Making the most of your voice without straining your vocal cords

For over a hundred years singers and speakers have been using White’s Technique to achieve unexpected potential in their vocal delivery and its effect on listeners.

Ernest George White conceived his approach as a solution to problems with his own voice. White was a talented organist and choirmaster working busily and successfully in Victorian London. But in the early 1880s he faced a crisis which threatened to terminate his career.

Misguided teaching at music college caused difficulties with his vocal production, to the extent that he eventually found it impossible to speak and sing with any practical effect.

Resonance, not constriction

White set out to find an answer. After much research, experimentation and consultation he realised that the voice can be produced much more efficiently by using the resonant qualities of the head rather than focusing on the larynx and the constricted channel of the throat.

White’s Technique is now used by professional and amateur singers of all persuasions – classical, choral, operatic, rock, pop and blues – as well as teachers, lawyers, broadcasters and public speakers. It enables them to get their message across practically, persuasively and pleasingly.  Dr Peter Giles is  one of the UK’s leading practitioners and teachers of the technique.  He coaches both singers and speakers in the best use of their voice, usually in one-to-one tuition.

While teaching singers of all voice-types, he specialises in working with countertenors, including beginners, on both voice production and historical style. He also applies his decades of experience, knowledge and expertise to help countertenors and indeed singers of all voices who find themselves with vocal problems.

Dr Giles is the Course Consultant for Better Voice, the only provider of online courses teaching White’s Technique. When individual tuition is not possible, Better Voice for Singers, Better Voice for Speakers or Better Voice for Teachers provide step-by-step lessons and exercises supported by video and audio illustrations. Countertenors can use Better Voice for Singers in conjunction with Dr Giles’s book A Basic Countertenor Method (Kahn & Averill edition, 2005).

To contact Peter Giles for further information on making the most of your voice, click here.