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Although I didn’t know it at the time, whilst appreciating the solid classical training I had in classical vocal technique at The Royal  Scottish Academy of  Music mainly with Winifred Busfield C.B.E. my own intuition led me to find affinity with Seth Riggs where the principle of relaxation and the priority of the development and control of the vocal mechanism and connecting registers is balanced by appropriate strength and control of the breath:   i.e. the breath is the servant of the vocal mechanism and not the other way round.

 

My reasoning came from the fact that for example the pipework and the reeds/mechanics of the Cathedral organ were balanced by the size of the bellows.

 

In other words putting huge bellows through a small parish organ - and indeed one which has not been properly developed - would lead to disaster and that is pretty much the standard approach to teaching singing.

 

I was a lecturer in music on the Rock and Pop Music Performance course at North Glasgow College for 10 enjoyable years where I taught mainly singing and in addition - for three of these years - piano/keyboards in which I have a teaching diploma.

 

Recent government cuts led to massive redundancies in the music department and I’m now equally happily freelance.

 

The exercise sheets (music notation handouts) which I will give you) are in fact largely the classical exercises that I used whilst studying singing but the emphasis in my teaching method is a mixture of a classical approach and the principles that Seth Riggs follows.

 

I very much distinguish between vocal quality and style looked for in classical singing and those appropriate to pop and rock music.

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