[by Kim Hee Ok] Change voice with hands?

That’s what ‘vocalpractic’ is about. When your neck is treated by human hands for just half an hour, your voice, which you couldn’t ever change, is actually changed like a miracle. 

‘Vocalpractic’ is a physical therapy for your voice and a sort of massage technique that relaxes the muscles around your vocal cords to make good voice. CEO Lee Seung-woo has developed the technique ‘for the first time in the world’ after 20 years of research, and has applied for patents in around 60 countries around the globe. 

This Is Vocal CEO Lee Seung-woo is receiving numerous requests also from overseas and extending the company’s area by establishing an entertainment company and training those who want to be a star. Here’s what he has to say, who wants to treat more people’s voice since the technique is too good to keep it to himself.

# Tone-Deaf People Can Be Treated|

CEO Lee Seung-woo majored in songwriting and vocal. He ranked the top 10 teams among six thousand competitors at the Fuji TV Medama Music Festival, and worked as the vocal for a duet called ‘Just Feel.’ His music has been released all over Japan, trained many new singers in Japan, and worked as a singer belonging to Euclidagency, a producing and agency company for famous Japanese singers such as Amuro Namie, Wands, and Da Pump.

Could you believe it if he had been tone-deaf but has become a singer in his 20s? In fact, CEO Lee picked ‘singing’ as the worst thing he could do in his school life. However, he wanted to be a singer, and overcame his shortcomings by learning Korean traditional narrative song and vocal music at some music institutes. 

Back then, he practiced signing for ten hours a day. Then, he felt his voice changed little by little. Since he changed himself from a tone-deaf person into a singer, he could provide knowhow on changing the voice which those vocal trainers who could sing well from the beginning could never felt.

He worked as a vocal trainer with his own special methods, and then opened his own musical educational institute. At that time, he used bold slogans such as ‘training for two months with effects for two years’ and ‘total refund of your tuition if your voice is not changed at all.’ Since the trainees learn singing for four hours at a time to master the course originally for two years for just two months, they came to feel some changes definite in their voice.

Then, more people wanted changes within a shorter period of time than 30 days. Therefore, CEO Lee came to study on ‘vocalpractic’ in earnest by dealing with larynx and vocal cords, which used to be object of his own knowhow.

From then on, he searched for and examined overseas materials on massage good for singing or the like in earnest, and repeated practicing massage the muscles related to making sounds with voice to change the voice for better and to feel the changes himself. Thereby he came to have studied on ‘vocalpractic’ for over 20 years if his time for studying with his own body is added. 

# Vocalpractic, the First Voice Therapy in the World

Vocalpractic, a vocal physical therapy, was created based on chiropractic, a therapy to relieve pain by correcting abnormal alignment of the whole spine and preventing the nerves from being pressed with skills by a skilled therapist and to induce right alignment of spinal joints by giving constant stimulation. It is easy to think it is a physical therapy that induces stable and correct vocalization through exercise of the vocal cords by applying spinal massage to the muscles around the vocal cords.

The principle is to massage the muscles that hinder good voice from being made among the muscles around the vocal cords and to make good voice. Originally, vibration is also naturally made by vibration of the vocal cords, but, some people make vibration in an artificial manner, and these habits come to overstrain the neck. It is similar to the process of a bad posture to cause problems in your body.

The changes are not felt by only listening but the improvement clearly shows through waveform. In addition, CEO Lee precisely compares and analyzes the changes between before and after the therapy with videos, earning high trust from the clients. As well, he helps improve your voice better by practicing exercises on the vocal cords called BVS. 

Amazingly, when your vocalization gets better, your rhythmic sense and sense of pitch are improved also. CEO Lee explains that those senses are related to vocalization.

There are also issues derived from language. As a result of performing vocalpractic on Westerners, Asians including Chinse and Vietnamese, and black people, he found the greatest cause was the vocalization habits from languages’ characteristics. Since English has more pronunciations that use resonance more than those in Korean or Japanese, those who speak English can’t help but phonate better. Since they are able to phonate better, they sing better, and vice versa.

Once CEO Lee held a class for correcting pronunciations while singing pop songs with a native English speaker on the weekends. Then, he found the actual pronunciation of the trainees got better by vocalpractic, and came to extend the scope of the therapy in relation to the voice.

Like this, you can even correct your English pronunciation and change your voice by vocalpractic. Even some actors, announcers, and voice actors have been trained with the therapy. Those with problems in their voice or those with spasmodic dysphonia can be treated, too. 

# ‘Before-and-After’ Comparison at This Is Vocal
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CEO Lee expresses the changes of his trainees with the word ‘before and after.’ This word has become a symbol for This Is Vocal since the company has many trainees with drastic changes within a short period of time.

CEO Lee recorded the miraculous changes of trainees’ voices within a short period of time with a video camera, and became more and more confident. At first, he recorded the changes once a month. Then, the cycle was shortened to once every ten days. Now, he can compare the status of trainees’ voices every day. He came to even make videos on the status of trainees’ voices before and after the therapy once a day, once every two hours, and once every thirty minutes. If you visit This Is Vocal, you can hit the correct note and your rough voice can be soft.

Of course, there are limitations in becoming able to sing well through a short period of exercise, but, you can see magical changes within five days in the videos of trainees at This Is Vocal. CEO Lee shows his confidence by saying some people receive training for around an hour and then register for the course.

So far, CEO Lee has applied for patents on vocalpractic in South Korea and for international trademark patents on vocalpractic in around 60 countries including the U.S., China, Japan, and some European countries for the first time. He has even registered private qualification certificates, newly pioneering the area of vocalpractic.
 

Status of overseas patent applications
Applications for patents and the patents on trademark

The media showed a heated response. A variety of TV programs and news media asked for covering the therapy including ‘News Desk’ on MBC, ‘Mysteries of the Human Body’ on KBS1, and ‘VJs on the Scene’ on KBS2. However, those TV programs only focused on how to overcome your tone-deafness for parties on holidays around the new year, without highlighting the techniques of vocalpractic. Therefore, CEO Lee says he wants to let people precisely know what vocalpractic is all about through this interview.

There have been many collaborations conducted. The company, This Is Vocal, has entered into a partnership on vocal training targeting the general public with Keumyoung Group Co., Ltd., which is famous for karaoke machines, and has also concluded an MOU with Dong-Ah Institute of Media and Arts.

Moreover, vocalpractic attracts the attention also from overseas. Two winners of the Korea-China BJ Audition, held together with Wangyi Group from China, visited This Is Vocal in South Korea and received training. In addition, two winners of an audition program aired by a broadcasting station in Vietnam also received training at This Is Vocal.

Besides, many celebrities have visited This Is Vocal. Sungmo from the boy group Choshinsung was disgraced by singing out of tune at Music Bank in 2007, but received vocalpractic therapy just twice to rank first in the Oricon Singles Chart. Actor Yoon Sang-hyun visited the company for the movie ‘Love Clinique.’ In addition, This Is Vocal also released the video of treating broken voices of two tone-deaf people, who have respectively appeared in the TV shows ‘I Am a Man’ and ‘I Am a Woman’ on KBS, boasting the techniques of vocalpractic.  

However, This Is Vocal does not run advertisements with famous singers who have been trained by the company like other vocal institutes do, since more people who desperately want to change their voices visit the company than those who are singers that sing very well. In addition, the company precisely diagnose the problems of each person through consultation. This Is Vocal has a variety of groups of trainees including soldiers, musical actors, those who want to singers, and students in their teens to sixties. Eighty percent of the trainees are ordinary people.

CEO Lee also wants to differentiate This Is Vocal from other vocal institutes. He targets all people since This Is Vocal can improve the skills of professional singers and realize the dreams of those who are tone-deaf to be a singer based on the special idea of the company that ‘Anyone can change.’

Recently, CEO Lee has established an entertainment company, and around 30 trainees are being trained currently. The company can have many trainees from the beginning, since it can change a person with no basic skills for singing to sing well through vocalpractic, unlike other entertainment companies who pick people with a good level of singing skills through auditions and train them. Thus, This Is Vocal’s entertainment company has different standards for the audition. Currently, the company is preparing for a broad range of singers and vocal groups for debut in South Korea.

CEO Lee says, “Vocalpractic includes my own history.” Since he discovered the therapy through exercise on his own for 15 years and has seen so many people with changes within a short period of time, he thinks it is too valuable a therapy to keep to himself only.

In addition, he told us that though he could see no change through some general training for a year, ‘vocalpractic’ can show dramatic changes within a short period of time, and he wants to help more people have beautiful voice within a short period of time by using the technique.
 

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