Crew Review: Vocal Coach Singer

What’s a mother to do when her music loving, choir participating daughter wants voice lessons in addition to her piano lessons but there’s no money in the budget for a singing tutor? If the mother in question is like me, then she’s going to be blessed to be introduced to Vocal Coach and the Vocal Coach Singer program. 

Here’s a description from the website:

“Vocal Coach Singer is the most complete instructional singing system available with the equivalent of over $2,000 worth of personal coaching time. Whether you are a beginner or a professional, Vocal Coach Singer teaches and builds upon the fundamentals essential to an accomplished singing voice. From posture to performance our tested and proven techniques will help you deliver your songs with consistency and confidence!”

Boobear, my oldest, is 17.  I begged the Schoolhouse Review for the opportunity to review this product specifically for BooBear.  She is a senior in high school and plans to major in music at college starting in the fall.  She used this product independently so I asked her to please share her experience and opinion. 

BooBear’s thoughts, experience, and opinion:

Music is part of me. If you were to write a definition of me music would be in the description. I play the piano. I teach piano. I also love to sing. Singing is involved in more of our lives than we think. We sing when we are cleaning, when we are in the car, to little children, and as part of worship, Everyone should have at least something from that list that they do. As singing is such a large part of who people are we all want to be better at it. Vocal Coach can help with that.

Vocal Coach is easy to use in your home. It does not take a lot of time, though if you wan to improve you do need to make a time commitment. It provides CDs, or MP3s, that fall under different categories. There are seven training CDs that include: Getting Started, Complete Breathing, Complete Warm-Up, Complete Tone, Complete Expanding Your Range, Complete Diction, and Complete Performance. There are also 4 workout CDs: 2 Daily workout High Voice for Soprano and Tenor, 2 Daily workouts for medium/low voice for Alto and Bass. There are also PDFs with sheet music for the different Exercises. I found this especially helpful as I like to have the sheet music around to follow and know what my voice is doing. Visual aids are important to me.

I have wanted to have voice lessons, however I am already taking piano lessons. Vocal Coach has given me a way to have voice lessons. I can do it on my own time, and move at the pace that I need to. It would also work for a wide variety of ages including adult and younger children. They provide a technical description and a more watered down explanation. There are also a lot of summaries at the end of the tracks. Listening to the tracks it sounds like they are trying to engage a younger audience while still keeping it interesting for an older one. This could get a little annoying for some older kids. Other than that I think it is great to have it so that a family could do it together. The tracks are not very long at all. The longest that I have come across is 8 minutes and the shortest 1 minute. Being short they work well for use with children of shorter attention spans, and for those who want to do more they can do multiples. This also makes them easy to review.

I liked to do 4 or 5 new tracks and then review maybe 2 or three when I did a session with it. You are encourage to do the exercises on your own. I like to do this as well, however it can take a few reviews for me to get the flow of the exercises. I have used the warm-ups in this way on Sunday morning before going to Church. That was one thing I am really happy about. I have been wanting a way to warm-up for singing in choir but I didn’t really know any exercises. Vocal Coach also says that even if you are not a singer, but you do speeches, or any job that involves a lot of talking the warm-ups will help you as well. You can use Vocal Coach Singer not just for singing but for speaking as well. They do not need to be used everyday, which is good as my life can get a little crazy sometime and I don’t have a lot of time.

One thing that I really really wish that they had was a little more of a laid out plan. They told you to start by reading the guide book and listening to the getting started CD but after that there was not much guide as to what to do. They did give an order on the website that they recommended. But it was hard to find. I would like there to be a much easier to find recommendation. I felt a little lost looking at all the tracks and CDs. Also there was no instruction on when to start using the workout CDs. I didn’t know if I should complete the training CDs and then start using the workout ones, or if at a certain point along the way I should start implementing them? I felt like I was trying to find my way in the dark at some points.

The above picture shows the physical Vocal Coach Singer which retails for $119.99.   We received the MP3 version which is available for $99.99.  If I could spare the extra $20 I think it would be worth the extra money to receive the physical product.  We’ve made the MP3 version (with PDF version of the guidebook) work but we don’t have an mp3 player and BooBear has been tied to the computer.  With the disks she could bring them to church and complete the vocal warm ups in the van or bring a portable cd player and use them as part of choir practice.

I’ve been very impressed with what I’ve overheard and what I’ve witnessed with BooBear.  She has much more confidence now.  Turtlegirl age 15 and Tailorbear, age 13,  have decided that they also want to give it a try.  Turtlegirl wants to use Vocal Coach Singer to improve her range and her ability to match her voice to the pitch so that she can join the choir at church.  Though a $100-$120 is pretty step for me right now this  is cheap cheap cheap for vocal lessons.

“Vocal Coach product doesn't teach a particular style, rather we teach you to master the principles of vocal muscle memory, which cause critical body parts to produce excellent sound, amplification, and control with increased stamina to predictably deliver the results you want! Before you know it, you'll be able to apply what you've learned to any style you want to sing. Just like a well-conditioned athlete often has the ability to play many different sports, a well-trained singer has the potential to sing many different styles.”

Vocal Coach Singer is intended for teens and adults but BooBear tells me that she thinks younger children could do this along with the family.  There is a program specifically for children ages 5-13, Teaching Kids to Sing that some crew members had the opportunity to review.

Check out the home school tab for hints on how to use Teaching Kids to Sing and Vocal Coach Singer in your home school.  You’ll need to scroll through the Teaching Kids to Sing information to reach the Vocal Coach Singer tips.

Read the Schoolhouse Review Crew Blog to see what other Crew Members had to say about Vocal Coach Singer or Teaching Kids to Sing

 

All information is correct and accurate as of the date of this review.

You can read my other Schoolhouse Review Crew Reviews to find more great products.

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