Real Life

Finding Help

If you’re a singer who doesn’t want to spend $500 per hour for a vocal coach, what else can you do?

You could find one for $450 or $350 per hour.

You can find a singing teacher for $25 per hour.

If you’re serious about a career in singing, you shouldn’t choose the $25 per hour person. 

It’s not the cost, it’s what you get for what you pay!

There are a few expensive vocal coaches who tell the same lies as the $25 per hour singing teacher.  The lies aren’t the real problem. 

The real problem is that they don’t know how to help you because they don’t know what they are doing and don’t have the knowledge to help anyone to sing better.

They don’t know enough to differentiate between facts and fantasy and that is sad.

What I Went Through

I was a professional singer in a show in Las Vegas and it was my musicianship that was the single biggest factor in my being able to work six nights a week and to also get great reviews.

On my very first night in the show, the stage manager told me that the owner of the hotel and casino would be sitting front and center and that if he didn’t like me, it would be my last night there.  No pressure, right?

Time passed and I wanted more variety in my singing, but newer music was in a higher vocal range than mine at that time.

I had a bad break in my voice.  I just couldn’t do R&B in the right key.

Night after night, backstage, I’d slide higher into my voice and crack every single time.  I quickly learned that was not the solution.  In the show, I sang below the break, just as what many other people have done.

Before long, I found a vocal coach, who is now over $350 per hour and started weekly lessons.  In a month, the crack was mostly gone and I could then sing R&B songs without sounding like a bad country singer.

My lessons didn’t end there.  My vocal coach thought that because not only did I have an artistic mind, but also an analytical one (architect and engineer), that I would be a great vocal coach.  She trained me to do that, which further advanced my singing ability.

I Officially became A Vocal Coach In 1992 In Las Vegas

In fact, from my coach’s teaching and decades of additional research of my own, I became my own vocal coach and also the vocal coach of a few thousand people, some recording artists, some on TV competition shows such as The Voice, Singoff, and others, and I have had my own sustainable singing career. 

I had a few NYC Rockettes as voice students, one of whom made it into a Broadway show as a singer.  We got her ready for her audition in about a month and I wrote the piano arrangement for her.  Some other singers were signed to labels.  Still others made it to Broadway. 

What if you were your own vocal coach?  It would greatly accelerate your progress and help ensure your longevity in the music business.  You would know how to prevent injury, to have great endurance and range and to be able to sing any style you chose to sing.  Freedom has a nice ring to it, right?

Not all vocal coaches are great singers.  The ones who were mis-trained are obvious examples of that.  A vocal coach should be a great example of the principles and effectiveness of what he or she teaches.  Never be afraid to have your vocal coach sing for you.  Make your judgment and decision based on that, if you want.

There used to be a saying that those who can, do. Those who cannot, teach. Like other sayings, it is far from truth. Some people will say either you are born with it or just forget it. That one is also not true.

You’re the one on stage every night. There’s no good reason for you to not know what your coach knows. Today is as good as any day, to start.