After attempting to resurrect my ancient Studio blog on WordPress and managing to lose the entire thing several hours later (sigh), I recalled I had established this even more ancient Blogger blog over a decade ago. The main photo is of me in my current 2025 teaching digs in Huntington Beach.

I've been settling in amid some remodeling and such for many months and teaching mainly on Zoom. As I've been regrouping, I've also been rethinking my teaching practices. I've decided to return to teaching the way I teach best and not trying to be all things to all students. This means that those who might opt to study with me may be an even more select group than they have been in the past. By that I mean the students will be selecting themselves "in." Those who want what I have to offer will be the Studio "elite," if you will. This will be their designation, and not mine.

So, what do I mean "teaching the way I teach best?" Some back story is required. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, before social media and the Internet, before Star Search and America's Got Talent (I feel my English teachers rolling about in their graves. How about America Has Talent?), before popular music and the Rock stars so absorbed everyone's consciousness, when vocal music education was more concerned with education than stardom, when times were possibly more innocent, a certain young lady who found her natural voice found the favor of her teachers and others who thought she might do well in voice lessons. This was me.

At 15 my high school choir director introduced me to my first voice teacher. Lessons involved vocal exercises, the Vaccai method book, Italian Art Songs, arias, and musical theatre selections. This was traditional training. And I ate it up. When I asked that teacher if she thought I would become a professional opera singer, she told me she thought I might, instead, become a teacher. I was actually a bit disheartened by her comments. But, on second thought, I decided teaching in a college setting might be especially nice. I did manage to sing as a professional chorister with two opera companies years later and snag some recording work and a year as a section leader/soloist with the Crystal Cathedral Hour of Power Choir, among other professional jobs.

Over several decades I studied with more than ten voice teachers, coaches, and repetiteurs. As I learned, I collected vast stores of teaching techniques and valuable information - all in the classical or traditional vein.

I officially began leading choirs and teaching in 1973 with a California Standard Designated Subjects credential to my credit. It was a nice entry into teaching.

As we entered the mid-1980s and 1990s, however, I started noticing significant changes in the way students took to my teaching. Rather than finding their natural voices as a basis for their singing, students defaulted to more cosmetic, unnatural, and forced techniques that I assume they presumed were the sounds their favorite artists were making. They were less satisfied with lessons because they were working against themselves and the training. And the quest for fame and fortune, in some cases, caused them to be anxious and interested in quick fixes and immediate improvement or solutions to vocal deficiencies. The techniques I had learned and honed over many years and the voice-building materials I had been employing were of less interest. Singers were more interested in becoming copies of the latest contemporary artists than they were in discovering their own unique voices and musical styles that complemented their personalities.

Into the first fifteen or so years of the 2000s, some of the younger singers studying with me still had an interest in music education. But most of the adults wanted lessons for after-work therapy, karaoke, or for other more recreational reasons. The "serious" business of developing technique through the practice of exercises and technical studies, singing voice-building repertoire, and finding a beautiful resonant tone had waned for the general public who take lessons. Only singers aiming for college degrees in Voice or professional operatic careers opted for the rigors of voice training. I also credit the decline in interest to busy lifestyles and a general lack of knowledge as to what traditional voice lessons are - were - all about.

So here I am. A traditional voice teacher looking for those rare individuals who want to explore singing the way it has been taught for generations. This is what I do and what I will continue to do in my new digs as much as possible, working with those who are so inclined. And, by the way, traditional training does provide a good foundation for any style of singing. Those cosmetic approaches are best added on when singers learn how to care for and manage their own unique, individual voices. That said, there is traditional training and there is traditional training. Steer clear of a desired studio sound akin to the sound of the wonderful 1980s dog trainer Barbara Woodhouse saying "Walkies!" or cooking expert Julia Child saying just about anything, and teachers who ask students to speak in an artificial voice.

Teaching Singing My Way

There can be huge differences between what different voice teachers offer and what those interested in taking voice lessons expect from lessons.

Here is a general overview of what I offer and what I do best.

I HELP YOU to do the following WORK (because a teacher is merely a guide, an extra set of eyes and ears and a knowledge source)

1. Finding YOUR true voice/sound - not a voice that imitates or mimics other singers

2. Balancing your voice throughout its entire range and all registers (because a singer who wants to sing comfortably and reliably unbalanced -- adding audible breaks, breathiness, etc. -- needs to know how to sing balanced, first)

3. Accessing all available notes in your voice (because you can't add notes to your range that don't pre-exist in your voice, you can only learn how to access them -- and they usually number more than you think they do)

4. Establishing a resonant voice technique that can allow you to sing unamplified and be heard in a reasonably friendly acoustic environment. For those who work hard, they may be able to develop a voice that can carry over an orchestra with ease. This is my goal for all singers. You can always sing and be heard with a microphone. Techniques are slightly different. But techniques that allow you to sing on a mic are easier to master, in my opinion, because they tend to be more cosmetic, than are the more varied and subtle principles of freely-produced and properly supported tone required for singing audibly, unamplified. A microphone can be an aid. It can also be a cheat and a crutch.

5. Removing affectations that keep you from developing your own voice. Getting rid of the breathiness, screechiness, the squeeze, the press, the push, the breath holding, the choked and muffled "cooking lady" sound, the added vibrato that doesn't sound as good as you think it does, the bleet, the uncoordinated vocal wobble...

6. Developing a flexible vocal technique that will allow for artistry -- rapidly sung passages, dynamics, vocal colors, legato (flowing, connected) singing, staccato singing...

7. ...which brings me to musicianship. Teaching sight-singing, music theory, rhythm, etc. I don't believe in learning songs solely by ear. The visual aspect of learning your music and understanding how your particular voice relates to the notes on the page is critical to your vocal development and understanding.

8. Teaching piano for singers. If you want to sing and you have no desire to minimally learn to play the notes of your songs on the piano in order to learn the music, I wonder about your initiative.

9. I help you to NOTICE things, so that you can own your technique and not remain teacher-dependent. I teach you to see and feel what's going on, because listening to yourself from the inside doesn't work.

10. No apologies. No excuses. I may be a dinosaur. But I prefer working with singers of classical, semi-classical and other legit or legit-related forms of music. Some new age and alternative music fits into this schematic. That said, I am pleased to work with singers of all genres of music -- musical theatre, pop, rock, jazz, rhythm and blues, folk, and so forth. Keep in mind, I am not an interpreter of all of those genres (though I do pretty well working with some of them). My background is opera, classical, art song (Lieder, mélodie, British and American song), assorted forms of religious music.

Again, my strength is helping you sort out your voice, establish a strong, healthy, acoustically sound, intelligent foundation technique and your personal sound. What you do with it from there is your business.

I may edit or add to this list along the way.

Hocus Pocus Focus on the Fourth of July

The July 4th holiday offered me an opportunity to do anything other than teaching-related work. So, what did I do? I put on my teaching hat and wrote a lengthy response to a thread in a singers' forum. A singer was complaining about a quick fix offered by a voice coach to a friend of a friend and referring to it as hocus pocus. The friend's friend changed her posture and was able to produce a high note that was previously unattainable. My response may or may not have stand-alone merit. For what it's worth, here it is.

It would be interesting to see if this altered posture helped the singer to sing the notes slightly above or below the high note in question. And it would be interesting to be the fly on the wall at this coaching session, to see if the singer 'cared' about singing the notes slightly above or below. My first guess would be "probably not" in both cases. Quick fixes aren’t usually good fixes. And, in my experience, the vast majority of individuals taking lessons/coachings tend not to question. I have to dare to bore them with the information.

Some teachers and coaches resort to hocus pocus for many reasons -- none of them good ones.

Broad generalizations follow.

Singers expect to learn everything there is to learn in a few lessons/coachings. TV shows and contests make it seem like the progression is 1) audition, 2) stardom. Some Ts&Cs go with that. It's easier than fighting the singer to try to help the singer. People think that singing doesn't require the same foundation work as ballet, ice skating, golf, baseball... what have you. (In reality, it ranks right up there with skills like ballet in terms of training for strength, flexibility, control, nuance, total body involvement, life commitment...) People don't realize that, once you find something that works for you, it requires ongoing maintenance. You don't just learn to sing. Resting on those laurels stagnates a singer and wastes a voice. Good Ts&Cs know all of this. It requires a complementary class to teach it these days. And nobody would take the class (except for those who are somehow enlightened already).

People like quick results. People don't like to wait for things. People don't want to do the grunt work and look for answers themselves. They want everything handed to them. People believe what they want to believe, instead of seeking truth. Survival of the species, no doubt. How many young girls think they have modeling figures, because no one tells them otherwise? They don't see themselves clearly in the mirror, and those who would profit from the girls' desire to become models willingly take their money.

People want to be appreciated. They don't necessarily take coachings to learn anything. Years ago, a young lady came to me who needed lots of help. This was before I learned to cushion the obvious truth. After hearing her, I suggested a couple of things she might work on, to help her change the way she was singing. She stared, dumbfounded and said, "I don't want to change the way I'm singing." Silly, literal me. (She needed to change the way she was singing.) My next thoughts (to myself, for safety reasons) were why are you here? and what can I do for you, then? I had only been exposed to the "pat on the head and you're a star" school of teaching in what I thought were very unfortunate settings.

In another instance, a manager brought an actress/singer to my studio for lessons. She had a recording session set for two weeks from the date we met. (This happens a lot.) So, I asked the woman to sing a couple of notes right around Middle C. She couldn't. She couldn't sing those notes, or any notes. She couldn't sing a song, or hum a tune. ...

For a short time I worked with a brilliant woman who, until then, could do anything she set her mind to. When she had trouble with singing, she resorted to a throaty voice that would not have held up for long, and that wasn't giving her range, etc. Finally, frustrated, she asked me how long she would be able to sing the way she was singing. I told her I couldn't predict. I said, a year, a few years, 5 or 10 years... She said, "That would be long enough."

Learning to sing, improving one's technique or approach to songs... takes openness, trust, trial and error, willingness to fail, additional work on the part of the singer, immersion. Hopefully, the professionals training the singer are ethical and skilled enough to offer something of value, and to be worthy of trust.

The change in posture offered by this coach may have been a necessary integral component of producing an efficient sound for this singer. Very possibly this is a skilled coach with a good eye and ear. I wonder if your vocalist friend's friend knows why this change in posture helped. What were the mechanics? Did this person record the sound to see if it was something she wanted to keep producing in this way? Was she able to align her posture the same way and produce the same tone the same way, again? How can this change in posture contribute to her over-all singing? These are just a few of the thoughts that instantly flood my mind.

People who want to "do" singing generally are happier and sometimes more successful in the long haul than are people who want to "be" singers. Just another observation.

If I’ve gone a bit off topic, please pardon my purge. Yes! Good luck out there, indeed. May no singers find themselves in circumstances that would limit or detract from their ability to do (key word) the thing they love doing.