Melbourne Singing Lessons and Natural Singing

Melbourne Singing Teacher

Walter Musolino

Teacher

Biography

Walter is the lead singer in one of Melbourne's most rapidly establishing POPULAR rock bands DEKKER. He has experienced - as a veterin pupil of many singing teachers over the many years of vocal studies - all manner and form of singing styles and techniques which did not resolve convincingly his personal vocal queries. Since undertaking vocal studies with Antonio at the beginning of 2004 he has experienced many notable changes: from a once impeded singing approach to a totally liberated vocal production.

Ever since, he has sworn by this system of learning and has time and again reiterated that "Natural Vocal Production" is the only TRUE way to sing. He is a qualified classroom instructor for Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Education Systems and holds both a BACHELOR OF ARTS (HONOURS) degree and MASTER OF ARTS (HONOURS) degree to his name. Walter has committed himself unreservedly to spreading his knowledge of 'Natural Singing' to all people interested in learning this only logical and reliable approach to singing.

Walter Musolino is a graduate of the University of Melbourne (BA Hons & MA) and completed postgraduate studies at the Scuola Normale Superiore (Pisa). He has also been a lecturer at the universities of Melbourne, Monash and La Trobe in the discipline of European Studies specialising in Italian and Comparative Cultures, Literary Theory and Greek philosophy. For twelve years he edited an international academic journal and published poetry in Australian newspapers and reviews. He secretly worked for the Literature Board of the Australia Council as a reader of manuscripts, approving – mostly rejecting! - funding applications by writers. However, at the first opportunity (ten years ago), he jumped ship to pursue a career in contemporary music, joining a rock band. Mind-boggling to those who did not know that he had always played an instrument in school orchestras (trumpet and Eb tenor horn), and studied guitar and piano from the age of eleven. And he had been a boy soprano.

But the path of true love is a rocky road. The pursuit of stardom led Walter to numerous singing teachers as he began to discover what struggle really meant. The gifted scholar was a musical bunny. A throat operation had left him with muscle spasms around his vocal folds. Very tricky that. Some teachers forlornly accepted the limitation this presented (“What a pity... you're almost a tenor”), others avoided going where the voice sounded the worst (“Man, those notes are unusable... forget it... don't even try”). In other words, these teachers did not have a clue about the role of rehabilitation for a damaged voice, or, at least, for damaged vocal mechanisms. Or teaching for these good people was a business not a calling. Walter was desperately in need of healing, of a healer. Velvet fingers and a midas touch to transform an ugly duckling into a lyrical swan.

Anyway... I came across Antonio's Yellow Pages advertisement during a fit of tearful rejection of all the negative statements I had heard about my vocal problems. 'Mother natural' and 'physiologically strain-free' learning. These catch-phrases seduced me. That, and the tone of unperturbed, brotherly concern in Antonio's voice that transcended constraints of time or limits of interest.

During three and a half years of intense study with Antonio at the AML Golden Voice Studio I have learnt how to breathe again, that is, how to release my breath, not push or grab for air, not gulp it but sip it. I have learnt how to become aware of (ie 'to feel') the actions of my sounds (voice production) happening in my body without any need for stressful interference from me. I have learnt how to leave the throat open in order to allow the voice to release, or shoot, upwards. All this has been less of a learning experience than a remembering one. Remembering how you used to do things as a child, with uncomplicated spontaneity, before expectations or injury kicked in. The 'system' Antonio teaches through invents nothing, therefore, there are no tricks. And you are not asked to acquire, or bring, anything. You already have what you need. You have always had it. You have simply forgotten to use it the way it was intended.

Finally, I can hear the transformation in my own voice. It is light, even ethereal, dare I say, when I sing in my own band. And so I can say about my life as a singer: there is balance in its force and nothing forced in its expression. The pleasure is to be able to show (teach) others also where it lies within them, this God-given ability given to us all.