Some common Estill myths…a conversation starter...

My understanding of the voice came initially from the voice training method which I now use in my private studio and with my theatre school pupils called the Estill Voice Training System. When I came across it in 2002 it changed my world, as in simplistic terms it gave me a practical physiological way of understanding of how my voice worked and how I could use it and control it better. Until then I was floundering around somewhere between instinct, musicality and emotion - none of which can help when you don't know why you are making the sound you are making or how to change it. 

In 2007 I qualified as a Certified Master Teacher in Estill Voice Training and have since continued my enquiry into the voice to include an expanding and varied understanding of other techniques and tools available to us as singers and coaches.

In this post I am interested in addressing a few myths which have taken my interest recently, for those of you with an interest in voice, singing, and Estill. 

Common Myths about the Estill Voice Training System. 

“The Estill Technique doesn’t teach breath use.”

Untrue. There is, by way of example, an 8 x hour full day workshop which is taught by an Estill Vanguard Teacher, held regularly at the Royal Academy of Music, which looks at breath use alone! (That is not a system that doesn’t deal with breath!) Any teacher not teaching breath use should not be working with the voice. One of the things the Estill work emphasises is that one breath does not fit all sounds. What is the breath meeting at the level of the true vocal folds? Can you adapt your breath use for your phrase length, your voice quality, your pitch, your dynamic? Can you be flexible? – Or do you just chuck a load of air at the folds, squeeze it out and expect the vocal folds to cope with it and do what you want them to do?  

“Estill isn’t for classical singers” - (I love this one)

Jo Estill was a classical singer! GO FIGURE! She wasn’t Ethel Merman! (Yet from her research Jo sure as hell learnt to belt like Ethel! Just because Jo defined the Belt ‘recipe’ doesn’t mean she didn’t understand, train in, sing, research or develop techniques for classical voice use. Jo Estill’s work is based on sound voice science, the principles of the human body as a dynamic system and has no aesthetic bias.  The model is for ANY kind of voice use; Jo’s aim was to understand, using voice science, how the voice functions whether it’s singing Rock, Pop, Jazz, MT, Folk, Gospel or Opera – the larynx is the larynx, the breath is the breath, what happens when the human body makes these sounds? Those are the questions her work aimed to answer and we continue to answer them through progressive research and study. 

“You can’t make a classical sound if you Belt and vice versa”

The larynx can. We don’t get dished out a rock larynx at birth! We all have the same apparatus. What is a given is our personal / natural aptitude for a preferred style or genre and what is hopefully constantly growing and changing is what we achieve through our training and experiences. 

And some people can make both a classical and contemporary sound exceptionally well. Here's an example:

 And two further points sometimes made, which I can particularly appreciate:

"Young people get frightened" versus Knowledge is Power:

I teach young singers who sometimes come to me terrified about singing or not knowing if they can rely upon their instrument in performance because they have not previously understood what it is they are doing to make that sound and when they DO learn the knowledge it empowers, liberates and relaxes them. I’ve never found it to scare them. Yes, the amount there is to learn might overwhelm them for a short time. Learning any new skill does seem frightening at some point when there is a lot to take in. Tough. Practise. Or go and do something else for a living. Not knowing what you are doing EVER is far more frightening than having to get your head around what is actually going on. And once people do practise and do gain control– they are in control. Try getting cast in a West End musical before anyone has ever told you how the hell to actually use your instrument – THAT’s frightening!

“Estill is everywhere! All the voices are becoming the same!”

Estill is now taught in all of the major musical theatre colleges and voice conservatoires because it has been recognised by those establishments that it works, they believe it is a valuable technique to give their students and it is 'wholistic' (intentional mis-spelling there) in that it can be applied to any music genre or vocal style. 

What makes voices the same, particularly in the musical theatre genre, though we do see this in the pop world too, is certainly not the fact we might teach people how their voice system functions using a particular model – there is no aesthetic or sound bias or preference or pre-determined destination in the Estill model. “Everyone can sing!” “Your voice is unique!” - two of Jo’s messages. 

What DOES make voices similar is the relentless imitation that happens through watching youtube performances, cast recordings, hero-worshipping artists and the imitation of them. 

Combine this with the similarity in writing style in the music available to sing within new writing in musical theatre and you get music that sounds similar. 

Furthermore, it’s the musicals that are cast for thirty years with carbon copies who must look and sound exactly like Rebecca Caine's Cosette or Frances Rufelle's Eponine to get the job in the re-cast. Resident Directors employed to make sure the carbon is copied in every move and eyebrow arch. It’s a formula. It’s what sells. The students all know it happens so they start practising young just to try and survive the highly competitive industry where they know jobs will be like gold dust.  The moment a new musical comes out young singers are all studying and replicating it. No wonder they all sound the same! There are thousands of bedrooms filled with young things belting out the Frozen soundtrack RIGHT NOW and they are all trying to sound the same! But it’s not a voice technique that does it. It’s what the singers DO with their technique, (no matter what technique or combinations of techniques they use) and the artistic choices they make. 

The question is - aswell as addressing these myths, how can we better encourage young singers to develop and honour their own sound and uniqueness whilst also preparing and training them for the musical theatre industry as it is?