This is his letter inspired by a CBC News article titled:
“What’s robbing Adele, Céline Dion and more singers of their voices“
Hello,
My name is Bob Harris, age 66, and I have been a professional singer since my mid teens.
Three and a half years ago I started having negative vocal issues that I had never encountered before: hoarseness, limited range and power, and I was even beginning to speak like a teenager going through puberty with voice crackling and yodelling (at least it wasn’t accompanied by the acne).
An ENT doctor in Denver, Colorado diagnosed my vocal cords as pre-nodal, and advised me to rest my voice and all would be well. I did, and it wasn’t. I was faced with the possibility that my singing and performing life was coming to an end.
Through an extensive internet search I luckily came across Diana Yampolsky, and traveled to Toronto to do 30 hours of work with her. In short, she gave me my career back.
I’ve worked with many vocal teachers throughout my life — Diana’s method is totally unique— the best way that I can describe it is this:
Diana’s method is truly holistic.
The voice is a physical response to a mental/spiritual non-physical intent. In order to transmit
this mental/emotional intent efficiently into a vocal response there must be a coordination of mind, body, breath, and vocal folds working together, much like the timing of an engine— fuel, compression, and spark— if the timing/alignment is not right, the performance of the engine will suffer or break down completely.
Vocal problems can begin from any number of sources, physical and/or emotional. Conscious, subconscious, structural, and even spiritual imbalances can start a chain of events that lead to an out-of-sync vocal response, eventually damaging the vocal folds.
The physical and emotional demands of constant touring on today’s performers are well known and have derailed many an up-and-coming, as well as established, artist. The performer’s desire to “give all” meets with a vocal response machine that is out of balance and then the problems start.
Diana’s method puts the individual parts of the vocal response mechanism back in sync and allows the student to activate muscles that “lift” the voice off of the vocal cords, drastically reducing the stress put on the voice increasing vocal power, endurance, and flexibility. The physical benefit is the easier production of sound and the healing of the vocal folds if they are “heal-able” (i.e., diseases such as cancer, etc.). The most beautiful benefit to the performer (or at least in my case) is that the voice now gets back to naturally responding to the original emotional intent rather than singing with a focus purely on physical technique. Or more simply put, it’s the difference between singing to an audience instead of singing at them.
The work that I have done with Diana has had a lasting and even growing effect on me both as a singer/performer and a person, and I am eternally grateful to her. I cannot recommend her highly enough to anyone seeking help in both singing and speaking.