Questions for Ken? please help.

Timothymurdoch1

Hi Ken,

I am new to the course and have just purchased the USB edition.

I have been watching the videos carefully in section 1 and have started the audio workouts.

I have been singing for over 30 years and am a full time musician.
I have also done vocal training for 6 years in the past with a very good teacher who was managed by the late George Martin.

I am a rock singer and I want to take my voice further which is why I'm doing your course.

This has not been a quick decision for me as I have been checking out your course for about a year beforehand.

I have some questions for you, please take the time to answer because I am VERY serious about my voce and this course as well as doing things correctly.

1, I have Cerebral Palsy which can make the sit up exercises difficult for me, although I am still trying.
Do you have any advice?
My breathing and diaphragm strength is very important to me

2, I have been doing the lip rolls but am finding I am running out of breath at the end of each note.
I noticed you did say the actual exercise was difficult at first.

Most of the other exercises seem fine I have been doing half an hour 5-6 days a week for about two and a half weeks.
So far i am up to the e vowel and my voice feels warm after each warmup I am moving onto more this evening.
I've also been reading the manual and watching the videos.

Does it matter if I spend another week or two on theses very first exercises?

Cheers

Loving it so far.

Trust and love

Tim Murdoch.

highmtn

Tim,

I just responded to your other post where you asked if Ken frequents the forums.

He doesn't. He has asked me to take the forums under my wing on his behalf. I've been doing that for about 6 years, now. I answer a lot of questions, here. I have about 12,000 postings now.

Let me answer your questions, please.

1. Don't worry about the situp exercises. What they are good for is to show you the AMOUNT of effort you may need to put into pushing down on your diaphragm when you apply maximum support. Situps are not a requirement for your daily regimen. They are good illustrations of a great amount of effort being put into your core. The situps are not a deal-breaker. They are an illustration to help you "get" the concept of really using your abdominal core when you sing. They are not the same "exact" action you will take when you support your breath.

2. Lip rolls can be very tiring until you get more acclimated to them. There are subtle things that will help, such as support, relaxing the face a LOT More than you think you might need to, and relaxing the lips. Very loosely pursing the lips and making a smaller-sized "hole" for the air to come out of the Middle, not the whole width of your lips, can make the air last longer. That's what you want. To release "very little air" as you do the lip rolls. Notice he says to do lip rolls and the tongue exercise very quietly. It took me a long, long time to get to where I could even do lip rolls without holding my hand on my face. Now it's no big deal at all for me.

3. Spend all the time you want to on each step of the course. The more care, focus, and time you put into it, the more you will get from it. You should plan on spending a MINIUMUM of 12 weeks on Volume 1. Some students spend more than a year on Volume 1. It is the foundation of your new voice. It doesn't matter that someone might have been singing all of their life. Chances are, they haven't studied what Ken has studied. Therefore, in order to get the maximum benefit from Ken's course, they need to become a blank slate and start from the ground, UP. Build a new foundation. Learn every concept anew.

I waited a whole year before I bought Ken's program, too. I studied everything I could get my hands on to "prepare" for KTVA. Nothing prepared me for KTVA, except getting it and diving head-first into it.

Take your time. Learn what Ken is teaching. Watch the videos repeatedly, now, and then after a week or two watch again. Each time you will absorb new information that you missed out on, or had not experienced yet, until you tried the exercises for a while. Then you go back and things start to fall together for you. Some things develop quickly. Others take time and repetition, and more time and more repetition. If you spend lots of time focusing on specific exercises and nuances, going back over the parts that are uncertain or weaker, you will have much more quality results than if you just keep going through by rote and not stopping to make corrections. Record yourself as often as possible, if not constantly.

The good news is that now you're here and you have gotten started. Take your time and enjoy the journey.
Getting there is half the fun!

All the Best!

Bob

Timothymurdoch1

Thank you so much Bob.

I will be asking A LOT of questions as my voice is my job and I hope we become really good friends.

Cheers from Sydney Australia.

Tim

highmtn

We will become well-acquainted. There are lots of very helpful people here, and I'm just one of them. But you will fit right in with the feeling of helping one another get through all of the hurdles in our paths. You'll be helping others before you know it. Just learn it right, so that when you help someone out it's an explanation of what Ken teaches, rather than our own spins on all of this.

Also, because it's not that prominent, let me point out that there IS a Search bar near the top of the page, and LOTS of subjects are covered in depth, multiple times. So always check first, before writing up a pile of questions. You'll benefit by exploring throughout the maze of topics, questions, and answers. There is a wealth of experience here.

Do make sure that your "VIEW" of the forums is as described in this post, so that you will get the clearest overview of what's going on here: http://forum.kentamplinvocalacademy.com/discussion/6980/unclutter-your-view-of-the-forums#latest