Hi there! Thank you for going out of your way to send a comment. I'm so glad this content has helped you, and I'm touched that you took time to send a note. All my best!

Glad you enjoyed it! Thank you for watching. :)

Thanks! Marina is a treasure.

This is a legit question- if you listen, he says he can longer perform due to a hereditary issue with his cords. However, if the doctor couldn't really tell what did the 'damage' to his voice (sounds like the dr. 'settled' on the hereditary diagnosis), I wonder how the doctor is so sure that Ken's acoustic-based technique didn't cause some of the issues. This is in no way a slam on Ken or his methods, but as a guy who is going through the same problems Ken describes in this interview, it does make me wonder.

Good question. Maybe it’s because of the lack of understanding about how it can be used to train other vowels. It can be used productively!

I completely agree. Straw work tends to expose all the ways we "work around" our technical issues, and that can be really traumatic. Thank you for sharing this story! I hope it will encourage people to stick with it, or at least give the straw another try after working through other challenges.

Listen to the video again. And then again, and then another 10 times. Then read Bozeman's books. That should take care of your sense of confusion. This is a little complicated, so give it the time it deserves. Bozeman did. He's been researching and lecturing on the subject since the early 80ties.

Thank you for watching! Hope it helped in many ways, and thank you for putting up with our technical challenges!

Chris it was a pretty exteme demo.

Danie thanks for commenting, and for watching. That means a ton, and I hope they have been helpful!

You are entirely welcome! I was hoping they would help someone out there. Thank you for watching!

This is a great question! I have my own personal list from grad school, and wonder what Ian Howell's "basic" reading list is. Let me work on this . . .

The properties of the venue absolutely come into play. Let alone the monitors, in-ear monitors, and all the other acoustic factors singers have to deal with. I have learned a lot about this lately, and wonder how pop singers manage! There are probably 100 more things going on than we really understand.

Agreed! A rising tide . . . that concept helps so much!

Marcin Brzezinski thank you! Best to you from nashville!

Kaela Mautz, the issue becomes whether voice training will cause harm on swollen vocal folds. That needs to be addressed by a doctor. I always err on the side of caution, so if you've never worked with this kind of condition and don't know what therapeutic techniques to use, ask your local voice doctor. Do you need contact info for a voice clinic or qualified SLP?

Hey Kaela, even though I am literally a year late to your response, I want to respond. I would absolutely ask they get a strobe because of how much the tissue changes when smoke passes by the vocal folds. Please accept my apologies on how long this took!

Pls encourage your student to quit. The voice would be able to repair itself and l can almost guarantee that your student would sound better, and possibly gain more range, ie sing even higher! Also it's better for the lungs, and there will be discounts can be availed from health and life insurance.

This is a great question! You can do straw exercises without water too, both ways work well. The water gives you visual feedback of your airflow. And the added length of the straw changed the acoustic properties of the vocal tract. Lip trills are great too!!

I think the blowing-bubble-through-a-straw exercise works because it reduces the tension in your neck muscles and in the muscles around your larynx when you phonate, which encourages your body to remember how to phonate correctly and freely. This is crucial because if you've ever sung with or in the aftermath of a cold or allergies (when vocal cords are swollen and inflamed, even with the tiniest bit of un-perceived swelling), you've literally trained your body to use muscle tension to phonate, which is incredibly damaging to your voice. This is called Muscle Tension Dysphonia (MTD). One of the gold standards in voice therapy for treatment of this disorder is precisely this blow-bubbles-through-a-straw exercise. This is probably why Renee Fleming claims it works. It's just an excellent vocal hygiene practice to do (like brushing your teeth). Lip trills also release muscle tension as well, but they work a different (partially overlapping) set of muscles than this straw technique. Why not do both exercises instead? It would be like brushing *and* flossing -- both are beneficial for overall hygiene. www.ohniww.org/voice-muscle-tension-dysphonia/ www.news.appstate.edu/2014/10/27/muscle-tension-dysphonia/

i guess it's kinda off topic but does anybody know a good site to stream newly released tv shows online ?

@Paxton Zayd i watch on Flixzone. You can find it by googling =)