[Kat Hunter]

Sorry about how exceptionally long that post was haha.

[Kat Hunter]

IVA is the institute for vocal advancement: http://www.vocaladvancement.com. It’s pretty similar to SLS as I said. But last year a lot of people felt that SLS wasn’t being run very well as an organisation. So all the people who still wanted the education but didn’t want to do it with the SLS system moved on. It believes in the same thing: dealing with registrational imbalances in the voice using a resting laryngeal posture and adducted (but not pressed) vocal folds. I completely agree about Estill being good at the scientific side of things. For sure. IVA is still very scientific. And often-times IVA and Estill are trying to achieve similar things. I personally prefer IVA because it allows the teacher to think and hear in scientific terms (ie. What is this person’s larynx/arytenoids/folds etc. doing?), but then instead of communicating to the student in scientific terms, we use exercises and tailored sounds. We’re still getting the physiological effect, but in a way that the student doesn’t HAVE to know the science if they don’t want to. Not to get into too much of a debate between techniques, but one other reason that Estill doesn’t work for me is that there are multiple different configurations that are focused on. From memory, I think Sob, Belt and others. This is great if you can already vocalise from the bottom to the top of your voice with no breaks and are looking for different sounds to be artistic with. However, I find that most students have enough trouble getting into chest or head voice in a comfortable way let alone trying to make a whole lot of different configurations. But definitely if I had a student who was already proficient but wanted to know more about the science and the different configurations, I might well send them to an Estill teacher, for sure.

Alexander technique is definitely mostly postural stuff, but there are a few teachers out there who specialise in Alexander technique for voice (or for playing instruments). I studied with a really great Alexander Technique specialist when I was in Australia, but I haven’t done so much of it over here. It’s definitely not the whole picture in terms of technique, but there area few things I’ve learned from it that are helpful for certain students especially those who hold too much tension in their bodies. Just an extra something.

[Kat Hunter]

PS. If you’re into reading vocal pedagogy, I sincerely recommend the free articles on this website. http://corneliuslreid.com .

[Kat Hunter]

I used to be with SLS, but then when many of its good teachers went to IVA, I went with them. I still teach mostly IVA method with bits of Alexander Technique and a few other things. I’ve found this personally to be a pretty successful combination. I think Estill is great for gaining more in-depth understanding of the workings of the vocal mechanism, but unfortunately as the students cannot see or feel most of this, you have to develop ways to “trick” the student into using the muscular balance that you’re after. SLS and IVA both aim to teach “mix” in exactly this way. Science is great for your understanding as a teacher, but unfortunately teaching voice is not really like teaching guitar. We can’t “ask” a student to lower and tilt their thyroid cartilage and flex their TA muscle for example. But if you give them an exercise that does that, your job is done. I’m a big fan of Cornelius Reid’s work too, and I’ve heard great things from the Shenandoah Con. in the US. Jeannie Lovetri does some great work over there that I’d be keen to check out.