A whole-body, whole-person development of the singing voice is fundamental to my comprehensive approach to training vocal performers. My own experience with performance anxiety, muscle tension dysphonia, and spasmodic skeletal muscles has led me to explore well-beyond more conventional studio voice training. I have trailblazed a unique training pedagogy for my students, incorporating cognitive behavioral therapy techniques, habilitative voice therapy exercises, self-bodywork, and behavior restructuring to foster a holistic approach to singing training, where mind, body, and voice are unified as one.

In every lesson, my students encounter a voice instructor who is energetic and enthusiastic about developing their instruments. I am inspired by the mechanics of the voice, and view this physiological understanding as the principle means of scaffolding a solid technical foundation. Students attain vocal freedom by approaching technique building from the ground up, treating their instrument as a blank slate with emotional release at the forefront, and with an openness and naiveté akin to that of a young child. I am spirited and patient, sensitive, communicative and vigorous. My teaching is fast-paced, and I rarely use the same exercise twice; the voice exhibits functional and muscular deficiencies that are different from week to week, and thus the teacher’s job is to diagnose and treat the voice as it is in that very moment. For most young singers, voices will feel and function differently even from day to day. I keep copious notes on student progress and technical achievement, and hear singers with a fresh set of ears at each lesson. I am cognizant of their technical end-goals as well as rapidly evolving micro-goals that shift even within a single lesson. My students are kept up-to-date with current scientific findings through case studies and IRB-approved research, along current trends in pharmaceutical effects on the vocal mechanism, and even my own ongoing discoveries through observations in the teaching studio. 

I rely frequently on a model of teaching known as “teacher-student reversal.” If, for example, the student is exhibiting hypernasality, I will demonstrate with an exaggerated amount of nasality they were producing. I will have them communicate what they hear in my mimicking of their singing, asking them why it may be occurring physiologically. How would they go about fixing it anatomically? I often have students negatively practice (in this case, by exaggerating even more nasality in the resonance) in order for them to feel the extremes of incorrect vocal tract alignment. Students will then, for example, overcorrect with hyponasality. This 180-degree exploration of “incorrect first and corrected sounds second” gives the student a healthy compare-contrast approach to fixing vocal faults. I have found this method to be very beneficial, as singers become the observational, teacher component in this scenario. Their auditory perception of vocal faults is challenged through the filter of hearing and diagnosing my own instrument.

Additionally, students write weekly lesson responses based on their lesson recording to assist in the process of correction. Student-reflection on their own lessons is critical for fostering more lasting technical changes through independent vocal work occurring at home and in the practice room. The hallmark of any effective teacher, however, is a willingness to change, modify, and grow one’s own pedagogy. My whole- body and mind, student-driven, fast-paced methodology has so far proven the quickest and most intelligent means of vocal-fault correction. I nevertheless remain open to developing and fine-tuning this time-tested approach, and continually stay abreast of the latest vocal science and voice pedagogy discoveries.

I want students to learn, first and foremost, that their voices are not ethereal mechanisms resistant to manipulation and alteration. The singers I work with are versatile vocal-adjusters with a solid understanding of their vocally agile, fully-accessible instruments. I know my goals are being met when my students have access to their full range, exhibit consistent sounds from week to week, and when their speaking voices organize themselves in ways that validate the singing-voice work.

I expect my students to know the four systems of historic voice pedagogy, how they function, and the complexity of system imbalance if one part of the whole is not functioning proficiently. I also speak at length about how the future of voice science is expanding and that other systems of the body are at play in the phonatory process (i.e. endocrine, neurologic, skeletal, cardiovascular, etc.). I expect my students to have a general understanding of what constitutes a healthy instrument: laryngeal flexibility, a one-voiced registration model, resonator accessibility, vibrato consistency, a malleable power source, the ability to make full and light-edge sounds, and access to all functional parts of their mechanisms. I expect my students to be brave in exploring how anxiety overrides comfort and what causes debilitating performance experiences. I expect my students to communicate honestly about their experiences in the studio, and to sensate how their voice and mind feel while studying with me.  

My teaching is physical, emotional, and spiritual, and I believe in informed, twenty-first century voice science. My instruction is hands-on, communicative, and diagnostic. I create an engaging and inclusive learning environment by giving the student a safe space to feel as comfortable as they would like in the studio. I am demanding, yet collegial and light-hearted, and that combination has proven very successful.

I am flexible in molding my teaching to students who have physical, emotional, and cognitive disabilities and I adjust as needed when students are unable or unwilling to do an exercise. My teaching has changed dramatically during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. I have gained patience and flexibility in how I adjust my studio expectations and have instinctively begun utilizing more applied behavioral techniques in my virtual teaching. I am eager to incorporate more of this cognitive approach into in-person instruction, which simplifies and streamlines lessons, allowing the student to attain a given goal faster. Through 14 years singing and teaching, I have established a unique and profound familiarity of the habilitative and voice-building work at the core of singer training. I am proud of my pedagogy and studio aesthetic as one of twenty-first century science, biomechanics, reconstruction, and flexibility.