I don't know what's going on over there since I had Adolph delete my account some time ago. But I always found Lunte to be a bit odd with his videos and over the top theatrics. He prances around in his videos and makes all kinds of weird stances and body positions as well as hand gestures as if he were on stage singing. Very odd. Ok...but that's no reason to leave a forum But. one day he posted a song in the critique section. You know the area of the forum where mere mortals go to post songs for critique? Actually he has posted a song cover in that section twice and both time received at least one or two critiques. Uh Oh! That didn't go over well. It was the second one that caused me to have my membership pulled. I forget the thread. Perhaps Deep Purple's Child In Time? he got a couple of critiques and he went hay wire. It reminded me of a 10 year old in a school yard throwing a hissy fit because someone made a joke about him.

He became very childish and defensive and even ended up banning Chris Miyai. Chris? Chris can outsing Lunte on a bad day. Ohhh man. Lunte was pissed and couldn't stand a little (and I mean a little) critique. He started bad mouthing Chris Miyai and his singing as well as his credentials and webpage. It was ugly man. It was really childish. "Do you know who I am?" Well, that did it for me. I couldn't be a member of a place run by a childish fool like that. CHILD in time? Him!

I feel the same way Quentin, vocal teaching is on my bucket list and I don't want to have to deal with personalities like that.

Actually though, I think my plan would be more about getting something going locally. I feel like the whole idea of having to reach across the world to find a great vocal coach through skype and pay triple digit sums for it is a problem to begin with - it is a necessary adaptation for our current situation and is moving us forward well, but in my mind, ultimately the ideal is that the information we get through online teachers eventually spreads and becomes easily available in local communities around the world and that eventually we can all go to our local ma & pa music store and get singing lessons for people of all ages and have them not be teaching incorrect misinterpreted spinoffs of proper technique. The thing is I don't know anyone personally face to face, who is aware of this online singing stuff and openly talks about it. Nor do I know singers who understand that someone who was often called a baritone can train to become a pop tenor and sing like their famous idols instead of flushing their dreams and artistry down the drain. They need to know the truth of how they can be helped.

Coming from my prior background as being primarily a drummer, I want to make at least a miniscule contribution (obviously I can't change the whole community, nor do I have the energy to try) to remodelling the idea of vocal training after the drum education community, which I've found to be extremely successful and helped to me personally. Some of its strengths are:
-chances are there are great drum teachers right in your town because proper information is more widespread and universal - there are few battling methodologies. Everyone teaches the same general foundation and stylistic expectations (based on what actually gets them gigs!), with some options of several different but equally correct approaches for technical concepts.
-there are no drumming programs where teachers sit and talk and don't demonstrate much. it's about 70% demonstration and comes from masters in the business as DRUMMERS not just charlatan teachers. Every drum instructional DVD you buy, it is by a professional drummer (or formerly so) that can show off and inspire you and happens to be generous enough to teach you what they learned and only charge like 30 bucks for a short, snappy and incredibly helpful DVD and don't need to give you 500 GB of "content". It's just helpful to aspiring musicians, period, no business BS attached besides getting the product out to an audience. Truth is, online is only a niche audience. If vocal teachers got their products distributed to music stores under record labels and such (and however the heck they do it - ever hear of Hudson Music? Exactly what they do), and went out and played some real gigs on the side, they would not have to fight for profit, they would just be enjoying their time helping other singers. This kind of GENUINE "inspiring by demonstration, and then explaining in detail how you can learn the same" vibe from the perspective of professional singers is what I think the vocal community needs more of.

That being said, I haven't even dipped my toe in the business so this is just uneducated brainstorming. I'm not going to argue I know it's gonna work (you never know!), just that it's an idea I've had that I might go for someday and some of you folks might find interesting to hear about.

I was honestly very surprised to discover how the vocal coaching industry is. It's just really really weird compared to the drum education stuff that made perfect sense and the TOP NOTCH information was so AVAILABLE - I was getting weekly one on one lessons right in town with folks who were currently out gigging or did for many years, and learned from scratch, no natural talent bullshit, buying instructional DVD's from my idol drummers from my local drum shop at like age 10, and attending clinics at that shop held where those same pro drummers come and shred and inspire you and answer questions from a 6 year old with sticks in hand and smile on face - this all happened because it was all affordable enough for a parent to try out on their kid with a passion!

Where is that in vocal education? Why is it just completely absent? Us singers need to drop our ego stereotype and be generous and actually share what we learn without coaches charging an arm and a leg and engaging in sketchy business practices.

Why not just talk singing you know? No one's gonna die from honesty and helping each other!

Robert seems to be living in a world of his own. He's not really as good as he thinks he is. He surrounds himself with people who will never tell him that. If they did, they'd be wrong, and there's absolutely no conforming to anything or making any admission to faults. Neither in technique or stylistic choices.

He has a history of being told he is wrong, and he'll argue his point until the cows come home and never admit he's wrong. When he's cornered he'll make a definitive retreat, saying everyone else is just misunderstanding what he's saying. I saw this in a falsetto discussion on Voice-council.

I have not had a lesson with him. I grant he has a good voice quality, but I'm amazed at the artistic choices he makes in the demonstration videos.

- Child in time's vowels are modified so heavily it sounds like he's singing "wahld" instead of "world." He claims it's due to showcasing the technique. But if the technique makes you sound like you're drunk, why would you want to practice it?
- Rooster's vocals are fine in my opinion. He sounds great, but nothing like Staley, I don't think he has the technique correct. He sounds like he's singing opera. Also, he gets the lyrics wrong like 5 times. For the love of christ, if you have the possibility of doing a great cover video in a great studio, why leave incorrect lyrics in the recording? Is the technique so inconsistent that they had to leave it at a subpar recording? Or if he thinks he's got a better way of telling the story of rooster, how fucking arrogant is that?
- Green Manalishi: is it just me, or does he sing off pitch most of the verses? He does sound great in the scream, though.

I got the program a year ago, about the same time I frequented TMV. Here are my thoughts on the pillars as it was back then:

+ The straightforward practice progression is alright
- But it's overcomplicated at many instances
+ Lots of science, kind of like CVT
- But no references whatsoever
+ Lots of drawings, diagrams, tables and flowcharts (yes, flowcharts)
- But lots of pictures and photos of Robert. Hello, narcissist?
+ Lots of fun workouts, diverse workouts (scales in different melodies and different tonalities)
- A majority of which is just filler content
+ Thorough demonstrations of the workouts in audio and video format
- Robert's pompous way of presenting himself is terrible to watch, what's with all the flailing?
- Robert misses tons of notes on the demonstrations (pitch), and his voice is mixed with so much reverb it's painful to listen to
+ Emphasis on resonant humming, I've always loved resonant humming, ever since Jaime Vendera's RYV
- OBVIOUSLY NOT PROOFREAD. I could venture a guess that Robert is of an Italian origin. English is obviously not his first language, so why not proofread the e-book just to avoid stupid shit like a word occurring twice in a row, or the wrong phrasing of a sentence?
- The workout scales come in different varieties, some of which are slowed down. This has been done by splicing, so the audio file literally sounds like a chopped up audio file, cracking and popping like no tomorrow. Especially on headphones. Also, the mixdown on the guide audio is so quiet it's hard to get it to sound through headphones.

I had some heated discussions in TMV and was banned. I should have probably been more diplomatic, but I think I got the same treatment that's given to everyone who disagrees with Robert or his administrator.

TommyTheHat said I'm sure Phil's intention was not to hammer Rob but c'mon. The guy is so much like a damn nail!!!

Well, yeah, the guy is pretty blatant with his views on other methods and ideology. But whatever, this is just a topic that I had to register here for. I'm sure I'll find other topics to contribute to that have nothing at all to do with TMV or anything related to it.

Hey guys I would just like to say I know we all have differences here and there but remember we all met on tmv so it's important that we just discuss technique and not post about why we don't like this guy or that guy it's all just negative when there are so many positives about technique and singing to discuss..keep singing!!!!! Peace seriously peace

daniel formica said

Hey guys I would just like to say I know we all have differences here and there but remember we all met on tmv so it's important that we just discuss technique and not post about why we don't like this guy or that guy it's all just negative when there are so many positives about technique and singing to discuss..keep singing!!!!! Peace seriously peace

Thank you Dan. A voice of reason.

Hello Kevin,

Well firstly, thanks for showing up and taking time to respond.

- It has nothing to do with this topic, but i appreciated your Run to the hills song breakdown -

Yes, theres a lot of chest pulling songs in Ken Tamplin's videos, but i remember also seeing him singing Mickael Jackson and Bruno Mars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5i995vE_NxA

This one has been recieved with more controversy -higher dislike ratio- than his other singing samples (probably due to his heavy singing), but at least we can say that here, he is not really into something that represent his style of singing. I have also listened to one of his Skype lessons with a woman singing a song from a Disney movie :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS6kLj7DaQw

It seems like a legit, real time singing lesson. Of course, it sounds great because the student herself is skilled (and good looking btw), but from what i see, the quality of the teaching (whether it is singing or interpretation) on this video is first rate. It is mostly songwork, but there are clues in the video that idicate she most likely has learnt with Ken from scratch. Then, it doesn't show all the students, but it shows some students who are doing great, which is better than nothing.
Finally, I think Phil has learnt a great deal from Ken's method and he is a teacher he endorses. We discussed a bit about Ken Tamplin during one of our Skype lesson and the his method seems robust.

In an ideal world, the Customer should have access to all the necessary information regarding the teacher, but in the case of teacher-student relationships, unfortunately, it is never the case.