On Becoming A Coach Part 2 The Nylons and Los Angeles

                                          Billy Newton Davis, Micah Barnes Claude Morrison

  My years of singing with The Nylons and the heavy demands of the gig, ( concert tours, TV specials, constant interviews, tons of air travel), all meant a break from coaching, but during those years, influenced by my fellow Nylons, I began to take my own technique more seriously.
      Although hired to sing the Baritone part, I soon discovered during those "boot camp" rehearsal weeks of learning to sing harmony while dancing choreography, (not as easy as they made it look!), that I was also going to need to be able to sing falsetto, tenor AND bass parts, depending on which Nylons was stepping forward to sing lead! YIKES!
All of this range stretching taught me both to value and lean heavily on my technique... and I really value the wonderful producers and vocal coaches who helped me put together a more flexible voice during those years.

   
   It was in the highly competitive music world of Los Angeles where I moved post Nylons that I began to focus on my coaching as a real career.
          I had a few signs that this would be a viable direction along the way, vocal coach Seth Riggs had told me I was well trained enough to teach his technique and after years of performing and recording I had faced enough practical challenges as a singer to feel I had something useful to pass along to my students.
A key factor in my growth as a coach was a client that challenged my abilities and helped me grow my skill set..more about that and the surprise opportunity that turned out to be a career changer in Part 3

Dances with Coaches part 1

This weeks "Basics of Singing"clip #7 is about the "trill" or the rolled "R". This simple exercise isn't easy for everybody, but it's the fastest route to increasing head resonance. In fact it's been a common exercise covered by every single coach I have ever worked with as a singer.
Lois Pearson, who was an excellent first voice coach to have, taught me the basics of breathing and how to vocalize safely after I lost my voice touring my rock n roll band as a teenager. Although we sang Frank Sinatra songs in class which was awkward for me at the time, her knowledge of how to coach breathing technique is something I still use in my work today.
The trill was part of how she started me vocalizing without pushing and squeezing on my chords to produce sound. Loy Coutts with whom I studied voice for stage used the Linkletter approach which also utilized the trill to bring the skull resonance into focus.
Jose Hernandez, (who now coaching the Canadian Opera Company), was coaching singers I respected like Jane Siberry and I could hear the changes in their sound, so while I was performing regularly with my band on Queen Street I would visit his studio and learn the deeper and more powerful breathing techniques of Classical singers. Jose's work with me helped broaden my range and allowed for a kind of comfort and ease, he used the trill along with other exercises to create a more resonant sound.
It was when I joined the Nylons that my need for a coach became essential. Producer arranger Peter Mann helped me focus my Baritone voice but the arrangements also asked me to reach up (dependably!) into falsetto and occasionally down into the bass range, (something I never really mastered truth be told). Bill Vincent had been helping Nylons frontman Marc Conners achieve a vocal freedom and precision that I was very impressed by. Bill was a taskmaster who demanded a rigorous attention to detail and a deep focus. Under his tutelage I gained a freedom and ease that allowed me access to ALL of my range night after night as we toured and played concerts around the world. His extensive warm-up exercises set my technique for life…..and relied heavily on the trill!
When I worked with Seth Riggs while in California, (he basically checked the technique I had learned with Bill), his "speech level singing" approach used "less energy for larger results", perfect for his high level clients whose demanding schedules ask them to be in good shape vocally at all times. And trilling was one of the arsenal of techniques Seth used with Ray Charles, Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson.

Next week: Dances With Coaches part two: Choosing A Coach