Voice

I help singers max­i­mize their array of vocal options, reach their full vocal poten­tial, and devel­op an authen­tic style via self explo­ration and obser­va­tion — via tech­ni­cal stud­ies of pos­ture, breath, tone, dic­tion, rhythm and phras­ing. I want my stu­dents to be not only head-turn­ing singers, but also well-round­ed musi­cians.

I trained as a clas­si­cal and jazz singer.  I love singing in these styles, and draw from this in my per­for­mance and teach­ing.  I have always been a song­writer and indie pop musi­cian in prac­tice and at heart — and have worked for years on how to best apply my train­ing to this form of music — by devel­op­ing exer­cis­es to ben­e­fit vocal­ists from many dif­fer­ent edu­ca­tion­al back­grounds. Teach­ing con­tin­ues to broad­en and deep­en my under­stand­ing of what I was taught by oth­ers and what I’ve fig­ured out along the way.

I believe that being a rock or pop singer is as refined an art as any oth­er form of music; the lev­els of sub­tle­ty that lyri­cal expres­sion observed can not be matched. It is my mis­sion to give back every­thing that was taught to me in the way I wish it would have been ini­tial­ly pre­sent­ed.  I strive to con­sid­er the goals and needs of each indi­vid­ual vocal­ist, to cre­ate a les­son plans that will help them reach their spe­cif­ic goals in the most effi­cient and effec­tive manor.

What I Offer

  • Clas­si­cal, Pop, Rock and Jazz Vocal Tech­nique
  • Devel­op­ing Your Deliv­ery, Style and Phras­ing
  • Prepar­ing for Stu­dio Record­ing and Micro­phone Tech­nique
  • Com­po­si­tion, Song­writ­ing and Impro­vi­sa­tion
  • Music The­o­ry and Ear Train­ing
  • Tools for Direct­ing and Con­duct­ing a Band
  • Piano as a Com­po­si­tion­al Tool 
  • Audio Engi­neer­ing as a Com­po­si­tion­al Tool

Below are links to a series of essays I have writ­ten to go along with my lessons for the begin­ning vocal­ist. They give stu­dents a good primer regard­ing my teach­ing phi­los­o­phy — and include many exer­cises that I find use­ful on both a tech­ni­cal and con­cep­tual lev­el. I hope you find them reward­ing and edu­ca­tion­al. Enjoy!

Breath and PostureWomen Stretching
Tone and Projection
Registration
Diction

If you are inter­est­ed in sched­ul­ing a voice les­son or coach­ing ses­sion please email me via my con­tact page.

Thank you,

Ivory Smith