Singing lessons I am devoting an entire page on this website to singing lessons as it is probaly the most difficult of all instruments to teach and learn. The voice is such an individual instrument that it is practically as if a teacher must approach each individual student as if they are playing a different instrument. For this reason it is very difficult to teach with a "cookie cutter" approach, as if one size fits all. To help you in your quest, I have prepared a series of questions and answers that should help enlighten you. Q Can any one learn to sing? A Most anyone can learn to sing in such a way as to sound pleasing to the average person. Almost anyone can improve dramatically with proper instruction if they apply themselves correctly. That being said, voice lessons cannot change the natural morphological limits which are uniquely inherent to one's voice. Voice lessons will enable you to sing to the fullest potential of your voice... it will not give you someone else's voice. This might sound discouraging, but is not meant to be taken that way. Most of the professional singers you probably listen to have not even come close to developing their voice to it's fullest potential. If the average person were to develop their voice properly, they would probably sound better than 95% of what they hear each day on the radio! Q How much do I have to practice? A This is one of those questions I hate. The answer is ... you have to practice enough to improve at a rate you are happy with! Practicing smarter is always better than practicing more. Wynton Marsalis is probably the greatest trumpet player in the world today, and one of the greatest of all time. I bet there are a great many people who practice quite a bit more than he does, but he gets more out of one hour than most people get out of a month. Every thing he does has an exact purpose and a definite goal. He never plays scales just to get them over and done with. Q Will pop music hurt my voice? A No particular style of music is "bad for the voice". Bad singing is bad for the voice! In fact, the fastest way to screw up your voice real good is to sing Opera incorrectly. The volume requirements are so extreme that if you sing incorrectly you can (and probably will) cause potentially irreperable harm to your vocal folds. If you want to know if pop music is bad for your voice, then listen to Tony Bennet. He is in his seventies and he sounds as good as he did 50 years ago. Few classical singers can make that claim! Q Can I learn to sing from a book, with out taking lessons? A Yes and No. There are several very complete methods available on the market today which include recorded examples, in-depth explanations and diagrams and scientific explanations of the function of the voice. Some of the best are Singing Success by Brett Manning Singing for the Stars by Seth Riggs, Singorama, and Vocal Release by Eric Frey. Each of these programs has it's own merits and faults, and I encourage you to look at the various products by clicking the hyper-links above. What each of them is missing however is the experienced ear of a good teacher, who can give you immediate feed-back as to whether or not you are performing a particular excercise correctly. If you find one of the above programs appeals to you, you would probably be better off to find a teacher who knows and understands the program to guide you through. For well established classical singers there are several other options. For the most part, these books do not include recordings and examples, and are meant for someone who has already received considerable training. These are Developing your personal Voice by Oren Brown, and anything by Richard Miller, who is one of the foremost vocal pedagogues in the world today. These books can be found at Amazon.com (see our link on this page) For more info contact James at jamesopera@rogers.com