Customer Reviews

Change Your Voice : Change Your Life : A Quick, Simple Plan for Finding & Using Your Natural Dynamic Voice

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

First of all, you do not need to purchase and read all of Dr. Cooper's books. "Change Your Voice, Change Your Life" has the same useful material as "Stop Committing Voice Suicide" or "Winning With Your Voice." I know, since I have read all three. If you want to learn Dr. Cooper's methods for vocal improvement, read any one of them.

Dr. Cooper provides encouragement and instruction to anyone who is dissatisfied with his or her voice. He encourages a respect for individuality. He urges us not to fret over whether our voices are "too high" or "too low." The voice that sounds best for you is your own "natural voice," which largely means a voice at your natural pitch. Dr. Cooper teaches you how to find your natural pitch. He also stresses the importance of proper breathing. For him, proper "breath support" is achieved through diaphragmatic breathing, as it is generally termed.

A few years ago, when I first read "Change Your Voice, Change Your Life," I did all of the exercises to the best of my understanding. However, I never was sure that I was doing them correctly. I wished that Dr. Cooper was in the room with me, telling me whether I was doing the exercises properly, and correcting me if necessary. Eventually, I consulted with Dr. Cooper at his office in Los Angeles, for a considerable fee. As it turns out, I was doing the exercises correctly, all along. If you try the exercises, do so with confidence that you understand them, and that you are doing them correctly. The books' instructions are simple. Don't imagine that they are more difficult than they are.

Here's some advice for men who think their natural pitch is "too high," and who lower the pitch so as to produce a sound they consider more masculine or authoritative. When you artificially speak at a pitch that is lower than your natural pitch, you lose resonance. The result is a voice that is thin or weak, a voice that makes you sound depressed or lifeless. You need to speak at your natural pitch, even if you feel sure that your natural pitch is "too high." By speaking at your natural pitch, you restore resonance to your voice. As a result, you sound more vital and confident. Paradoxically, a listener may mistake this sound for a lower pitch. In reality, the pitch is higher than your affected pitch, but the sound is so much better. Resonance makes all the difference.

I am a professor of mathematics at a small community college. I saw Dr. Cooper interviewed about eight years ago shortly after I had undergone an operation to remove polyps on my vocal cords. These caused chronic hoarseness and made it very difficult to lecture. At that time I taught only part time and I considered giving up teaching entirely. After the operation the doctor said something to the effect "take it easy on your voice or you'll be back" but gave no useful suggestions.To make a long story short, I ordered Dr. Cooper's book Change Your Voice, Change Your Life, followed the simple suggestions, and have had no trouble since. My voice became so reliable that when a full time position came open four years ago, I applied for it without hesitation. I got the position and have enjoyed my new career ever since. I also enjoy having a strong, expressive, reliable voice. It is no exaggeration to say that the book did indeed change my life.J.M.Professor of MathematicsCerro Coso Community College

Morton Cooper explains about three things you can do to change your voice, which is all summed up in about three pages near the end. The rest of the book is filled with personal stories of some of his clients, many who are celebrities, and descriptions of the dangers of misusing your voice, and his thoughts on social causes of vocal abuse and misunderstandings of how to correctly use your voice. Maybe some people enjoy reading this. I think that about one fifth of the pages would have sufficed to contain all the practical information.

Having said that, I was mindlessly practicing saying "Umm-hmmm" and some of the other words he recommends while reading the book. At the end, where he reviews the exercises, I was surprised to find that my voice did indeed feel and sound more resonant and stable with more volume control. If Mr. Cooper is responsible for this change which occurred in a few hours (if it occurred at all, and I'm not entirely convinced), then I feel I owe at least three stars instead of two. I admit he writes some interesting things, but I still say it could be much shorter.

Horseness began to inflict my voice at its lower ranges a couple months ago, and it was surprisingly traumatic on me emotionally. It made me dread speaking! I remembered seeing Cooper plug this book years before.. and hoped my library would have a copy. It did. And the simple exercises laid out in this book took care of my problem. It proved to be an emotional life saver for me. And Cooper also has some great common sense advice on life in general in spots in here. He's a wonderful psychologist as well as a voice expert.

I have read Cooper's books and found that they are fairly useful. The interesting fact is, I was initially glancing through another title "Talk to Win" by Lillian Glass on Amazon. A reader made a review indicating Glass' book is not as useful as Cooper's "Change Your Voice...". On May 30, 2000, the offended author, Glass, wrote a review arguing that her book covers many aspects of communications while Cooper's only covered voice. Thereby, hers is more well rounded. Very interestingly, when I glanced through this page for Cooper's book, I found that ON THE SAME DAY (i.e. May 30, 2000), there was an "anonymous" reader gave a one-star, lowest possible, on Cooper's book. The reviewer said that the book is boring and not useful; this is in sharp contrast to all the 5 stars for this title from other readers. I think the readers can make their own conclusion for this very interesting "coincidence"! However, I do feel that Cooper's books are worth reading.

Not quite enough. Not enough pages. Not enough exercises. Not enough real models of good voices (The book does not include a CD as is truly necessary for this sort of thing) Not enough visual illustration. Not enough good science (What does it really mean to say 'the voice should emerge from the upper two-thirds of the air passageway leading to your mouth?")

On the other hand, too much. Too much motivational schlock. Too much celebrity name dropping. Too much evidence of the hurriedness with which this book was put together.

I hope the author will remake the book, include a CD, explain the science better, and get rid of the pages devoted to hyping voice training. The fact the reader has spent money makes that superfluous. Let's try again!

Speech problems can cause low self esteem, frustration, an inablity to explain one self and people that you meet lacking confidence in your abilities. I have suffered from all of these due to a raspy voice all of my life. Reading Dr. Coopers book has given me encouragement and hope that there a solution to my speech problems. The book covers many types of speech problems and the solutions that Dr. Cooper has recommended to his patients.

This book is not only for people that have speech impediments. For those that would like to improve their vocal power, articulation and vocal clarity, the exercises presented will improve their speaking skills.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone that is interested in improving their speech.

Jam-packed with powerful insights, Dr. Cooper teaches ambitious readers how to gain control of their voices and improve their chances of success. Recognizing the power of voice in the success equation, "Change Your Voice, Change Your Life" abundantly gives the "trade secrets" needed to transform ordinary voices into powerful megaphones of success. Rejecting the notion that voice is inborn and unchangeable, Dr. Cooper teaches interested readers the easy, straightforward steps to developing an influential voice. With extraordinary clarity, this book proves that voice is, in fact, one of the most overlooked but powerful ingredients of success. By following Dr. Cooper's lively, entertaining discussion, readers truly change their voices and indeed their lives.

At the time when I was diagnosed with paralysis of the vocal cords, I consulted the leading Ear, Nose and Throat doctors in America, who told me I would never sing again. These leading voice doctors told me that my problem was hopeless. At that time, I had been singing opera for 24 years and was singing as Cantor of one of the leading synagogues in the United States. As a professional singer, I understood quite clearly what Dr. Cooper was writing about in Change Your Voice, Change Your Life. His writing is concise and easily understood. The exercises in this book are simple and easily understood by the layman.

I immediately bought Change Your Voice, Change Your Life because I was very familiar with Dr. Cooper's articles on Vocal Suicide, especially his article, "Vocal Suicide in the Speaking Voice of Singers." This article appeared in the Journal of the National Association of Teachers of Singing of which I am a member. This association, I might add, holds Dr. Cooper in high esteem. I had been following his work for years.

The great Metropolitan Opera Bass, Jerome Hines, had Dr. Cooper write a chapter in his book, "Great Singers on Great Singing," on how Dr. Cooper miraculously saved his voice. After reading Change Your Voice, Change Your Life, I realized what needed to be done. I clearly understood what Dr. Cooper wrote about, but I wanted hands-on therapy. I traveled from Philadelphia to Los Angeles to work personally with Dr. Cooper. I arrived there on a Monday morning and in the short space of three hours of his therapy my problems were corrected. I left that Friday with a voice. That was 15 years ago. I have not had a voice problem since 1985 when I was diagnosed with the problem. Dr. Cooper performed a miracle for me. He changed my voice, and my life!

Richard Allen: Opera Singer, Cantor and Rabbi

This book is short, but it's still a lot longer than it needs to be. 90% of the book a collection of anecdotes that get quickly tiring.

Ironically, the publisher of this edition completely fails to follow the basic idea behind the book. The typeface is clunk and poorly spaced, and print quality is mediocre. I've never written a complaint about the production quality of a book before, but this one is seriously hard to read if print quality is important to you.