Pop, Rock, R&B

Pop, Rock and R&B have something in common - a challenge to keep the voice healthy in a very vocally demanding environment. In my twenty years of teaching thousands of singers in these vocal styles, I have observed singers facing six main challenges: 1) singing full force in an extended vocal register; 2) singing with a really loud band; 3) singing three or more one hour sets in an evening; 4) the Scream, the Rasp, the Growl, 5) singing in a vocal range that is not compatible with one's own voice, and 6) singing music that is not vocally supportive in nature.

And there is another important factor - Are you finding that you want to sound like ....... (fill in the blank), and that your primary source for hearing those singers are on a device, or even at a live performance where the vocals are sent through a mixing board, if indeed the singer is actually singing and not lip sinking (see Wings of Pegasus on youtube)? Are you aware that when we hear a singer through a device or a microphone/mixing console/amp, we probably don't know what they really sound like, like we would if they were standing right in front of us singing without a mic? So, if you try to change your voice to imitate them, you may find that you run into vocal difficulties.

Here's a story. When I spoke with an R&B producer in CA, this person told me about a situation where they really liked the woman's voice, but they wanted her to sing at a higher pitch. She couldn't do that, so they recorded the song at a lower pitch, and then they pitch-shifted it up a 3rd higher. In other words, if you heard that song and then tried to imitate it at that higher pitch, you might have vocal issues. As I am also an audio engineer and video producer, I am very familiar with just how different you can make a person sound, to the point of even making the voice unrecognizable compared to the person's natural voice.

So let's talk about how to sing without vocal strain, how to sing with your own unique voice, how to find your best vocal range, how to sing with great riffs, and how to sing with your own amazing artistic personality! Let's work together on balancing the vocal registers so that you can have that power, but without hurting your voice. Let's establish a systematic and reliable approach to warm ups, practicing, rehearsing, performing and recording, performance presentation, and let's sort out and solve any pitch issues you may have. And, if you are having problems with your voice, we can work together in an initial assessment and vocal rehabilitation, and potentially work together with vocal rehab in tandem with a voice doctor who specializes in 'Care of the Professional Voice'.

This is just the beginning. I provide online voice lessons, consulting online and in-studio and online trouble shooting for singers (beginning to pro) and singers' projects. Let's talk.

vandermeervoicestudio@gmail.com