Eating plenty of whole grains, fruit, and vegetables helps to keep the throat healthy too.

Remember something that amused you – made you smile. As you smile your throat relaxes – you might want to yawn - that’s even better. Remember something that made you laugh. If you can feel your stomach dancing up and down it means you’re relaxing your breathing muscles. Which is good…

Silently whisper HAAAAAA for 8 seconds. Breathe out… let go… you’ll feel more relaxed!

ABOUT ALAN Woodhouse - voice coach & Voice Trainer

2007 was a good year for me. Working with exciting young singers at the Paris Opera. Shakespeare in Rome in the autumn. And Handel’s MESSIAH with the Berlin Philarmonic at Christmas. During the summer I worked on a joint US/UK made-for-TV film about the death of Princess Diana.
2008 is shaping up well. I’m coaching 2 exciting young writers. Both need to talk about their work. And about themselves. In public. To do Presentations and Speeches and Question & Answer sessions.
Written words and spoken words, 2 quite different animals. My job is to take their ideas, from their writing, and from our conversations together. I structure them and prepare them for performance. Spoken language techniques are linked with my clients’ specialist knowledge of the written word.

After TRAINING as a singer and actor at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, London, I studied Voice at the Central School of Speech & Drama, London

CAREER as singer, actor, voice coach, acting coach, presentation skills coach, stage director, script development advisor.

I work with corporate clients: I work with actors and singers and presenters.

I come from a performance background: in all of my work I focus on communication. Learning the technical skills, finding the words, structuring the message, preparing to deliver. Everyone needs to find a voice to meet the world. Always alive to the ever-changing moment.

I wanted to sing and act, and I did – Royal Opera House Covent Garden, West End, TV and Radio.

I always wanted to direct, and I do – with professional actors and in major drama academies in this country and in Italy.

I honestly think that teaching is the best way to learn something.

My teaching career includes work at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, Central School of Speech & Drama, L.A.M.D.A., Webber Douglas Academy, Arts Educational Schools, and Rose Bruford College.

I’ve also worked as teacher and coach in Italy, France, Germany, Denmark, Hungary, and Sicily

Voice coaching actors and singers is a major part of my working life. Clients include Royal National Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, Royal Opera House Covent Garden, and Glyndebourne Opera.

I work as English Language Consultant with the baroque music group Les Arts Florissants in Paris.

Corporate work

1-to-1 work allows me to enter your world. Find out who you are. I want you to feel comfortable with your voice. To trust it.

Your voice must work hard for you.

I’ve been advising NHS and Home Office executives on relaxation and voice training. How to prepare physically, mentally, and emotionally for the big meeting, the important presentation.

Other clients come from Poland, Denmark, France, Taiwan. They need a clear Standard English pronunciation, for their career, for their life.

Investment Bankers Dresdner Kleinwort and the Department of Work and Pensions have been recent clients, working 1-to-1 and in small groups

London law firms Taylor Wessing and CMS Cameron McKenna have been recent clients, working 1-to-1 and in small groups.

Structural Engineers Buro Happold, and Nortel Networks both invited me to do one-day workshops including group work and 1-to-1.

We focused on vocal power, projection, and presentation

It’s been a great pleasure to do voice work with both trainee and fully-fledged teachers during 2007. Teaching is hard work on the voice. No professional voice-user has more need. Sustaining vocal energy in an often rough climate!

Radio and TV Presenters need performance skills. I use all my experience as acting coach, and communication skills coach, and my work advising young writers on script development. I’ve been working for BBC Radio 3, Capital Radio, World Radio Geneva, Talkback TV Productions and Ricochet.