Staff of Sheila Dungan Voice and Speech Studio
Meet the Professionals Who Will Help You Improve Your Voice
I knew at an early age that I wanted to be: a professional Musician, a professional English Teacher, AND a professional Psychologist—all at the same Bme!! I was passionately interested in all of those areas and the truth is that all of those interests became the ingredients for my life as a Voice Teacher!
The singer IS the ONLY instrument with The WORD. The study and understanding of great literature and poetry in any language and the study of the human condiBon amplifies what a trainer has to offer as a Vocal Coach. All vocal music ranging from Classical to Pop requires the singer to bring the listener the meaning and the message of the story they are telling.
Secondly, the Voice Teacher has to be part psychologist to provide high performance vocal coaching. Singing is 1% physical and 99% psychological, so a trainer has to develop great skills in this area to help singers succeed and sustain their success no maRer what the circumstances.
Next, it goes without saying that it is important for a singer to be trained and mentored by excellent musicians with broader knowledge of many cultures. A singer sings in many languages about the human condiBon. (It’s all about the human condiBon, folks, whether you are singing about it, acBng about it, wriBng about it, or painBng about it!)
I received two degrees in Vocal Performance with Post-Graduate studies in Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences. My university voice teacher, Dale Moore, encouraged me to start teaching voice at the ripe old age of twenty and because my students were thriving, and winning compeBBons, Southern Illinois University hired me to be on the voice faculty when I was twenty-one years old, before I had completed my first degree!
Over Bme, I hope I can shed a liRle light on various topics relaBng to the study of something you cannot see—namely, the Human Voice!
Restoring Voices is Fascinating Hard Work!-converted
I have restored the voices of many professional and amateur singers and speakers. Cheerleaders, exercise professionals, lead singers of rock bands and older adults are also among my most interesting cases of voice restoration.
Adults between the ages of 40 and 77 years of age usually come to me suffering from poor vocal techniques and poor vocal hygiene. Voice abuse issues are a main cause of trouble for younger and younger adult singers. Presbylarynx (or presbyphonia) literally, “old age voice,” is one of the primary issues I see for people over 55 years of age, but I like to “YOUTHanize” these adults and they go on to sing with ease for years, and years aQer we work together!
I want to talk a liSle about how I restore the voices of older clients.
Let’s say the singer (or speaker) has symptoms associated with the aging voice. This includes a gradual loss of energy, range, clarity, control and volume. The singer can now be limited to producing a very wobbly vibrato where there was a naturally succinct one before. The first thing I do aQer hearing them sing for me for the first time, is question them about their boSom line technical philosophies concerning breathing, breath management and placement. (Breath management is my term for the all too frequently misunderstood word— “support.” Placement means to me, the origination point of phonation—or sound, and it’s subsequent trajectory or direction within and outside of the mouth.) I correct any misinformation during our very first lesson.
Many singers have been taught to originate their sound in the back of their mouths and even more singers move and hold the vibrato there, trying to create a “mature, rich, rounded sound.” In my view, the problem with that is, the voice is an exhalation which has been set in vibration, creating pitch. The quality of those pitches are influenced by what the singer does with the tongue, the lower jaw and the internal spaces within the skull and body itself.
Unless the singer would like to “color” the sound in a certain way, for dramatic effect, it is much easier for the vocal folds (vocal chords) to roll at their best physiological pace (which is faster) if the air-flow is coming out of the front of the mouth, rather than being trapped in the back of the mouth. Singing in the front of the mouth can generate a natural, beautiful, free, and stable vibrato that oscillates without a wobble of any kind as long as the singer manages the breath well. I want my singers to sing in a forward direction, without pushing abdominally or by aSempting to “project” the sound. I teach my singers techniques to “amplify” the sound, not project it…and I am not mincing words here.
Singers are usually taught to “breathe from the diaphragm,” which is physiologically impossible! These individuals excessively pressurize the abdominal musculature to accomplish that and this can create an imposing wobble. Using facts from scientific data about the functional anatomy of the respiratory system, I am able to show the singer how breathing actually works and change the way they think about and accomplish the acts of breathing and breath management. Now the singer is able to produce the default, or natural quality, of their real instrument. This is not the one they created in their youth, trying to sound older than they were, or by imitating singers they admired.
This way, I am able to “YOUTHanize” the older singer, while introducing them to their real default quality. This natural sound is always one thousand times beSer than the sound they developed or “made up” over a lifetime of singing.
I LOVE to teach older singers and these are just a couple of the tools I use to restore their voices. Adults are ready, focused, and want to practice to restore the beauty of the instrument they once enjoyed. My students enjoy the excitement of feeling and hearing the restoration of a default quality they never knew they had! It is really a delighaul moment for us when the student becomes overwhelmed by the beauty of their own natural instrument which has been returned to a resilient, flexible state!