The Balance Point: A New Concept in Vocal Instruction
Welcome to the new JDSVoice, the web site for the John Scott School of Voice. Our goal is to provide professional state of the art training to singers, speakers, and voice instructors, and to help them achieve their full potential in music and public speaking.
In this technique, we’ve consolidated all the important ideas about singing into one simple principle called The Balance Point. The Balance Point also represents the place where everything in your voice works in harmony. This includes the balance of the Chest and Head voices, the balance of air flow and vocal cords, the balance of the larynx within your body, and other important aspects of singing. Once the Balance Point is reached, it’s easy to sing with greater range, power, and accuracy than ever before.
I am deeply grateful for my two main teachers, Seth Riggs and Lynn Wickham, who showed me the foundations of proper vocal technique in both the contemporary and classical styles. The JDS\method comes from my experience of merging these techniques with the Alexander Technique, which is a means relieving tension and unnecessary muscle stress in the body. When these principles of release are applied to the muscles controlling voice, the Balance Point is achieved, and the voice becomes much easier to amplify and control.
We've consolidated these ideas into a curriculum that is broken down into five levels. Each level reflects a journey on a Roadmap of the voice from beginning to fully advanced. By breaking down the development of the voice into manageable chunks with clearly outlined goals, students can have a clear plan of vocal development to help them fully actualize their singing. The advantage of working with a clearly defined and effective program is that it not only takes the guess work out of vocal development, but it also helps establish a highly motivating experience for the student. Knowing where you are in the program, and what the goals and next steps are, helps to speed up vocal development considerably.
For now, we are only offering the technique in person, though we hope to release an on line version of the program this Fall. If you’re outside Bay Area and want to learn about the new method, feel free to set up a lesson on Skype. We have a database of over 100 scales and a well defined Roadmap that we can use to help you take your voice to the next level. We offer private lessons in Alameda and San Francisco, and you can check our rates and availability here at www.jdsvoice.com.
