What is your greatest passion or joy as a singer, voice teacher, or vocal professional?
As a voice teacher, there’s truly nothing better than the startled shock followed by unabashed excitement when you coach a student into making a sound they didn’t know they could make or the sound they’ve been trying so hard to find. It’s like their own voice snuck up behind them and jumped out, and you’re just there for the surprise party. It doesn’t always happen that way, but so frequently someone just needs a couple tweaks to guide them into truly significant changes in their sound.
Half of who I teach are rock and metal singers looking for the most extreme sounds, so shock and awe would make sense there, but it’s not only in the extreme genres. When you get a naturally quiet person into a belt when they never thought they could sing with power, or someone who just “doesn’t like their voice” and you know exactly what exercise will get their tongue to stop doing that weird thing, it’s really a joy to behold.
As a singer, I have my personal practice, I have my touring black metal band Woods Witch, etc etc, but my greatest joy is probably just when I finally have a stress-free night to sing in my kitchen or my bedroom and I just feel like I’m nailing it singing along to my favorites.
Tell us the latest news about you, your studio, and your work!
Ya! The huge news with me is getting my teaching studio off the ground. I completed the NYVC Teacher Training and Distortion Training last year, started slow, and then dug in really hard January 1st and now in April/May when I’m writing this, my schedule is nearly full depending on the week. It has been a grind growing that fast but it’s a career change that is life changing for me and pretty soon here it should be stable and sustainable.
What is an interesting or funny fact about you?
I hitchhiked from the top to the bottom of Norway the Summer after I graduated college. Worked two festivals, made a lot of friends, slept in a skate park under a freeway onramp in Oslo. Good stuff.
What led you to the NYVC Voice Teacher Training & Certification Program?
Aliki Katriou! My own experience with destroying my voice with unsustainable technique for a decade is what lead me to voice lessons in the first place via a few different schools and teachers, including Aliki. When I realized how much I liked lessons and imagined reorienting my life around teaching I asked Aliki how she recommended doing that and she said absolutely the NYVC Teacher Training was invaluable and she recommended learning from Justin above anything else.
What was your experience in the NYVC Voice Teacher Training & Certification Program?
In under ten words: It is a trade school for singing teachers. In six months you will learn everything you need to know to teach singing- the theory, the practice, the soft skills. I don’t think there’s a single thing I would remove from the course and I don’t think a problem has come up since that I didn’t know how to approach. My mind is truly blown by how much I learned, by how much I didn’t know when I had already begun dabbling in teaching, and by how prepared I am now for students.
What advice would you give to future participants of the Program?
The same advice I’d give for any schooling- lectures are amazing, but the homework is where you are actually going to gain your understanding. Having a practicing student and giving a practice lesson every week is your #1 priority, doing the written assignments is… also your #1 priority. That is where you are actually going to learn and grow.
Ask questions and engage in class even if you’re nervous. If you are thinking it, someone else is thinking it. 80% of the time I had good questions, 20% of the time I looked dumb. That’s fine. You’ll be ok. Justin is very patient and kind.
Form a study group! You can message anyone in the class and ask if they’d like to exchange email or phone. My experience would not have been the same if I didn’t have a few buddies to work out problems with and bounce ideas off of. And post-course completion we’ve still gotten business advice from each other!
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced as an artist, teacher, or vocal professional?
I figured out how to do crazy metal vocals on my own as a 15 year old and it has always sounded impressive, but I lost my voice over and over again for 10-15 years. I’m still undoing a lot of that technique, and struggle with it even as I record, perform, and tour.
It is a unique challenge and frustration to be an expert in solving for other people the problem that you yourself have, but it really highlights how valuable it is to have a teacher. I regularly coach students into having healthier technique than I do, and if I had a screaming teacher 20 years ago (they didn’t exist), I wouldn’t have bad technique to undo. But now I have Nicolas who also teaches at NYVC! Literally last week we may have figured out the final key that I need to getting fully healthy vocals. Cross your fingers for me.
Bonus Answer: It’d be nice if this acid reflux went away too.
What was your greatest victory ever as an artist, teacher, or vocal professional?
As an artist, I started my current band (Woods Witch) as a one-man black metal project in 2019/2020 because I didn’t want anything to stop me from touring. I made it into our best local venues in San Diego as a solo act, filled out the band, and then in 2023 we toured the West Coast and played Cascadian Midsummer, the near and dear to my heart festival that I have been traveling to Washington for since 2019. That was already the greatest victory and now this year I return as a lecturer on vocal distortions! So reaching a paid festival level as a performer and a teacher is definitely my greatest and most gratifying victory (so far).
What is one piece of advice that you would love all singers to know?
Be dumber : p
Silly voices are the way to success. Sing like a cartoon character to get a bright poppy voice, sing like a mumbling ghost to find your most decompressed acoustic ballad voice, imitate the most annoying revving race car you can imagine to let a high larynx and twang lead you towards rasp. Imitation and exaggeration will take you so far- don’t be afraid to get weird with it.
What is something you've learned on your journey that you would love other vocal professionals to know?
Facebook and Instagram ads work crazy well. As much as I don’t want to be feeding into the Meta machine, running an ad for a free first lesson- which funnels into a form to submit name, number, and email, which ends with your booking calendar- filled up my schedule in a couple months. It’s a very high volume of texting, emailing, and flaked first lessons, but it works. I’m sure other advertising works too, but that’s my only experience so far.
How can we find out more about you and your work?
My Instagram and Website have some fun tidbits (at some point I’ll make more videos) but the best way to reach me to see what availability is like is by email! We can connect and schedule a call or go straight to looking at what availability is like.
Thanks everyone for reading!
Stuart
Instagram @ReadSingScream
