Sherwin - Singing teacher - New York
1st lesson free
Sherwin - Singing teacher - New York

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Sherwin

  • Rate £40
  • Response 1h
Sherwin - Singing teacher - New York

£40/hr

1st lesson free

Contact

1st lesson free

1st lesson free

  • Singing
  • Opera Singing
  • Choral Singing

Sing With Confidence: Singing Lessons with Sherwin for Every Voice, Age and Level

  • Singing
  • Opera Singing
  • Choral Singing

Lesson location

About Sherwin

Most of my lessons start with you singing something you already know, whether it sounds good or not. I don't correct it at first. I'm listening for where the tone thins out, where the breath runs short, and where the pitch quietly leans sharp or flat before it has a chance to fix itself. Many singers arrive convinced their pitch is the problem, when what I often hear is a breath that ran out two phrases early or a vowel that tightened on the way up. Before you sing the next phrase, I'll ask you to predict what will happen. Then we check your prediction against a recording on your phone. The point is that over time you start hearing your own mistakes before I mention them, and that is what makes you less dependent on a teacher.

The methods I use depend on who is in front of me. A complete beginner might start with a sustained "sss" on one breath, counting the seconds out loud, then the same count on "zzz". The gap between the two numbers tells us whether you are spending air on the consonant or on the tone, and that is far easier to feel than to explain. With children I keep sessions shorter and use sirens on "ng", sliding softly the way a car horn drops in pitch, so they can find the top of their range without pushing for it. Teenagers whose voices are changing get realistic range expectations from me and a lot of speech-level singing first, because a voice that is still settling should not be asked for notes it does not own yet. A returning singer, someone whose voice has been unused for years, usually needs slow lip trills and gentle glides to re-find coordination before anything else. The same principle, keeping air moving steadily under the sound, applies to every one of them; only the material changes.

When a song keeps breaking at the same place, I rarely work on the whole chorus. The voice almost never fails on the note itself. It fails on the step up into it. So I mark the exact moment the sound starts to thin, usually the syllable just before the high note, and I isolate only that movement. We approach the note from below, from above, and from a half step lower, and I ask you which approach keeps the vowel unchanged. Lyrics are another place I separate the problem. I often have you speak the words in the song's rhythm with no pitch at all, so the text and the timing are settled before the melody adds its demands. An advanced singer may be reshaping one vowel for a single high note in a demanding song, while a beginner may simply be learning to keep the same vowel through a three-note phrase. Both are learning to notice what the voice is doing instead of guessing.

I also want you to become independent, which means you need to be able to make musical decisions, not just reproduce what you were shown. To build that, I sometimes set limits on improvisation. You might sing a blues-style phrase using only two notes, or a melody sung on a single vowel, so every choice has to come from phrasing, timing, and breath rather than from running out of material. By the end of a few months, most students can leave a lesson with a short routine they wrote themselves and a clear way to diagnose a problem when it comes back. Adults often come to me with a specific song they have wanted to sing for years, teenagers often bring the songs they play on repeat and would never dare attempt, and children often just want to make a sound they like. I begin with that song or that sound and build the technique around it, so the work always leads back to music you actually care about.

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About the lesson

  • All Levels
  • English

All languages in which the lesson is available :

English

My starting point is the recording. Most singers have a sound in their head that doesn't quite match what comes out, and it's very hard to hear that gap while you are singing. So early in a lesson I'll ask you to sing a short phrase, and we record it on your phone. Then we listen back together, and I point to the exact place where the pitch drifts, where the breath gives out, or where a vowel closes into something you didn't intend. Children and complete beginners often find this surprising and a little funny. Adults who have been told they "can't sing" often hear something concrete for the first time, instead of a vague verdict. Nothing is graded. The point is to make the problem visible so we can fix one thing at a time.

When the trouble is getting higher, I use sirens on a lip trill or an "ng" sound. You slide slowly from low to high and back, without any words. The aim is to feel where your voice changes gear, the spot where the sound wants to flip or thin out, and to keep the air moving steadily across it instead of forcing the note. You might recognise this frustration: you can hit the note in the middle of the song, but the moment the melody climbs past a certain point, the voice cracks or goes breathy. Once you can feel that change, we carry the same sensation into a single sung vowel, and then into the lyric of the song itself. For a beginner, this is a gentle way to discover your range without straining. For a more experienced singer, it becomes a way to blend the registers across a difficult phrase. Teenagers whose voices are still changing get the same slides, with much lower expectations for range and a lot of patience, because the voice is still settling.

Running out of breath halfway through a line is another common problem, and I don't start by telling you to "breathe from the diaphragm." Instead, you speak the phrase on one breath at conversational volume, and then sing it on the same breath, marking where the phrase naturally wants to pause. Next I have you hold a steady, quiet "s" for as long as you can and compare it with a sung "ah" on the same breath. This shows you where air is being spent for no reason. Often the real cause is not a lack of lung capacity but a jaw clamped on the consonants or shoulders lifting with every inhale. Returning singers use this to rebuild stamina gradually. More experienced singers use it to plan long phrases in a ballad, so the breath is decided in advance rather than grabbed when it runs short.

Lyrics are the last piece, and I teach them as rhythm first. We speak the words on the beat, clap the syllables, and only then sing them, so the text is secure before the pitch is added. Where a high note sits on an open vowel that is hard to hold, we look at vowel modification: a slight rounding or opening that keeps the note free without changing the word enough to lose it. Then I want you to start working through songs yourself by marking, on the printed lyric, where the breath goes, which consonants need to be quick, and which notes are places to relax. By the time we finish a song, you should have a short list of your own notes, so you can rebuild it at home without me. Children usually learn this through nursery rhymes and simple chants. Adults often choose songs they already love, which gives the lesson something real to hold on to.

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Rates

Rate

  • £40

Pack prices

  • 5h: £200
  • 10h: £400

free lessons

The first free lesson with Sherwin will allow you to get to know each other and clearly specify your needs for your next lessons.

  • 1hr

online

  • £40/h

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The first free lesson with Sherwin will allow you to get to know each other and clearly specify your needs for your next lessons.

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