On August 25th I had the privilege of going to Salt Lake with my vocal teacher Brodie Perry and another one of his students, Jill, to take a vocal lesson with Dean Kaelin. He is a level 5 Speech Level Teacher and he is the guy who gives other Speech Level Singing Teachers like Brodie their certificates to go to the next level. On this day Brodie was testing to be a level 2 teacher and Dean is the guy that evaluates him and makes that a reality. For this process Dean teaches two of Brodie's students (Jill and I) and then Brodie teaches two students he has never worked with before. They could be two of Dean's students but in this case Brodie's wife, Kerry, arranged for two students that she knew in the area, but of course people that Brodie had never worked with. The picture above is the studio in which we had our lessons. I just pulled it off the internet. Dean has gained some recent fame by being David Archuleta's (of American Idol Fame) vocal coach. When you walk into the studio there are signed headshots of performers and newspaper clippings hanging on the wall. You get the sense that this guy is 'a somebody' in the vocal teaching world. He is very humble and pleasant and I must say that my lesson with him was pretty awesome. He reiterated a lot of the same stuff that Brodie has told me I need to work on and what my vocal weaknesses are, but because he is a level 5 (which is the highest level in Speech Level), his experience is vast and he was able to give me some different vocal exercises and point out things that were so slight that I think both Brodie and I learned something that we can take home and work on in my lessons. He worked at a fast pace and the end result answered questions but also left me with a few that I will have to work out in my own practice and with Brodie. It was a great day and Brodie passed the evaluation and got his level 2! I hear level 3 is much more difficult to obtain, but I am sure he will get there. He is a great teacher. It got me thinking about my own future in Speech Level. I have benefited so much by this method of singing and once I get a handle on it myself I think I think it would be fun to teach. But for now I just need to SING!!!
Comments
Post a Comment