What should the customer know about your pricing (e.g., discounts, fees)?
I charge 60.00 per hour for a one-hour lesson: 40.00 for a half-hour lesson. I offer a free 15 minute consultation upon request.
My fees for public performance are available upon request.
What is your typical process for working with a new customer?
If you are a singer, I will help you with breathing,and give you exercises to help you learn new reflexes. I'll help you explore both ends of the comfortable vocal range, and make small adjustments to create ease and comfort. Over time, we'll apply new techniques to the songs you love, and prepare for performance, if that is your goal.
One way I work with singers which is unique is to teach exactly one skill at a time, so there is nothing to remember while your mechanical memory of good singing grows and grows.
One other way I often work with singers is to record short sections of warmups and songs so that you can learn to identify and correct issues with vowels, vocal posture and breathing. You will note improvement in your sound in the very first lesson, guaranteed.
If you are a new harp student, the first thing I will do is to ask you to sit down at the harp. Together, we'll find the perfect seat height and position at the harp, and make small adjustments to maximize your comfort and ease. Over time, we will make sure your fingers are moving fully and comfortably, and we'll help to make everything work better. Many harpists come to me after years of solo study with a variety of difficulties which are easy to solve. .
When I work with a performance client, I will ask a number of questions to ascertain what kind of music is wanted, and prepare a list of numbers to be performed. If it is a wedding, I will find out when each piece is to be performed in and before the ceremony. Naturally I will arrive early enough that I will be set up, tuned and playing long before the guests arrive.
What education and/or training do you have that relates to your work?
I have a Master's in Music Performance from the University of Nevada, Reno. I have been playing the harp and singing professionally since 1989, and teaching voice and harp since 1993.
I have founded two opera companies from my students: one in Southern CA and one in Northern CA, and I am creating a new one in North Texas, so my students will have ample opportunities to perform.
How did you get started doing this type of work?
I have loved Irish singing and opera my whole life. I wanted to play the harp and sing like the famous harpist Mary O’Hara from the time I was very small. I also loved opera, and memorized Mozart’s Die Zauberfloete (The Magic Flute) in German when I was ten years old.
I was a child actress, and did many different kinds of work, including actimg and directing stage plays, then later I performed in operas and musical theater.
Naturally, I studied voice and harp for many years. I realized I could sing, easily, with the harp. One day, I asked a professional harpist to listen to me. I told her I was a beginner, which was what I thought of myself. She told me that not only was I not a beginner, I could become a professional harpist right now.
So I set up a local performance at a tea shop in San Juan Capistrano, and I gave out business cards. From then on, I hd more harp work than I knew what to do with.
After I finished my Master’s in Performance, I founded an opera company and I began directing operas.
My model was to train exceptiona choir singers and turn them into operatic soloists. I always cast principals out of the chorus, and everyone had as much solo work as they could do.
This way, all my voice students had ample performance experience. Not only do my students experience significant support and cameraderie with their fellow singers, but they also end up immune to stage fright because they sing in front of other people constantly, and are encouraged in their work and ongoing improvement.
What types of customers have you worked with?
I have trained singers as young as five, and as old as 83. I have trained harpists as young as six, and as old as eighty four.
Anyone can learn to sing better. In my long, long years as a voice teacher, I have never once heard a bad voice, although many people have told me that they do not like their voices.
I have worked with professional opera singers, college students, housewives who love to sing, and people with pain or “holes” in the voice. Although I am not a doctor or SLP, I have a lot of experience teaching people with vocal troubles of various kinds to sing comfortably and well.
I can help singers extend their range in either direction, improve their ability to hold long notes, and especially to establish or improve a functional vibrato.
Describe a recent project you are fond of. How long did it take?
One of my favorite students is an opera singer. She is 74, and was a professional opera singer in her twenties. When she came to me, her top notes did not work well, and her general technique was not at a point where she could sing what she wanted to sing.
As we get older, our bodies change, and the way we breathe changes. Many singers with high voices notice that their high notes don’t work properly, and they give up singing in their normal range to sing with the lower voices in choir. But there is no need for this, when proper instruction can give you back your top notes. A singer at any age can learn to breathe again, and even to sing better than they did in the past.
My opera singer learned to breathe and to sing with much more even and beautiful tone, and she is now performing operatic arias in public. Her audiences note how absolutely stunning and gorgeous her high notes are,
Recently, I taught a Skype student in New York. She has been with me less than a year. In that time, she has gone from being a “shower singer” to performing in public for pay as a jazz singer. Her audiences note her individuality as a performer: how she makes each song her own. She is noted for remarkable beauty of tone and ease in her singing.
She is also in her sixties.
What advice would you give a customer looking to hire a provider in your area of work?
Listen to them sing or play the harp, and ask them how they feel when they perform. If they regard pain as normal, run. If they tell you it is easy and comfortable, then you might be in good hands.
But come to me first. If it hurts, I can fix it!
What questions should customers think through before talking to professionals about their project?
Be sure you have a realistic time frame. Although I do a lot of work mending “busted professionals,” singers who have worked for many years and have something in their technique which does not work, as a general rule, learning to sing can take years.
Developing a basic technique does not need to take long, but everyone is different. To have general competency to perform in public might take up to a year, and it might take longer, depending on the singer.
It is important to allow between six months and three years to feel really comfortable singing on stage. In a normal college setting, a singer is expected to give a short concert, about half an hour, in the third year, and a longer concert, about an hour, in the fourth year.
To get a general idea of how an opera singer might sound in the third or fourth year, you can look up “Junior Vocal Recital” or “Senior Vocal Recital” online.
I can almost invariably get better results in much less time. In fact, I have assisted a large number of singers with vocal degrees and no ability to sing comfortably in public, either due to vocal misclassification or vocal dysfunction and pain which they were not able to solve in college.
For a harpist, they will usually come to me with massive dysfunction, either in their hands or in their posture, and most of the “big stuff” can be solved pretty quickly. But the fundamental skills, such as note-reading, quick placement, and advanced fingering techniques can take a little longer.
Helping a professional harpist to play with less pain can be a project taking a few months. Helping a beginner learn to play a little tune will probably happen within a few weeks. However, learning to play the harp well takes years.
The technique I teach will make this process easier and less time-consuming. But the time it takes varies widely, and depends on a number of factors, including manual dexterity, note reading, and patience.
