“A very long and demanding rehearsal last night, I was exhausted! However, my voice was not. I heard some sopranos behind me saying how hard the repertoire was on their voice. I must say that I didn’t feel any strain and there was no hoarseness on returning home. This is a great benefit of your method to me.” Caroline June
Full Circle Artist Development
Kathryn and her team are the only certified Profty Teachers in the UK who specialise in their special formula of ‘full circle artist development’. They are trained in all three aspects of being a successful artist; vocal technique, performance technique (acting for the singer) and vocal style. This what makes Kathryn’s students stand out in the crowd because they become skilled in all three areas.
How Your Voice Works
The voice is largely considered a wind instrument as it is the air from the lungs that activates the vibration of adducted (closed) vocal folds creating sound. However, in terms of creating pitch it is much more like a stringed instrument in that pitch is created by stretching and thinning out the vocal folds in order to vibrate faster for higher pitches or shortening and thickening them to vibrate more slowly for lower pitches.
There are intrinsic muscles in the larynx that control both the adduction of the folds for sound production and the stretching or shortening of the vocal folds for pitch. These muscles need to co-ordinate with each other in balance with the airflow to be to able to achieve a smooth transition through the difficult bridges or passaggi between the lower range of the voice and the upper range. It is this that our technique focuses on by creating ‘the mix’.
There are also muscles in the neck and throat area that surround the larynx including muscles that raise the larynx for swallowing and lower the larynx for yawning. If we feel that high notes are strained it is because the swallowing muscles have been activated and we may hit a ceiling in our range or our sound and pronunciation is distorted. In a similar way activating the yawning muscles to impose the larynx can be strenuous. Thus these are muscles we eventually want to eliminate from the pitching process so that singing becomes free and easy.
By using vocalise exercises we work directly on the co-ordination of the intrinsic muscles directly controlling the vocal folds so that the folds are able to resist the airflow in a balanced manner and vibrate freely for pitch. A result of this is that the outside muscles that raise the larynx for swallowing or lower the larynx for yawning are not required for the pitching process and thus no longer are activated so that the larynx can remain in a relaxed position.
In this way the singer is able to sing from the lower part of their voice through to the upper part of their voice with a smooth connected tone without breaks or abrupt changes in voice quality and without effort and strain. The singer experiences increased range, control over pitching, dynamics, tone quality, increased flexibility and precision, power, breath control, freedom and clarity in articulation of lyrics, freedom of expression and stylistic choices and most importantly the voice keeps going for longer without getting tired.
Performance Technique
Ever wondered what to do with your hands whilst on stage? How to stand properly, look in the right direction or convey the feeling of the song? Well, with years of experience teaching and performance coaching from Rhonda Carlson from Las Vegas, Kathryn and her team have all the tools and techniques available to make your on stage performance ‘pop’ and come alive with emotion in a natural, authentic manner that connects you to your audience rather than putting them off. We will help you to use your performances to engage your listeners so they will come to see you perform time and again.
Style Technique
Kathryn and her team have all the necessary tools and techniques to help you develop your vocal style. Through classes with Style Coach Monique Thomas from Paris, we have a rich and resourceful pool of tools to draw from that will enable you to develop the right vocal style to suit your genre of singing without compromising your vocal technique. We will help you to become intentional about the stylistic choices you make by giving you a framework from which you can develop your creativity and artistic identity.
