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Jaime Vendera – Raise Your Voice – 2nd EditionVocal “SECRETS” of professional singers, vocal coaches, voice doctors, and rock stars revealed!What if I told you that I have discovered just about every well-kept secret that the world’s greatest rock, pop, blues, and heavy metal singers, voice coaches, and voice specialists have known for years? What if I told you that I have spent 15 years and 1000’s of dollars in vocal lessons, books, DVDs, videos, and vocal programs, studying the voice and vocal production, and have created a way for you to have access to ALL of this knowledge, while investing far less time and money??? Would that grab your attention???MY STORYTrial and error best describes my case, and I mean a lot of it! I have been singing since I could talk, but I didn’t start studying voice until 1988. Around that time, I was singing in a cover band, 2-4 nights a week, and doing fairly well, but I was having trouble hitting all of the high notes with the same power and ease as all of my favorite singers. I listened to the popular singers of that time, and was awed by their vocal ranges. I just couldn’t figure out how they sang so easily, especially night after night of touring. Singers like David Coverdale of Whitesnake, Marq Torien of the BulletBoys, Steve Perry of Journey, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Jim Gillette of Nitro, and Tony Harnell of TNT seemed to possess an uncanny natural ability to sing higher, louder, longer and stronger than any other singer on the planet, and I knew that they knew something I didn’t. My vocal repertoire wasn’t limited to rock. We also performed pop, blues, and country tunes, all of which I struggled through night after night. Even my speaking voice began to deteriorate.Although I didn’t have any of the answers to changing and saving my voice, I kept singing songs too difficult for me, and the day after a gig, I could hardly speak as a result of the strain on my voice. I could always sound great that first night, belting out the songs and not worrying about the consequences. I figured that was the way it affected everybody and figured that I could learn to live with it. I thought that by “not speaking” for the entire day of a gig, that my voice could handle one more show. Boy was I wrong!If we played the next night, I ALWAYS struggled. I tried cheating by singing songs in falsetto instead of full voice, but Guns-N-Roses, Led Zeppelin, Journey, Def Leppard and AC/DC just didn’t sound quite right when I sang these songs with a weak falsetto. Although this made it easier for me to sing night after night, my voice lacked the power and quality I had from belting out the tunes.So, I finally sought out a vocal coach from a local college only to be told that there wasn’t a correct technique for rock singing and that my voice was too low to ever sing what my heart desired.So I thought to myself, “What should I do”? Push myself to sound great and vocally suffer, or settle for the weak sound of my falsetto, just to save my voice? I realized that I didn’t have to settle for either choice by making a decision to find the answers myself! If other singers could sing with ease, then anyone should be able to obtain the same results. I knew this had to be true, especially since several of my favorite singers had very deep voices when they spoke, and could sing extremely high. I was determined to find an easier way, so I began my research to find any and all available information about the voice. I was obsessed with learning as much about voice as I possibly could. I took private lessons, dissected books, studied different styles and techniques, watched videos, and tried various vocal exercise routines. I even moved to Hollywood, California to study voice at the Musician’s Institute.Through years of experience and research, I have acquired an ENORMOUS amount of information about singing and the voice. There were multitudes of misconceptions about singing, and I’ve been through just about every single one of them. After over fifteen years of seriously studying the voice and figuring out what did and did not work for me, I decided to write down (in a journal) everything I could ever want to know about singing. Although I originally intended this to be a journal for my personal use only, positive feedback from singers and friends with whom I’ve shared my findings, finally convinced me that this journal was too important to be kept to myself!Thus my book, Raise Your Voice was created…But my journey didn’t stop there. My thirst for vocal knowledge was so intense that I created a website called The Voice Connection, to publish my findings and share vocal knowledge with others. By giving free voice lessons, studying and reviewing voice related books, DVDs, and products, and interviewing professional singers, vocal coaches, and voice doctors, I was able to help other singers while advancing my own passion for knowledge as well. What I have learned so far is astonishing! (You NEVER stop learning!) I have found ways to dramatically improve the power, range, and quality of the voice without spending years developing “the perfect voice” and spending hundreds of dollars on vocal training.In the first year of The Voice Connection, (before Raise Your Voice was released) I found myself in a situation in which I had to have neck surgery due to two herniated discs. After surgery, my neck was very stiff and tight and I had to develop a particular way to warm up my voice and release neck tension that would benefit me personally. Alas, the Vocal Stress Release warm up program was created. I have seen astonishing results with this system. This unique system stretches, strengthens, and relaxes all of the muscles involved in voice production. I created a sort of “vocal yoga”, if you will.But the Vocal Stress Release program is only one of MANY aspects. Another incredible discovery was developed from my interviews with professional singers. Through the dissection of their voices-I was able to create The Touring Singer’s Checklist, which is a guide for protecting and strengthening a touring singer’s voice. These two points in the book are worth the price of the book alone!http://www.raiseyourvoicebook.com/ryvbhome.html