Secret Singers Friendship Club

Secret Singers Friendship Club

VOICE BRAVE method -

cultivating friendship, belonging, wild creativity, and creativity for your voice

via zoom, or in person in Brooklyn, NY

Are you new to studying voice, and are yearning to experience soulful confidence in singing?

Are you an experienced singer who wants greater freedom, fresh creativity, and renewed pleasure with your voice?

Are you wanting to create and dedicate a gift song to yourself or a loved one?

Total beginners through intermediate and experienced singers, of all voice types and genres, are welcome.

Based off of your unique vocal journey, we can create a structure of voice work progress, based on continuity, vision, and consistency.

Sample Structure:

3 - 4 lessons a month for 4 months, incorporating basic themes of focus:

  • Month 1 - nourishing the foundation of body ease and breath energy, the inner voice roots and the outer voice blossoms

  • Month 2 - making a song your own

  • Month 3 - making your own song

Example goals:

  • cultivate more pleasure and freedom in your singing

  • write one original song, born from your unique and intuitive creativity, optionally as a dedicated holiday gift song for your self or a loved one

  • discover new vocal confidence while focusing on one chosen song (or more depending on your unique learning approach)

  • deepen your awareness of your body’s subtle sensations, breath energy, and intuitive impulses as a foundation for singing

  • grow receptive to ‘hearing’ your unique inner voice of wisdom + poetry; grow confident in amplifying that inner voice through sound + music

  • create music magic in your own community, by sharing your voice with the people you love (like a private performance for friend(s) or family, a public performance, or a group sharing hangout). ie, think of 1 or more people in your life you would want to sing for after our lesson package finishes

  • clarify your own personalized language for your vocal growth (because you’re the truest authority on what success means to you)

Methods:

  • a rich array of voice building techniques that are research-based, cutting edge, and oriented to safety and sustainability

  • an emphasis on play, curiosity, exploration, experimentation, and discovery (over correctness or perfection)

  • personalized, custom tailored voice exercises based on your unique voice

  • crafted parameters for unlocking new possibilities of improvisation

  • qi gong + yoga influenced breath / body / movement awareness, rooted in curiosity and enjoyment

  • journaling prompts that enliven embodied imagination and grow a base of material for authentic songwriting

testimonials

from private lesson students, and group course participants

  • I like that Rhys is respectful of the initial seeds and creative process of each person. He inspires us to realize our personal goals. I also love that he offers the knowledge that comes from living his life and not only from his development of making art.

    Maybel Ovalles: Multidisciplinary Artist and Facilitator, Co-Founder of CAMP Zipolite

  • I love Rhys's permissiveness to make and learn from mistakes - often the pressure to perform for instructors hinders progress, but with Rhys, I don't feel weighed down by expectations. He helped me better understand how to access different areas of my vocal range. With these techniques, I was able to put pitch in the backseat while attending to the quality of voice -- which in turn improved my pitch. He uses a holistic approach to embodying the voice through breath, presence, and mindfulness that feels refreshing and engaging.

    Jordan M. Rapaport: Singer, Songwriter, Producer, and Multi-instrumentalist

  • I love and appreciate that Rhys creates a container of safety and trust, which allows for the experience to be playful and fun. I found an edge to my courage I hadn't yet explored, and I'm ecstatic I did. I can confidently say I am a more authentically expressed version of myself, and that's been a lifelong dream.

    Sarinea Meserkhani: Poet, Singer, Lifelong Animist-in-training

  • Rhys’s lessons are a playful and revelatory somatic experience! The techniques he teaches feel like a shortcut to opening up my voice. The lessons are structured but also adapted and responsive to my energy. I had a breakthrough realization about my embodied relationship to my voice at the end of our second lesson. Rhys’s perceptiveness, support, openness, patience, and playful approach made the experience so enjoyable. I recommend Rhys to anyone who wants to explore their voice and have a container to dive deep into their vocalization while also developing techniques to broaden and expand their singing, speaking, expressing.

    Kate Sullivan: Singer, Somatic Movement Practitioner, Architect

  • Rhys’s coaching style is fun and fulfilling. To me it was supreme. The group session was like having a conversation with old friends. I did not expect to get out as much as I did. I can celebrate the ability I did not know I had. It is a journey, an inspiration, an achievement, and most of all it is fun.

    Mara New: Actor, Producer, Dancer

  • Going into Voice Brave, I wasn't sure what my authentic voice sounded like. I had tried on so many voices throughout my life doing theater, musicals, playing characters. As a result of Voice Brave and Rhys's coaching, I feel like I now have a voice of my own.

    Kelci Greenway: Dancer, Choreographer, Theatre-maker

  • I enjoy the open receptivity Rhys provides. I’ve loved his personalized focus, honing in on unique elements of my voice, my breath, my throat. He pivoted what he shared with me, what tips and tricks he provided, based on the moment, what I was discovering, what was happening with my body. I've gained a better understanding of how my mind affects the production of sound. I loved the dynamic safe space in group sessions, sharing with such loving strangers, creating these special relationships in such short time.

    Sarah Sebastian: singer, songwriter, dancer, poet, performer

about

Rhys has been making music professionally for over two decades. As a vocalist, trumpeter, songwriter, and producer, he has written, produced and performed on three of his own records, with the most recent entitled “Unsteady” earning over 60,000 streams since it’s release in August 2020. He has recorded and/or performed in collaboration with artists Tiger Darrow, Natti Vogel, Asha Puthli, Nisa, Halima, The Marias, Paul Weinfield, Phase One (Lesson GK), Jean-Michel Pilc, and more. As an actor / singer / multi-instrumentalist / movement performer, he performed in “My Onliness” at the New Ohio Theater in NYC in 2021 and 2022 (for which Theatre Mania calls him “an exhibitionist with a clarion voice”, in “The Most Singularly Insane Show In New York”), and has performed in underground Nie Theater of Berlin, as well in Phoebe Legere’s Shakespeare and Elizabeth: The Reality Show at Theater for the New City. With performance art duo, Elk and Feather, he has performed at CREST Fest, Five Myles BK, and in residency at Signs and Symbols Art Gallery, and in March 2023 joined choreographer Natalie Deryn Johnson as resident composer and dancer at Keshet Dance’s Makers Space Residency in New Mexico. In April/May 2023, Rhys performs as Oberon and Theseus in Neopolitical Cowgirl’s Midsummer Nights Dream at HERE Arts Center.

listen - rhystivey.com

rhys’s teachers and selected sources of influence

Kristen Ruiz - research-based Vocal Pedagogy, voice training tools and techniques

Betty Buckley - song work, stage performance

Jonathan Angelilli - Qi Gong, Energy Medicine

Integral Yoga Institute - Yoga Teacher Training 200hr

Zahava Griss - polyvagal techniques for harmonizing the presence system, embodying archetypes,Waking The Heart of the Human Family; grief ritual; healing eros

Natalie Deryn Johnson - movement and embodiment energetics

Coco Karol - Qi Gong integrated movement improvisation

Resmaa Menakem - Somatic Abolitionism

Ben Lusher - singing, songwriting

MIMA Music - teaching group improvisation and songwriting

Greenville / Albany - Michael Benedict, Christine Wezgryn, Ed Coughtry, ESYO - Helen Cha Pyo, Eric Berlin, Kevin Hendricks, Eric Latini

NYU Steinhardt - BFA for Jazz Performance - Jean-Michel Pilc, Ralph Alessi, Brian Lynch, John Scofield, Wayne Krantz, Andy Milne

Bard College - Erica Lindsay, John Esposito

contact