I’m living proof that singing is a skill and not a talent.
I’ve been teaching privately since 2008, but in 1980, my fifth grade teacher was so bothered by my singing voice that she told me to just “mouth the words.” I don’t know how to describe the shame and humiliation I felt except to say, I just wanted to be vaporized off the planet. Since then, I’ve met way too many people who know exactly what I mean.
It took me a long time to find my way to singing where strangers could hear me. I spent years wishing I could be on stage instead of playing the violin in the orchestra pit. In college, I did find my way to a community chorus, and then in my early twenties was told, “You’re a soprano, and you need training.” The rest, as they say, is history.
Your voice is a muscle.
Muscles change as they are used.
If you’ve ever tried an exercise program, even for a short period of time, you already know that muscles change as they are used. This is true for the voice, too.
Most common vocal problems – singing out of tune, running out of breath, struggling with high notes, struggling with low notes, talking yourself hoarse – come from having too much tension in some muscles and not enough activation in others.
And many common performance problems – forgetting the words, losing your train of thought, missing your entrances, going a mile a minute – come from having too much attention focused outside yourself and not enough focused inside.
I can show you how to manage both your body and your mind because, while I did say, “the rest is history,” that history is full of trial and error. Teacher after teacher. Attempt after attempt. Worrying I wasn’t good enough. Being told I wasn’t good enough.
I started “late” and I learned how anyway.
It’s never too late to sound like your truest, strongest, clearest self.
I have helped hundreds of students sound more like themselves, and feel at home in their bodies even in stressful situations. Many of them feel more comfortable singing and speaking than they ever thought possible. They got there one moment, one exercise, one song or speech at a time.
You can too.
Ready to get started?
Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.
~ Oscar Wilde
“At age 75, in an effort to prolong my choral singing life, I began voice lessons with Michele Voilleque. Michele has taught me how to use and strengthen my body to support and focus my voice while relaxing and opening my “pipes” to free the sound. Her precise guidance, gentle humor, and obvious joy in teaching have me singing more wisely, exploring new repertoire and making more beautiful music than ever before. Michele has given me the skills and confidence to keep singing for years to come.”
“I hired Michele to help me find my true voice, not simply a mimicry of someone else. At the time I first started working with Michele I simply wanted to be able to sing better than I did; I felt I wasn’t a singer and was, in essence, faking it because I didn’t have the richness or subtlety I heard in other singers’ voices. I learned not only the technical aspects of what makes my voice sound richer and fuller but also how to interpret a song and present it with my own style. I became far more appreciative of what I could do with my voice and less critical of what I did not have as a “star” vocalist. Michele’s ability to find creative approaches to studying music, finding the inherent structure in music and building a cohesive approach to a song have proven invaluable. Think you can’t sing? Go see Michele. Think you can sing? Same recommendation. The experience is tremendously rewarding.”
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