Claim Your Voice and Sing!

Private Voice Lessons

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Anyone can learn to sing.  The human voice is an instrument of great beauty that belongs to all of us.  Some of us fall in love with singing early in our lives and just want to do our best.  Some of us have a driving need that makes us performers.  Some of us can’t carry a tune in a bucket and start serving the punch when everyone else is singing Happy Birthday.

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The most important use of the voice is to enjoy it.  First we have to sing in a way that is healthy.  No one should get a sore throat from singing.  In singing, what feels best sounds best.  It’s up to me, Rae Gabrielle de la Crétaz, as the teacher to lead the student to an experience of singing that is completely rewarding.

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Each lesson begins with vocalizes, simple exercises that help the student realize what is being done, and what is desired.  For the first several weeks, the vocalizes can take the entire lesson.  After that, we start to work on music reading, or on songs.  If my students don’t read music yet, I teach them.  If they do, we can go faster, but it doesn’t matter.  We get to everything that has to be covered, as long as the student wants to.

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I like my students to choose their own music.  I think people work better on what they like.  I reserve veto power if a piece is grossly inappropriate, the range is much too wide, or the piece is so difficult it will hurt to do it.  Other than that, my background is classical.  I have students who sing popular, Broadway, folk, Renaissance, jazz, and even my specialty, classical.  I don’t care what style of music, as long as it is done well.  It’s fine to work on a different piece each week.  The problems are the same.  Singing well is singing well, regardless of the piece or the style.

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I have worked with students from junior high school, (usually girls who mature physically fairly early), to people in their 70’s.  It can be too early to do the focused work required, but it is never too late.

I don’t push a lot of practicing.  Initially, the student has no idea what to do, and practicing might just be reinforcing bad habits.  After the student can tell whether one note is better than another, practicing is fine, but in short spurts, so there is always peak concentration.  Fifteen focused minutes do much more good than an hour of mindless repetition.

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Learning to sing is a process.  It should be a wonderful process, with a lot of laughter, self-discovery, and just plain fun.  The voice is this absolutely perfect gift that we each have been given.  Learning to use that gift is more fun than anything else I have ever done in my life.

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Here are some examples of what you can expect from a voice lesson: