First of all excuse me for my frustration, you might get an "agressive feeling" in my post...

But i just feel i am spending loooots of money, time and energy, and it isnt happening...

I am 30yr old girl. I ve been dealing with music since 6, (mainly piano and keyboards)

That means i have a somewhat improved sense of harmony, rythm, and hearing skills.

So since the music i like is Jazz, Blues, Rock Metal, and generaly contemporary, I thought lets go study Jazz Voice.

Well Jazz is not an academic music, or at leaste the people who were intially playing it werent like that.

Which means it doesnt have a history of education and training, it was based on the feeling.

So how do we get to study today something that was impulsive and improvisational to the lower classes of the american sociaety in he early 1900 ?

And thats were the problems start.....


Its not like Ella, Billie or Sarah wrote a book, or created a jazz academy, and said,,,,,,, here thats how you train to sing jazz.

SO all the teachers out there have received a CLASSICAL VOCAL education.

My first teacher was all about HEAD voice. She had a dimploma in classical singing, and with her own efforts of listening and trascribing ella end the other, came to the point of singing jazz really good.

But when she teaches, she teaches classical technique. All head stuff. Normal arpeggios and the usual things.

I switched to another teacher, who supposedly teaches jazz.
I had got the impression that she had studies in the US, but it turned out that she had (again) a dimploma in classical voice, and then she had taken Speech Level Singing seminars with Seth riggs in the US.

(So not much of immersed knowledge in jazz there either)

This one, with all the SLS thing, she NEVER lets me go in my head voice. SHe sais its wrong, and i have to hit the high notes with the mix voice.

Whatever.....

Anyway, this whole situation is getting tiresome.

I dont seem to be able to find a proper teacher, and music schools in greece charge sooooo much. (230euros a month is a lot to me)

All I can figure out on my own, is that Jazz and Blues, FOR CERTAIN uses TONES of chest voice.... ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_nNNIYTy9g check this out, bib mama thorton hound dog)

THis is all "in the neck" THat dirty voice sound, and all that shoutin is surely "neck" ... and my first teacher would go ballistics if i did something like that in her lesson .... "You re ruining your voice" and ###### like that.....


Then again, I ve heard a lot of Ella scat singing going high in her head voice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjWMtQcNJXI Or here again... Sarah Mc Lachlan, gloomy sunday...

She s all head from what i can understand....

She s in fact all head , AND breathy voice...
My second teacher would skin me alive if i sang like that.

I mean, Hello people....the voice is EVERYTHING..... all ranges, all ways of it resonating in the body..... And thats what makes it interesting.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80kOBeMEm2I Then here... Nemo by Nightwish, a little bit of metal.... Its all head again...

I mean, how can i find someone who simple believes the obvious to me..... That one should sing with all his voice registers, and he should learn to swich from the one to the other....

What do you think generaly of what i m saying?

Thank you for the support and the ideas









Oh and something more....

The first teacher thought i am a soprano dramatico.

Sure i hit a lot of high notes in my head voice

The second one things i am a mezzo or maybe an alto..... Sure i hit a lot of low notes if you let me in my chest voice, and close to my "vocal fry"


But i think this extreme diffrence also shows that this cant be right..... I mean, when you re making a person "lose" one of his registers you re also belittling his voice..... For a full range you ll have to use all registers...

The ve always said to me that "it takes time" and that i have to "find a way to hit low notes, while staying on my high voice placement"

and the opposite of course...

That i have to learn to hit the high notes while in my mix voice...never go to my head...

A nice example of the two voice placements, i believe is this song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8VgLKXD-BoY The phantom of the opera by nightwish.

The girl is in her head, and the man is in his chest, and in his neck indeed too, of course he does go high as well in the end too... but thats the point of metal after all..

I want to end up having a "big" in range and in volume voice, and i really dont know, how do i get to sort out the incompetent teachers from the descent ones...

Oh, and classical singing lessons are not an option...i am not into learning to sing arie antiche.... it s not my style....... I feel i have to train on "my" kind of music

hi asgartha,

i can understand your frustration, but there are definitely good jazz and contemporary teachers out there who have not (or not exclusively) been trained classically. i don't know about the situation in greece, but did you ever try to find a teacher either trained in estill (would be my first choice) or complete vocal technique after cathrine sadolin (rather my second choice, but still with reasonable results)? many estill- and cvt-teachers also offer online lessons, maybe that would be an option if you cannot find one close by.

if you don't want to sound classical, there's really no need for it. personally, i would stay clear of sls. from my own experience as a teacher, it brings neither good results nor is it healthy.

another thing: do away with this 'head' and 'neck' (what a horrible word in singing!) idea. it has nothing to do with voice physiology and is only confusing. it always sounds as if people have at least two or three different voices, which is rubbish.
feel free to pop around to the viva voice forums on this board - you might get more answers there than here.

I can only echo what Dugazon has already said - if you can find an Estill teacher or a CVT teacher - then you'll find a new vocal freedom you didn't think was possible - no one will tell you that you have to make a particular sound - they will help you to find ways to sing the sounds you want to make in a healthy and accessible way.

Estill offer courses regularly, you can find the dates and venues on their site www.trainmyvoice.com - I'd start with a complete five day course if you can (figures for voice and figure combinations for six voice qualities) - and I know that CVT offer 5 day courses too, but you generally have to travel to Denmark or thereabouts for those.

Also, don't rule out the option of online lessons via Skype - most of the top industry teachers offer them now (although some will say 'it can't possibly work' - you'll find they're wrong).