Dena Murray, one of the head instructors at the Musician's Institute in Hollywood California, introduces a book dedicated to the art of vocal technique. As the name suggests, this is a guide to finding your real voice. The book sticks to the basics, in order to uncover your natural voice, and give the singer a foundation to work upon.

In this 60 page book, Dena focuses on approaching vocal instruction from a standpoint of finding and eliminating "trouble' in the voice. Her expertise lies in the area of taking a voice apart to train or re-train from scratch, in order to teach the singer to strengthen their weaknesses, and free their voice, as opposed to vocal manipulation.

Vocal Technique covers such topics as the voice and how it works, correct vocal placement, vocal registers, and breathing. She states that correct breathing is accomplished when the air flows freely, not squeezed or pushed.

Vocal Technique comes with two CDs. CD one is a series of lessons with guided exercises, illustrations, and tracks for practicing along with. CD two is specifically focused on four vocal exercises, designed to isolate and strengthen the separate registers. Although Dena uses more than 25 different vocal exercises in her practice, for the sake of the book, Dena purposely chose exercises to get the voice flowing. She wanted this book to be simple and easy to understand, as well as educate the beginner, and help each singer begin the path to vocal freedom.

Although this book is excellent for beginners, any vocalist will benefit from Dena's knowledge. If you are having trouble around your break points, Vocal Technique is an excellent book for strengthening the registers and break area. I recommend this book for all vocal enthusiasts.

I've been through many books about vocal technique and this is the best I have ever read. It's simple to understand and it gives to you a lot of useful and true informations about the voice.
The training program makes sense and the section about breathing is different from any other.
If you are serius about taking care of your voice do a favor to yourself and keep this book with you. It's gold.

I found this book to be helpful in the areas of simplifying the science of the relationship between the vocal cords and singing. The information and exercises have helped me increase my range and quality.

I'm sorry lady but you obviously cannot sing if you are straining over 4 measly scales. I doubt you will ever have a career in singing if you cried with this book. This lady is a goddess. I believe in her. I look forward to seeing her every week for my lesson. Its like therapy. She nurtures my voice. If you doubt the way she teaches and assumes all her students suck you are are terribly mistaken! I am one of her students. I sang in Cancun at the Ritz Carlton for 3yrs. My voice has been aired on various commercials and TV series on the USA Network Channel. I also sang with a choir in the movie "FACE OFF" If you still dont believe me just go to my website. www.ilovemiav.com. I've been to many voice coaches and Dena Murray is the only one who I completely trust with my voice. This book only shows a fraction of what she's actually capable of teaching you. I recommend you change to a new career.

This book is user friendly in the sense that it uses everyday language and no difficult terminologies. However, it tries to oversimplified certain aspects of singing such as building your chest voice and your body. There are only 4 scales to practise (plus some little extension to the scales) and you are supposed to improve your singing by just practising those four scales??? In addition, I hurt by my voice by doing the 4th scale which you are supposed to sing by bringing your chest voice as high as possible. As a result, I am suffering from severe sore throat. It's description of what the mouth should be like when singing vowels are not as clear as other books. Unlike other books it gave no advice on auditions, etc. It talks of making your chest voice stronger but did not mention making your head voice stronger. The CD voice is also horrible!! It make me question how good this teacher is if her voice is horrible. I would recommend Jeffrey Allen's "Secrets of Singing" (which is very useful and explain every thing!!). Other books I heard which are quite good are "Contemporary Singer" by Anne Peckham, "Contemporary Vocalist" by Jeannie Deva, and a book by Oren L. Brown. This book may be good for beginners (just maybe, though I am not sure) but for those who are serious about singing, don't buy this book. Anyone who wants my copy can buy from me. I wish I had return this book....