Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, San Francisco–based vocal coach Heather Vox estimates that about 10% of her lessons were done virtually. But since March 2020, obviously, “It’s 100%,” she admits with a pained laugh. Here, Vox, a lifelong performer herself, shares how she customizes virtual lesson plans for her clients, her tips for keeping your voice in shape if you can’t afford individual coaching, and the one thing virtual sessions provide that in-person coaching never could.
What is your vocal background and how did you come to coaching?
I’ve been a singer my whole life. I started as a little kid in choirs when I was 5 and did the whole gamut: musicals, bands, college. I majored in vocal performance and theater when I was in college, too, and then I moved to San Francisco and was just pursuing singing on the side: some bands, some jazz. Eventually, I ended up working for my vocal coach and I managed his studio, and that kind of dovetailed into getting into coaching myself. It’s now been 17 years. I was excited about some of the things I had been able to unlock in my own voice as a student, and I wanted to pass that on to friends and colleagues; they were struggling with different things and I was like, “Oh, I think I know how to help you with that.” And then it ended up becoming more my full-time career aside from the performing, which I still like, but I have been able to build my own business as a vocal coach and I love that.
6 Ways Singers Can Make the Most of Being Stuck Inside Tell me a little about your practice: What styles do you mainly coach and what is your approach?
My focus is definitely more pop, rock, musical theater—modern music opposed to the classical side of things. I am definitely interested in helping people who are working in music as best they can, and also just being able to really express what they want with their voice where they’re not held back by a specific style. Like, classical is very specific, there’s a very specific tone that you want, and I really love to help people who are cultivating their own sound. I think the myriad of coaching and study that I’ve had over the years has [made me] able to help people facilitate their voices.
“Try to set up a bit of a routine. It could be 10 minutes, five days a week you do some scales. There are things like lip trills, there’s a lot of cool stuff going on with using a straw to balance the voice.”
I understand a lot about the physiology of the voice, but I also think, just because I’ve always been a lifelong performer and always been so interested in the minutiae of what a singer is doing, my ears will just go, “That’s interesting, they did a little slip thing there, they have a growl here, what is making this singer unique?” And so then, when I’m dealing with my clients, they can tell me how they want to evolve their sound. I can assess what physiologically isn’t working to help them get what they want and build new coordinations to eventually do it.
How has your practice been impacted by the pandemic? Had you done virtual vocal coaching before?
I do work with musicians who go on tour, so [virtual sessions] were a really simple way for me to warm up clients backstage in whatever city they’re in. I had been teaching virtually off and on since around 2010, but that was about 10% of my clientele, whereas now, it’s 100%. It still definitely felt like a pivot, because I do think that it can be more challenging for people to understand how to hear online. And especially because, yeah, I teach pros, but I also teach lawyers who love to sing. That may mean a singer doesn’t have experience with scales yet or matching pitches or things like that. And in the virtual realm, that is a little more challenging.
How does a virtual vocal coaching session work?
I end up kind of creating supplemental things for them to do. We’ll do our session and then I’ll make them a second warmup recording where it’s like, “OK, so we did some of this today, practice it like this, here’s me accompanying you on a recording so you’re really clear about what you want to do in the in-between time.” But I have to say, now that I’m 100% virtual, I’m kind of digging it. It’s a lot better than I thought it would be. I can hear them even better because I just kind of turned on another part of my hearing. We’re always developing more senses dependent upon what the hell you have to do in your life, right?
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Do you tailor every virtual lesson to the individual?
Yes, I really do customize it for each person depending on what their situation is. Especially now that I’m dealing with speakers and singers, I have ended up working with a lot of people who need to give presentations; I also work with authors who are getting interviewed for podcasts or a TED Talk or something. For people like that, I’m obviously gonna give them a lot more spoken diction and we’re gonna work on varying their pitch and tone and emotion when they’re speaking. To the singers, it really does depend on what level they’re at: Have they done 500 shows in their lifetime or have they done two? It’s all fine, it’s just me figuring out how quickly they hear what’s working, what’s not working. And also, whether a singer is pro or not, everybody has different habits. Some people push really hard, send their chest voice into their middle voice. Some people just use a lot of air the whole way to try to balance, so for me, I’m just meeting the singer where they’re at.
“There are nuances that you may discover [in virtual voice coaching sessions] that you hadn’t before in your in-person sessions. It’s absolutely worth it.”
And then I customize a workout for them afterward and it’s just so they have a 10–15-minute recording of me accompanying them, talking them through the scales so that they have something really specific to practice between our lessons. And I think that’s what helps them grow, because you could do generic exercises that you find on YouTube, but self-diagnosis can be a problem because you might know your habits but you might not. It’s hard. A voice is internal, it’s in our body, so we as singers and speakers live in a distortion. You need that other person who has some skills to assess and say, “This is out of whack, this isn’t.”
Since so many performers specifically are out of work right now and many can’t afford vocal coaching, is there anything they can do to keep their voices in shape during this period of pause?
If they already have some exercises—maybe they have taken lessons in the past—if they have recordings, for sure revisit those. Try to set up a bit of a routine. It could be 10 minutes, five days a week you do some scales. There are things like lip trills, there’s a lot of cool stuff going on with using a straw to balance the voice. You can totally find videos like that all over YouTube. That’s a really good, safe, balancing exercise. I know it’s tough not having the funds to do continued study, but I do think it’s worth it to maybe take one session with someone good and get a workout customized for you and use that. You don’t have to take lessons every week. It’s just about getting something super specific and being really mindful and knowing where your edge is, your physical edge. It’s like if you were doing dance and your knee was feeling a little funny, obviously [you shouldn’t] keep doing the move that’s tweaking out your knee. It’s just building habits—neuromuscular habits—that are going to serve you versus fatigue you.
What would you say to those performers who are apprehensive to try virtual vocal coaching?
There are a lot of singers who do not want to do virtual because they’re like, “It’s not the same”—and it’s not. But, No. 1: Don’t be afraid. Get back in the game, and if you don’t have a current coach, if you can afford it, try a few sessions with someone, find someone you jive with. If you’re a performer, you have a good ear. You’re just gonna develop your hearing a little bit differently for the virtual environment. But it’s so, so doable, and you may even discover new things, because one thing that is actually pretty cool is the visual aspect. You can look at your face while you’re doing things, so when your coach is like “Let’s try to get more of a vertical shape,” you’ve got that mirror right there. There are nuances that you may discover that you hadn’t before in your in-person sessions. It’s absolutely worth it.
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