The REM method: sing, listen, adjust

Two phrases, one tool

We repeat two phrases and use them as a testing ground: sing them, test them, change them. Because the material is simple, all the attention goes to your voice.

Hearing your voice played back

With your agreement, your voice is recorded and played back. By experiencing what you produce, you adjust more naturally: that is how we learn. Little by little, you hold your voice like an instrument and adjust it on your own.

On stage, hearing yourself in the monitors links what you feel to what you really hear. In lessons I recreate that with piano, microphone and headphones: you hear the difference, I suggest an adjustment, you try again.

Improvisation sounds scary? It's simpler than you think

The word is intimidating, the practice is very accessible. Here, improvising means singing freely over two phrases, with no way to get it wrong, with me at the piano. It's always our starting point, because it lets you hear your voice as it really is, without forcing it towards a model.

Getting into the zone

Hearing yourself and improvising take you into a flow state, almost meditative, where you let go and your voice comes out freely, without judgement. That is where creativity opens up: you express yourself almost poetically, and the method also helps with writing.

Practice builds muscle memory

With repetition the vocal gesture settles. You know your voice and use it with ease and confidence.

What about real songs?

Of course. If you want to work on a sound, a register or a style, that's perfectly possible. I help you find your range and suggest songs that suit your voice as it is now. We work on them too, to vary the lessons and apply what you've discovered.

Body and breath

Posture has as much place in my lessons as singing. I suggest different body directions, which you try out to feel what they change (posture and voice).

We also work on breathing: rather than breathing from the throat or the nose, you breathe lower, into the belly. Professionals call it diaphragmatic breathing, a term I'm not fond of but that you will come across elsewhere.

Three areas of work

• Getting familiar with your voice: hearing it, knowing it.
• Opening it: widening your range, reaching mixed voice, the smooth passage between chest and head voice.
• Shaping it: finding your timbre, your colours, effects such as vocal fry, depending on your goal.

No fixed plan

There is no ten-lesson programme. At each session I listen to your voice and we work directly on what it needs. Lessons stay varied, never repetitive or rigid. Several students tell me this is what changes most compared with the lessons they had before.

Styles

Pop, rock and contemporary music. I don't teach classical, opera, jazz or musical-theatre singing, although the technique helps in every style.