Leah K  
Instruments: Voice
Styles: Classical, Jazz, Pop, Musical Theater, Opera, Showtunes

I had my first ever voice student in my sophomore year of college. Because of my busy schedule and her distance from me, we met for our lessons on FaceTime. As a young teacher, I believed that giving her lessons would give me some great experience, as well as help her to improve her voice. Her voice continued to improve with each passing week, and so throughout college I took on a couple of more voice students here and there. I absolutely loved having the opportunity to build personal relationships with young singers. I felt such a rush of joy whenever I left the lessons; knowing that the students felt more confident after their time with me. Once I graduated, I decided to start building a studio with more voice students. Throughout the summer, I took in some more students, and I have built such amazing and positive relationships with them. My main goals are for my students to feel comfortable to express themselves, build on their technique, and most importantly: have fun singing. I believe that every person has the potential to be musical; not matter the age, gender, or ability level. I am so excited to have even more students to share the wonderful gift a music making with!

Because the voice is not as concrete as instruments, I do not use a specific, rigid method. Every voice is unique to the person. I create individual lessons plans for each student, and I tailor the exercises to the needs of that particular student. I believe that singing is the most beautiful and human thing we can do as musicians, and following one rigid method, in my opinion, does not motivate singers. My approach to singing comes from yoga. I begin every single lesson with about 2-5 minutes of breathing exercises that stem from yoga practices. As humans, the first thing that we do before we make any kind of a sound is breathe. I believe that understanding your own breathing mechanism will give you your most honest, authentic, healthy, and full sound. Every one of my students will be able to explain, what I call, "the pillars of breathing" and how it relates to vocal technique. This has given my students great success. I have found that once they connect to their breath, they connect to themselves and their vocal mechanisms more effectively. After the breathing exercises, I work on vocal technical exercises for the first half of the lesson. During this time, I teach my students about vocal health, vocal agility, pitch, vocal strength, expanding their ranges, and much more. I like incorporating visuals and movement to help the students kinesthetically connect to a concept. In the last half of the lesson, we work on vocal repertoire. With this, I mainly hone in concepts like characterization, interpretation, stage presence, pitch, and technique.