Thoughts from Vocal Process
Teaching boys through voice change can be a challenge What can you do as a teacher working with adolescent boys’ voices? Adolescent changing voice is going to happen whatever you or they do, so how do you make the experience as good as possible? The singing voice of a teenage boy will change quite substantially […]
How to sound uncomfortable, comfortably We’ve described how important it is to sing in your vocal comfort zone. But there is a place in performance for uncomfortable sounds. Think of the sounds you make in an extreme emotion: yelling, screaming or breathlessness… Continue reading
Extend your singing comfort zone – 7 steps This article gives you advice on how to extend your singing comfort zone in 7 steps. Just adding one semitone to your comfort zone will increase the number and type of songs you can perform. -says Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher. In… Continue reading
Choose the right warm-up Here’s another article we wrote a couple of years ago for the Voice Council Magazine. This one’s on vocal warm-up techniques and advice. A new client told us the other day that when she did a YouTube warm-up, her voice was… Continue reading
Core competencies in Singing Teaching At the beginning of this year I was invited by London College of Music UWL to take up a Visiting Professorship. As you might expect I’m on a pedagogical path and hoping to make more of a contribution to our profession. It… Continue reading
What do you think about… Back in 2016 the Voice Council Magazine (now archived) asked us a quick-fire question or two about singing, performing, life, the universe and everything. Here are our answers! “Gillyanne Kayes and Jeremy Fisher are eminent educators who run ‘Vocal Process’, a multi-genre and multi-media practice. Gillyanne Continue reading
Help on changing your genre In 2014 I wrote an article for The Music Teacher magazine on Changing your vocal style (reproduced here) https://vocalprocess.co.uk/style-concious-1-singing-style/ Gillyanne and I also created an online training Webinar on a similar theme called Changing Your Style Without ‘Losing’ Your Voice http://store.vocalprocess.co.uk/ChangingYourStyle In this new article… Continue reading
Breathing. Can we talk? I heard recently that there is a new technique for singers that involves breathing in against resistance. Apparently this trains you as a singer. WHAT? ARE YOU NUTS? OK, and breathe. It seems to me that there’s a fundamental misunderstanding about breathing and singing, and what the purpose of breath… Continue reading
Being a singer is tough. You’re out there, literally public-facing, making eye contact and sharing your sound and your soul. Working with singers to get them to performance pitch is a fascinating job. Gillyanne and I tend to divide our time between two different types of input – stuff that feeds the singer’s inner cataloguer, […]
Dr Gillyanne Kayes and the “After Estill” speech On July 21st 2017 AOTOS (the Association of Teachers of Singing) invited Dr Gillyanne Kayes to give the Keynote speech – “After Estill: a conversation we need to have”. In the hour-long presentation Gillyanne talks about her own relationship with Jo Estill, the context of Jo’s original […]