it to be louder. The frus­trat­ing result of all that push­ing was, when I pushed it too hard, my voice would wisely say, “Enough is enough, Joni,” and com­pletely shut down. It would sim­ply thumb its nose at me and take a mini-vacation while I can­celed gig after gig and missed oppor­tu­nity after oppor­tu­nity because I had no voice.

Like Aris­to­tle search­ing for the mean­ing of life, I went from voice teacher to voice teacher search­ing for the per­fect voice method to solve my prob­lems. Noth­ing was work­ing and I was incon­solably turn­ing down those once-in-a-lifetime pos­si­bil­i­ties, while watch­ing my career sink like the Titanic. Then, to top it all off, a lead­ing throat spe­cial­ist dis­pas­sion­ately told me, “For­get about singing Joni, your voice is shot. Go find another career.” For­tu­nately, I did not take his advice.

A Bright Light at the End of My Dark “Voice” Tun­nel

It wasn’t until I became a voice teacher eigh­teen years ago that I real­ized this prob­lem was not mine alone. I knew there had to be an answer, not only for me, but for every­one whose liveli­hoods depended on strong voices that would last for more than a few hours, even when they were over­worked and tired.

I spent the next eigh­teen years watch­ing the answers unfold before me, stu­dent by stu­dent and les­son by les­son. Each per­son became a link in a chain of events that, I’m happy to say, com­pletely resolved my voice prob­lems as well as those of my clients.

YES! My tena­cious search for answers paid off because today my voice is stronger than ever, soooooo here (at last)  is my answer!

Know­ing that your voice will be there when you need it most elim­i­nates fear and builds the self-trust so essen­tial for a singer, speaker or busi­ness exec­u­tive to be suc­cess­ful. In my years of teach­ing, I have seen shy, soft-spoken stu­dents per­form minor mir­a­cles once they learned how to use their voices prop­erly. Shar­ing this impor­tant infor­ma­tion is the rea­son I teach voice, write books and speak to any­one who will lis­ten on the impor­tance of using good voice technique!

Well, that’s MY story. So to answer the nay-sayers and the skep­tics who tell you voice lessons are a waste of time here is my opinion.

When it comes to voice lessons, One Size Does Not Fit All. If you sing pop style, clas­si­cal train­ing is not for you. If your goal is to sing at the Met, pop train­ing is not for you. Coun­try is not the same style as R&B and Amer­i­can Idol audi­tions are not the same as your musi­cal the­ater audi­tions. In other words singing styles are as unique as play­ing any style on any instrument.

The good news is, when YOU know how to play YOUR vocal instru­ment cor­rectly, style is just that… style. Vocal lessons are sup­posed to teach YOU HOW to play YOUR vocal instru­ment so YOU can decide what style of singing YOU choose.

Can you sing more than one style…of course, just like a piano is not lim­ited to play­ing Salsa, once you learn how to play your vocal instru­ment you can sing many styles also. The key words here are, “…learn to play your instru­ment.”, and that takes the guid­ance of a good voice coach because you can NOT hear your voice like oth­ers hear your voice.

FACT: Because of the res­onat­ing cham­bers in your head, you are hear­ing 65% more sound in your head than we are hear­ing com­ing out of your mouth. If you don’t believe that, record your voice and see if that voice sounds the same as the one you are hear­ing in your head. Singing or speak­ing, a well trained set of “3rd party ears” can teach you how to hear your voice and cor­rect any voice prob­lems you may not even be aware of.

CONCLUSION: Good voice train­ing can be a bless­ing because your voice can make or break your career, period!

Thanks for let­ting me vent!  Joni

P.s. I’d love to have your com­ments and responses to this post…