Hello to Vocalisters who are wondering about how Randy B. teaches and if
he teaches like he writes here on Vocalist. I hope Randy won't mind if
I tell on him (I didn't ask), but I've been reading his posts here for 2
or 3 years and have been very curious about how he actually teaches as
well as some of you must be. I'm also curious about actually
seeing/hearing Dr. Lloyd teach as well and many others, but I'll
continue my story. My 17 year old daughter and I , who is one of my
students also, drove from Washington State to Ohio to take(my daughter)
to the high school summer classical singers workshop at Oberlin
Conservatory. It occurred to me that since we were driving right by
Chicago that perhaps we could pay Randy for an hour lesson and maybe
learn something as well as satisfy my curiosity about his teaching
style. Randy is a very cool dude! He has lava lamps! He does not teach
like a techno-phobe at all, he's intuitive, focused, empathic and
....well, like a voice teacher. He sort of reminded me of me and the way
I teach at times. He's got the greatest sense of humor and even though
Nora is focusing her singing on classical music all the vocalize
exercises that he did with her totally improved some problem spots on
one of the songs I asked him to listen to. Because he has the
scientific knowledge of the vocal apparatus and his ear is so very well
tuned to problems, he immediately finds the perfect vocalize that will
coax the mechanism into behaving naturally. Nora and I shared the
lesson time. I didn't tell Randy that I had recently had my vocal cords
"scoped" by a dr. out here in Washington.. (I saw the swelling for
myself on video and how the folds moved together while I made sounds).
I wanted to see if he could "hear" and diagnose the problem without me
telling him anything up front. He heard it immediately and showed me
vocal exercises that could help. I believe if he didn't know exactly
how everything works on a technical level, he would not have been very
effective in trying to teach me something since I've lived with my
swollen folds for a long time and teach a lot of people myself. After
we came home to Washington I had a few lessons with a woman who has
recently earned her music PhD at University of Washington and whose
students I've heard over the years. (who sing very well). She did her
doctoral thesis on vocal pedagogy and mirrored so much of what Randy
said to me and my daughter. Randy's vocal exercises, which I think are
part of the speech level singing techniques, are very very effective but
not at all the usual type of exercises one might sing in a typical
classical voice lesson... at least not one's I'd ever had. (except I'd
known about lip trills before.) My students who I've introduced these
to since my summer trip and who can get past the "weirdness" of doing
lots of lip trills and creaky doors and making "dumb" sounds, see
immediate improvement. My students are singing better than ever. I
even hired Randy to give my daughter a voice lesson over the speaker
phone just a few weeks ago, for some ideas to help her with a cadenza in
a Mozart concert aria. Amazing! We are having lots and lots of fun
with our new techniques and I’m slowly (very slowly) using more
scientific verbiage when I talk about the vocal mechanism with my
students. I didn't feel intimidated at all by Randy, even though I
haven't done even a quarter of the studying he's done or a lot of other
Vocalisters. He seemed much more intuitive than I'd imagined he might
be from reading the posts, many I admit to deleting without reading
because I couldn't grasp all the technical descriptions. Can you
imagine the fun it would be to have the funds and the time to drive
around the country and take lessons with each other? I think it would
be such a kick! Anyway, I'm glad Randy is as accessible as he is
because I've learned a lot and I'd encourage any of you who think you've
got someone on Vocalist "figured out" to probably think again, as Randy
just wrote. Email posts are not very multi-dimensional.
Deanna
www.Edgewoodvoicestudio.com
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