Those who wish to sing always find a song. ~ Swedish Proverb

Voice Lessons with Dorothy Brown

Mrs. Brown specializes in creating desirable tone colors in a person's voice. She takes people with average voices and give them a singer's voice. She teaches sacred music, Broadway, country, jazz, and pop. (She does not teach opera.) Mrs. Brown includes ear training, breathing, and diaphragm support. She does not generally teach music theory in private voice lessons because you can pick that up it other (cheaper) ways. Upon request, she can add in solfege or other interval training.

Mrs. Brown's philosophy looks at voice as exercise. The vocal chords (also known as vocal folds) contain muscles. She believes strongly that everything you know about exercising your body can be applied to your voice. There are strengthening exercises, flexibility exercises, and endurance exercises. There are warm ups and cool downs. (Cool downs are a relatively new concept in voice, but Mrs. Brown is a convert. Proper cool downs will save your voice. Take it from a woman who between teaching music at an elementary school and teaching private voice students sings about six hours a day. She would not have a voice if it weren't for cool downs).

Vocal exercises require practice. This is not piano lessons. You cannot cram before voice lessons and expect to have a voice. This is like aerobic class, you have to put in consistent practice to develop the vocal muscles. Mrs. Brown requires a commitment of practicing four days a week. You DO NOT practice on voice lesson day.

Because voice lessons are about exercise, not passing off songs (like piano lessons), the student will spend months working on just one song. The reason for the song is simply to apply the techniques being learned in voice lessons. It is the development of the voice that we are after, not a race to pass off songs.

Private lessons with Mrs. Brown are recorded on a cassette tape, so you can practice at home to the tape. Mrs. Brown uses recorded music to begin with to cut down on variables (i.e. the recorded music is always the same). Later if the student desires an accompanist, the student must provide the accompanist. (Usually, the accompanist records the music and this recording is used during voice lessons.)

During the year, Mrs. Brown's student perform in a couple of recitals and concerts. These vary from year to year and sometimes include outdoor concerts and the recording of a CD (depending upon the interest of her students at the time). Mrs. Brown has a copy of the year's events if you are interested.

Forms

Click here to view the voice lesson contract. This contract does not lock you into a set number to lessons, rather it simply makes sure we are both on the same page.

Click here to view Intro to Voice. This document explains what you can expect out of private voice lessons with Mrs. Brown.