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I had a great deal of difficulty learning how to sing correctly. When I began, at about 17 years of age, I had no vibrato and couldn’t sing high notes. I couldn’t sing softly either, except in falsetto. My first interest, of course, was rock. Soon I moved on to pop singers like Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdink, then musical theater, and finally opera. I really loved it all. The only problem was I couldn’t sing any of it very well. (I’m not kidding-I have old recordings I could play you)! To make a long and very expensive story short, I had about 11 teachers in 20 years and although all of them had very good intentions, two of them made very positive and lasting impressions on me and my vocal life.
The first was a wonderful man in San Francisco, named John Hudnall. I credit John with teaching me what real singing is. His wisdom, friendship and encouragement were the foundation of what I would learn years later. John taught using only songs and repertoire, with no exercises. This worked well for a while, until I hit up against a wall, which I couldn’t get through. It was clear to me that I needed something besides songs, to assist in making me the singer I thought I could be. My quest continued for six more years, and led me, in a roundabout way, to Los Angeles, where I met my dear friend and mentor, Seth Riggs. My first lesson with Seth was 15 minutes long (I split a half- hour with a buddy because it’s all we could afford). This 15 minutes changed my life forever. Seth could hear the pressure and strain I had developed in my voice by trying to make a bigger sound than was natural to me. But what really woke me up me was what I heard in Seth’s voice. He demonstrated an arpeggio from a low E flat in his chest voice to a high B flat in his head voice (in his second bridge), and I heard something in his voice that I could only describe as a release at that B flat. I had never heard that before in anyone, and I certainly hadn’t experienced it. He told me that was the second bridge in a tenor’s voice. I of course had heard of the first bridge, or passagio, at E, F, and F sharp, but never anything higher. This was intriguing. Well, that 15 minutes flew by and I found myself in the car on the way back to Fresno, which is four hours away. I’d driven eight hours that day to take a 15 -minute lesson! It turned out to be the best thing I ever did.
I listened to that 15-minute lesson until I’m sure I wore out the tape. Four months later, I moved to Los Angeles, and my next lesson with Seth had him noticeably excited. Don’t get me wrong – it isn’t because I sounded so great. It’s because he saw that I had learned the principles-I had caught the vision. That is what we as teachers get excited about. I promise you, I didn’t sound so wonderful. Even so, he could see that I’d caught the vision and understood what he was teaching me. My studies began and I worked hard, and in a short time Seth surprised me by suggesting that I begin to teach his method, which of course is Speech Level Singing. It took some convincing, but I finally agreed; and the rest, as they say – “is history”.
Now, after more than 20 years I’ve left the SLS organization and created Activation Voice Control, which is a synergistic combination of vocal technique and mind conditioning (based on the latest in neuroscience).
So many singers (most) have some type of belief system that works against their desires as singers. Unless the beliefs are congruent with the desires, there is little chance of reaching ones goals as a singer. AVC addresses and solves this.