About John Joon...Vocal Coach For
'How To Sing High Notes'
 I loved singing from a young age and I
particularly loved to learn how to sing high notes. When many
children were enjoying themselves at playgrounds, my brother and I were
hiding in our attic, engrossed in our world of enthusiasm with tenor
voices of radio broadcasting. At that young age, I was
already attracted by the amazing and enchanting high notes and inspired
to sing them like my much-admired idols. As I had no
foundation or expert guidance on learn to sing better, the high notes I
produced then were uncontrolled and were basically made by mere,
excessive shouting. Looking back now, it was very fortunate
that I survived this without injuring my vocal cord or ending up in an
incurable state, although I was left with a serious consequence later
in life. I usually used what kids have, i.e. a sharp and
high-pitched voice, to sing high notes. But when I grew up a
little more, singing high notes as before seemed to be much more
exhausting, especially after the change in my voice.
Once I had started working, I found
myself a tenor singing coach, thanks to strong recommendation from a
girlfriend I had at the time, who was a very good soprano.
She had achieved great improvement in singing after attending vocal
singing lessons with this teacher, who'd graduated  from
the UK. Since these training sessions, her voice was so
wonderful and her high notes, especially, were so enchanting and
magnetic to me. This tenor teacher of mine, although a major
in vocal music in the UK, also claimed to be a master of Italian bel
canto. After a year of tuition, however, I found my singing
ability made no apparent progress and I decided to stop learning from
him. During the learning period, he rarely let me sing the
high notes; among the selected songs, the highest notes were limited at
f2. I felt extremely dissatisfied with his perception of my
ability to learn to sing high notes. Before attending his
lessons, I could hardly produce the note f2, and, after attending the
full year with him, I could only hit f2 with much instability.
Learn to sing better
At the same time, I had also started attending piano classes to prepare
myself for a career with music. My piano teacher knew my
strong desire for singing and vocal training. She thus
recommended to me a very well-known singing professor. But,
as the old professor was already over 70 years of age, he was in a very
poor state of health. I still recall my very first visit to
his home. I arrived one evening, and he was lying on his
sofa, watching a television program. He lazily gazed at me
and said, "I am tired, you may go back and come again next
week. I will take you if you’ve passed your
audition”. I subsequently started to learn from him
officially. To be more precise, I officially learned from an
experienced tenor how to sing high notes in the correct way.
As he'd lived and studied in Italy for many years, he had picked up and
mastered many of the singing skills and philosophies from famous
Italian tenors. He spoke very fluent Italian and was a
typical high note “maniac” too. But it was regrettable that
his own high notes were not very well sung, in my opinion, anyway.
I went on to learn from him for more
than three years and my vocal ability and skill obviously
improved. He helped me to lay a solid foundation for my
singing breath. He was especially particular about the
training of breathing for singing. He believed that if there
was not proper and perfect breathing, it would consequently result in
poor high-note production. He also advocated singing with a
voice where the breathing energy flows like the flowing of spring water
and that was an excellent analogy.
 Even today, I still cannot forget what he did
when I didn't perform well during my classes. He took out a
sharpened pencil and held it vertically. Then he put the palm
of one of my hands onto the pencil top and mentioned that it was my
voice. The palm of my other hand then held the pencil at the
sharpened end and he told me that was my breath. Meanwhile,
he used one of his hands to bring my lower hand upward and his other
hand to make my upper hand press down on the pencil, and the sharp
point dug right into my palm. He stated that this was the
relationship between my voice and my breath. It was so
painful and I almost burst into tears the moment the sharpened tip of
the pencil was inserted into my palm. But he did not seem
conscious of what he had done or maybe his intention to impress such an
important message overwhelmed his care for the injury he caused me?
The great tenor's fatal error
In the end, I was really grateful for his valuable guidance.
By then I was able to sing opera selections. I was also able
to produce my highest note of a2. Nevertheless, I still felt
dissatisfaction and also felt something had gone wrong because, every
time I produced the high note, I felt great strain and my throat felt
“locked”. After singing two to three songs in succession, I
was totally exhausted. He knew this very well. The
precise problem lay with my larynx. I was singing the high
notes with my larynx in its higher position.This was really the tenor's fatal
error!
I had already been born with a high
larynx and, because of the uncontrolled and inappropriate singing of
high notes during childhood, had worsened the habit of running the
larynx upward. My teacher knew this problem and he
thought he'd slowly eliminate it as my training lessons proceeded over
time. But this was my biggest obstacle in singing high
notes. When it came to getting me to resolve the matter, he
seemed to be rather helpless.
Just when I was worried about this problem, he died suddenly!
I wonder if he had much regret at the time of his death for not helping
his beloved student to rectify the situation.
 In the absence of guidance for learn to sing
better, I could only do my own searching. During this period,
I mostly kept away from works consisting of high-note vocals.
I was afraid the continuation of improper high-note generation would
aggravate the intensity of my laryngeal problem. So often in
concerts, I elected to sing the songs only for baritone. I
became a baritone!
My life reborn
An immigrant tenor had changed my
life, bringing about the fate of my becoming the baritone I didn't want
to be. He was an excellent tenor vocalist and told me that he
had the same problem when he was young. Therefore, he clearly
knew the solution to my problem. He also told me, however,
that he spent many years learning from an old and well-known
vocalist. This veteran vocalist had rich singing and teaching
experiences, spending the majority of his years working in a renowned
School of Music, developing the talents of his vocal
students. He had a brilliant vocal training system and many
of his students have won awards in domestic and international vocal
competition. Furthermore, they were not from just one
specific vocal-range group, but from various vocal ranges. So
you can imagine how effective this expert's training system could be
across the whole board.
Now, learning from the tenor who was the lead discipline of the
well-known vocalist, I was thrilled to eventually have my prolonged
problem – the laryngeal problem – easily treated and
resolved. I say “easily” because, when the core solution of
the problem had finally been found, the worries induced by constant
failures to find a solution were totally removed.
After the laryngeal problem was completely conquered, I was delighted
to find that increase vocal range was so easy to achieve because my
highest sounds were extended by a few notes. And they were
flexibly controlled up and down, as freely as desired and without
obstruction. From the outset, my high notes resonated well
because I had reasonably good breath support. So, thereafter,
my high-note singing was fundamentally cleared of all major problems.
While learning from my tenor teacher,
he had not only helped me to achieve well-developed high-note singing
but had also passed onto me a complete set of great vocal success
methods and an insight that was the grace left to him by his teacher –
my “grandteacher”!
Around this time, my thoughts also underwent a great change!
My passion...My career...
Besides being continuously contented
with the opportunity of stage singing, I had also begun to teach
private students and provide vocal guidance to various
choruses. Because I had sufficient ability and experience in
singing high notes, many other people who were faced with high-note
singing problems also came to me, seeking guidance and advice for learn
to sing better. In the process of teaching over the past 10
years, I have seen many talented students, both male and female, who
have had an undoubted ability to sing high notes but who have lacked
the appropriate knowledge and guidance necessary to progress and master
the techniques properly. Therefore, they could only produce
poor quality high notes.
Their concepts of how to sing high notes were not correct.
They basically believed that the higher they sung, the better it
was. They were ignorant about the quality of the notes and
were blind to the fact that such voices should be artistically
appealing.
From their profiles, I seem to see my shadow…to hear and to feel my own
sensation…the realization that the fundamental needs of singing
empowering high notes are what bring the captivation to performing and
hearing them.
John
Joon
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