Many people have been discouraged from pursuing a creative art because they’ve been told that you either have talent or you don’t - and if you don’t, then get another life. But a growing number of teachers in more recent times have taken the view that more music can be made by a person who seems ‘unmusical’, than they ever thought possible.
Cleveland Watkiss takes this view. Because everybody has a voice, it’s sometimes assumed that a voice is a ‘natural instrument’ and that some lucky individuals are simply born with one that’s ideally suited to singing. But there are many techniques that can be used to improve a singing voice, and in some cases even build one where the individual’s potential to sing seemed small at first.
Cleveland believes that proper breath control, good posture (what he calls ‘butt, thigh, throat coordination’), exercise, diet and many other factors can improve the singing voice - with a good teacher probably at the top of that list. He also explains some of the tricks used by singing teachers to increase a student’s awareness of what their voice can do, like the ‘fake yawn’, and singing to a candle flame with good enough control to prevent it from flickering.
