I’m off to teach at the California Coast Music Camp today! This year, the camp is finally located back to near the coast after several years of being up in the Sierra foothills. It’s a fun, friendly, all-acoustic, music camp for adults, and I love teaching there! My two classes are “Vocal Mechanics – a look under the hood” and “Vocal Styles.” Here’s the website for the camp so you can see all the classes offered this year. And get on the mailing list for next year! https://www.musiccamp.org/

I’ve spent a lot of time preparing the Styles class so that we can listen to a variety of voices within each style, discuss the vocal elements that make the voice fit the style, and then sing a few songs in each so we can try applying the vocal elements to try the style on for size. It will be great fun!

The Vocal Mechanics class is one I’ve taught several times over the years, and in fact, I have published a book that comes with a CD (or mp3s if it’s the PDF book) and use it with my private vocal students. In case you’re interested, you can pick up a copy on my website at: https://verlene.com/vocalmechanics.html.

I’ll be gifting my Vocal Mechanics class members with some coffee stir straws so they can practice SOVT (Semi-Occluded-Vocal-Tract) exercises, and also a “make your own” cardstock larynx model! For more info on SOVT, visit: https://www.voicescienceworks.org/sovt-exercises.html.

Once I had all the handouts ready to print, I realized I’d have hundreds of copies if I gave out all the song lyrics for both classes in addition to the basic handouts. So, in a desire to save the forest, and also the time it would take to print them, I picked up a projector that will mirror my iPad with all the song sheets and lyric sheets. No savings in cost, but it’ll be reusable, whereas the excess paper won’t be. And if I were to have more in the class than the number of handouts I will bring, there wouldn’t be a way to print more of the song sheets - well over 40 pages worth per person, so having them shown on the screen will take care of any class overflow.

So, now, can I get my harp, guitar, mandolin, fiddle, keyboard, amp, projector, screen, tent, cot, mattress, sleeping bag, handouts, books and CDs, coffee makings, snacks, and suitcase into my car? Find out in next week’s blog!