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Happy Zone Voice Teaching
I like to teach beginners because they soak up the information, learn the physical moves and make good progress, because they are teaching their bodies something completely new.
I also love doing consultations with active amateurs and professionals who might have gotten into a groove of physical entanglements while meeting the demands of performing life. Re-training a voice to use itself more simply and easily means over-writing the old skillsets or habits, and confirming more optimal ones. This take some serious noticing and focus, because your old habits are hard-wired in your long-term memory; but it can be done if you work slowly and vigilantly, keeping a positive attitude.
Teacher-client contracts for Susan Larson's studio
To take a course of lessons, we draw up a contract in which we state our goals and methods. The new student will list what virtues or talents he/she already has that we can apply to learning the new skills; what the first steps will be, and how many lessons the course will contain.
Great Expectations: Your Job/My Job
My job is to provide a safe place to help you find your own voice, and learn to notice and focus, while staying in a calm learning mode, rather than a struggling or "trying" mode.
Your job is to show up, willing to look for the voice that's already in there. Learn the physical exercises, the noticing, focus and stress-reduction exercises and create a practice regime that permits you to notice without judging or wishing you knew it all already.
My job is to show you what good singing technique is, using examples and exercises that encourage good fundamentals. I will address issues of posture register control, breath support, vowel tuning, articulator freedom, range extension and vocal health. Then I will show you how to use your technical skills to express yourself in music.
Your job is to put a solid fundamental technique together and apply it to music and notice what you are doing. Your job is also not to abuse your voice with evil substances or straining.
My job is to help you notice where you are now, maybe even enjoy it. When you know where you are, you are already on the way to the next step. And the next.
Your job is not to rag on yourself for being where you are and not someplace else. No "shoulds" and no "oughtas." Just notice where you are. When you know that, you can go someplace else. Wherever you are right now is fine.