Vocal Advancement Podcast

Join Heather and Tom as they talk about the effects of gestures on singing. The Vocal Advancement Podcast interviews many talented performers and educators, each with their own unique perspective on music and teaching. Follow us and subscribe to our YouTube channel so you never miss an episode!  IVA offers plenty of great resources for singers and voice coaches, including a FREE singing teach...

Are you a “triple threat” — a performer who’s adept at singing, dancing, and acting? If you want to work in musical theater, revue shows, or cruise ship entertainment, you’ll often find producers expect their dancers to have some singing ability. Unfortunately, many performers who identify primarily as dancers may resist learning how to sing. Having held themselves to extremely high dance standard...

Do you do vocal warm-ups before you sing? If you’re like a lot of us, you may gloss over this part of your singing process. Maybe you feel you don’t have enough time. Or maybe you think good warm-ups can’t be done without a piano. This week’s guest Tessa Smith knows how you feel. In fact, she spent much of her early life skipping her warm-ups and going straight to singing.  But a chance meeti...

Different music patterns offer different flavors for performers to sample. But few musicians enjoy indulging in as many flavors of music as Kim Chandler. Originally planning on being a high school music teacher, Kim spent her early career as a jazz singer and orchestral flautist. Then she founded a heavy metal rock band and learned she was comfortable performing in both leather and frilly blouses....

As voice coaches, we need to properly assess our students’ voices before we can devise effective lesson plans for them. But what happens when you get a student who can’t match the pitch you want them to sing? It’s an issue that comes up a lot in our chat box. Many voice teachers wonder if these students are “tone deaf.” They worry their students can’t recognize different notes or sing tunes accura...

Some people are born to perform. Take Savannah Stevenson. This English singer and actress got her first job understudying for Mary Poppins with the Original Cast of the West End production of Mary Poppins before she graduated from the Guilford School of Acting. She’s gone on to have a very successful career on stage, playing Glinda for three years in the West End production of Wicked , has acted i...

How old should your voice students be before they start taking singing lessons? For many instructors, the idea that only prodigies with natural singing talent should start training as children continues to influence which students they choose to work with. But for child singer expert and voice teacher mentor Dana Lentini, teaching kids how to sing doesn’t mean giving college-level instruction to c...

As voice teachers, we regularly help our students with multiple vocal challenges — but few of us probably deal with the range of clients this week’s guest has. As a speech language pathologist and clinical singing voice specialist, Marci Rosenberg works with anyone who uses their voice professionally in front of an audience — from singers to preachers to lawyers to sports announcers — at the Unive...

Imagine a job where you’re asked to sing backup vocal for Lady Gaga, record songs for Disney, or perform as a singing penguin — sometimes the day before recording begins. This week’s guest Gerald White has done all of this and so much more. As a session singer, Gerald is on call regularly by recording studios and production companies who need him to perform in recording sessions and live performan...

Happy Birthday! Can you believe it’s been ten years since we began the Institute of Vocal Advancement? In that time, we’ve had the opportunity to connect with teachers, performers, and voice scientists from around the world. We’ve built global communities of music teachers who have been very generous with their knowledge and expertise. And we’ve had the pleasure of hosting conferences where educat...

Sometimes, all you need to take your life in an innovative direction is the right questions. This week’s guest, Dr. Jenevora Williams, became a specialist in the field of singer vocal health by teaching boy choristers at Westminster Abbey. Realizing no one had done a lot of research into how vocal training was affecting children’s health, Dr. Williams took it upon herself to studying the groups of...

When you’re preparing your students for a career in the performance arts, technical knowledge isn’t enough. Sometimes, even the most gifted students experience performance anxiety, preventing them from fully expressing themselves on stage or participating in lessons. Unfortunately, not every performer is willing or able to turn to a therapist, making it difficult for them to reach their goals. Thi...

There’s nothing like someone saying, “You’re never going to do that again” to make you want to find a way to beat the odds. For years, Heidi Moss Erickson worked as a professional singer in the U.S. and abroad. Then a cranial nerve injury left her with a nearly career-ending case of facial paralysis. Told she’d never sing again, Heidi turned to her background in neuroscience to study how the brain...

Being a good singing teacher is an art. You need to explain voice science to your students in a way that lets them understand how their voices work. At the same time, you want to make sure they don’t get so caught up in vocal theory that they can’t use their knowledge to perform. Our guest this week knows the challenges of balancing theory and skill. Ken Bozeman is a naturally gifted singer who be...

How well does your classical singing training prepare you to teach music students today? With the market demanding different skillsets from singers who want to build careers in music theatre, CCM, and other fields, teachers must be familiar with multiple methodologies to prepare their students. Dr. Elizabeth Ann Benson realizes this. As an Associate Professor of Music Theatre Voice at Auburn Unive...

Being aware of your body and how it affects the way you can use your voice is a skill every performer needs. That’s why Chris Johnson, vocal coach and co-host of the popular podcast “The Naked Vocalist”, emphasizes the use of Feldenkrais, an exercise therapy that improves motor performance through body movement exercises. By incorporating movement exercises into his voice lessons, Johnson helps hi...

With 2022 ending, now’s the perfect time to look back on everything you’ve accomplished and look forward toward everything you’ll achieve in the coming year. In this podcast, we do just that by discussing how setting goals and coming up with ways to measure your achievements is important to being a successful voice teacher. We’ll examine the importance of setting achievable goals while also remain...

In our latest episode, Tom and Heather dive into the world of TikTok, trying to unpick why a video went viral on Heather's TikTok Channel. You can watch the viral video here: https://www.tiktok.com/@the.singingteacher/video/7153160111509245189 About the Institute for Vocal Advancement Interested in attending professional development webinars with leading voice experts and becoming a more effective...

Sometimes, getting your voice to do what you want it to means more than just practicing the right vocal exercises. That’s what professional voice coach Line Hilton discovered after working with thousands of talented performers who found their progress hindered by anxiety, self-doubt, and a lack of motivation. Combining her background as a performer and a nurse, Line developed a unique tool kit tha...

We all know how important vocal exercises are for singers. But what happens when injuries to different parts of your body lead to changes in your voice?  This week’s guest Andrew Byrne (aka “The Singing Athlete”) has some first-hand experience with this. Following an inguinal hernia that affected his singing — and elbow pain that threatened his career as a pianist — Andrew began devoting himself t...

As voice teachers, we often want to focus exclusively on singing and developing more effective lessons for our students. But being a successful voice coach takes more than proficiency in the classroom. You also need to develop some solid business sense and learn how to market yourself effectively so students know how valuable your services can be. The good news is, once you develop some business s...

Do you find yourself experiencing Performance Anxiety before (or even during) your time on stage? This episode’s guest Mel Toy understands how what some may call “stage fright” or “nerves” can limit the performance enjoyment of both up-and-coming and established singers. As a vocal coach and researcher, Mel doesn’t just help singers develop their technique. She offers tailored sessions on Performa...

Welcome back! Our first interview introduces you to Kerrie Obert, one of the world’s leading experts in voice training and pedagogical practice. For the past 25 years, Kerrie’s research into speech-language pathology has led her to make groundbreaking discoveries on twang quality and tongue root — knowledge she shares with performers to help them gain the vocal quality they want from their singing...

Welcome to the very first episode of the Vocal Advancement Podcast! In this introduction, you’ll get to hear hosts Tom and Heather engage in a conversation (or a “chinwag” to our U.K. listeners) of all the exciting plans we have for our fledgling podcast — which we hope singers, voice teachers, and researchers will tune into every week as we explore all the fascinating aspects of voice and vocal p...

Get a small taster of what's to come on the Vocal Advancement Podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.