I became a voice teacher almost by “accident” and reluctantly! But ultimately I was inspired to teach voice after many years of involvement in singing both liturgical and classical music. Operatic training at the Conservatorio de Musica de Puerto Rico, coupled with endless frustrations, compelled me to delve deeper into different approaches to vocal training. And just as important, was the crossing of paths with whom would become my first long term student, Cantor Ushi Blumenberg, an experience that turned into a magnificent challenge but also a most rewarding experience for someone that was not too crazy about teaching voice, ever!

It’s quite a strange beginning because I honestly had no interest at the time in taking any students! I was doing a lot of research on my own, but only to satisfy my own curiosity and bring closure to many years of experiencing contradictory, nonsensical training side by side with sound, healthy vocal instruction and advice, many times all bundled together in the same package! This student became quite the success story at the time, and even more so if we take into account his level when I started to work with him and how much damage and abuse his voice had been subjected to. In my case, we could say that, when the teacher was ready, the student came (and kept nagging him until the teacher gave in and agreed to teach him!)

Within the context of what is commonly referred as classical music, it is common to refer to the Italian, German, French, Russian, Swedish-Italian schools of singing. But these are barely the tip of the iceberg! And of course there’s always someone around claiming to be the last representative of the authentic Bel Canto school  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bel_canto) or something on those lines. Not surprisingly, it can get pretty confusing out there for those seeking vocal training.

Nevertheless, my approach to vocal training has been developed with the “ideals” of bel canto as goals and guiding principles for our student’s vocal development. Using these as a foundation and guide for assessment of current vocal function as well as criteria for evaluation of the student’s improvement, I strive to help the student develop his technique and adapt it to different musical styles in a safe, confident manner.  Quoting from wikipedia again (this particular section happens to be accurate and appropriate for our purposes here):

” The hallmarks of the bel canto style were:

• an impeccable legato production throughout the singer’s (seamless) range
  
• the use of a light tone in the higher registers,
  
• an agile, flexible technique capable of dispatching ornate embellishments,
  
• the ability to execute fast, accurate divisions,
  
• the avoidance of aspirates and eschewing a loose vibrato* [no wobble or tremolo],
  
• a pleasing, well-focused timbre,
  
• a clean attack,
  
• limpid diction, and
  
• graceful phrasing rooted in a complete mastery of breath control.”

These attributes are associated with Bel Canto as a style, but it turns out that developing the ability to sing in this manner, or in other words, training in such a way as to facilitate the attainment of these “hallmarks”,  will result in a healthy, and remarkably flexible and versatile voice that can lend itself to many other musical styles. To achieve these goals we use traditional AND modern techniques as deemed suitable to each student’s immediate and long term needs, combined into my own methodology. And that is pretty much what attaining vocal freedom should be about!