What is Voice Gym?
It’s a vocal fitness program for singers, actors, and dancers. It includes weekly asynchronous workouts and warm ups, which you can work through as you like, when you like. The program aims builds strength, fitness, coordination, and flexibility for your voice. Think of this as a gym equivalent for singing.
How did this come about?
I work with A LOT of dancers. I often think about what enables them to go into a choreography class, or a dance call with confidence, and with their focus on performance rather than technique. And if you think about it, quite a lot goes into it:
They have aerobic fitness, usually because they undertake some aerobic activity a few times a week
They have strength, because they go to the gym regularly
They are well coordinated, because they’ve been dancing for a long time and they probably have years of going to technique classes
Now ask yourself - as a singer, whats your equivalent of the gym? What’s your equivalent of going to technique classes?
No blame here (seriously, none), but so many singers come to lessons the week before an audition to work technically on a song they have to sing in performance. It is (almost) the equivalent of going to a gym the week before a weightlifting competition and expecting to be fine. Maybe a better analogy - it’s like me going to a dance call and, whilst trying to perform the choreography, asking the Dance Associate how to do a pirouette. I would not be setting myself up for success…. Singing songs is the equivalent of dancing choreography. If your focus is exclusively on how to sing the song, then there’s something missing from your process. It’s not that technique has no place here, far from it, but the focus should be on performance. This is where technical singing lessons come in, and voice gym.
Singing Lessons are Expensive.
They really are. Sometimes, even a lot of the time, performers can’t afford to have a lesson. I totally get it. And I’ve been trying to figure out the answer to the two questions I posed above. What can I do to help enable performers to work on their skills, their technique, their conditioning? How can I serve my community without bankrupting them, whilst still being able to pay my rent? Hence voice gym. It’s not a replacement for individual instruction, but it can be useful as an addition, or if that’s all you can commit to due to financial/time constraints. It provides the two things that are hardest to do on your own:
Structure. If you find your singing practice starts with a half-hearted lip trill and goes straight into singing songs, then you need voice gym, even if you’re working with a voice teacher already.
Accountability. You’ve signed up. You’ve committed to learning. You have me on your computer every week taking you through exercises that you might not do on your own, because they’re boring/hard/unfamiliar. But you know you need to do them!
How Much Does it Cost?
A monthly subscription is $33
A yearly subscription is $400 (about the cost of 3 singing lessons) and can be paid in installments
Where can I access the gym online?
It’ll be available on a password protected page on this website, which you’ll be sent once you’ve signed up.
Where do I sign up?
Links below. You can cancel/pause your subscription at any time.