• Stimmklang Singing studio

Classic, Rock and more

Discover your voice!
Well-founded singing lessons for singing amateurs, singing professionals and those who want to become one.
Preparation for the entrance examination for a classical or musical singing course!

Someone once told you that you can’t sing or that you’re unmusical?
You think you can’t hit a note or someone once told you that you can’t hit a note?
High notes always feel like they’re a risk?
The high notes don’t sound as full as you would like?
You are insecure about your vocal range?
Your intonation is shaking in certain registers?
Top notes or notes in the “passaggio” are difficult to reach or sustain?
Your voice is weaker in the middle/lower middle range?
You quickly run out of breath when singing?
You get tired or even hoarse quickly when speaking or singing?
The text bothers you when singing, especially the consonants?
Certain vowels make singing difficult for you?
You are shy and don’t dare to sing in front of an audience, even though you really want to?
When you sing in front of an audience or are nervous, you lose control of your breath and your voice breaks?
You have the feeling that you can’t control your voice?
You think your voice is too quiet? You are afraid of being loud?
You are afraid to sing high because it doesn’t feel good?
You are confused and don’t know where to start vocally?
You’ve tried lots of things, but nothing has really helped you to sing the way you want to?

I am very familiar with all these phrases and problems. Either through my students, but I have also experienced some of them by myself. And there is really a solution for all of them. Curious? Then read my “Philosophy” or contact me directly to arrange a trial lesson.

Because: Everyone who wants to sing or has heard the “call” to sing should sing! Singing is fun! Singing strengthens self-confidence! Singing is good for your health! Singing is simply great and being a singer is a great job!!!

Singing lessons with Denise put the dot on the “i” that I had always been missing. As a classical singer with a big soprano voice, I was looking for a technique that suited me and my voice type. Searched for lightness, for fitness. I found this with Denise. It was my technical epiphany, the last puzzle got its place.
With her simple, coherent technical instructions and her calm, unobtrusive, motivated and highly professional manner, finally, her unique authenticity, she is for me the singing teacher I was looking for!!!”

If you’ve always wanted to learn to sing properly, you shouldn’t miss Denise’s offer. She approaches each student individually and always has exactly the right exercises ready. I have been taking lessons with her for 2 ½ years and am very satisfied.

I can really recommend Denise! She takes her time and the exercises are chosen to suit what the student needs. Your voice and breathing are improved, and you also develop personally. After consistent practice, you definitely have much better control over your own voice. The lessons were always a lot of fun!

After having had lessons with two other singing teachers and always thinking “well, I can teach myself that”, I was convinced right from the start. Denise was the first to really go into detail with the aim of developing a professional, healthy technique right from the start. I have been coming every week since last spring and thanks to my progress I am totally motivated to practise at home and am learning a lot about my body and my voice. Thank you so much for the fun and enjoyable singing lessons, you won’t be getting rid of me any time soon!

One of the best decisions of my life: learning to sing with Denise. She has been teaching me how to use my voice bit by bit for several years now – I can’t remember how many. Her lessons are very practice-orientated and individual. We students can show off our new skills to our families and friends at student concerts. Unfortunately, there aren’t any at the moment due to the pandemic, but next year it will definitely work out again. Lessons with Denise are more than just singing. She also pays a lot of attention to the personal development of her students. And singing is good for the soul! No matter how bad my day was, I feel good after the lesson. In the middle of the year, when the pandemic had just started, everything was of course very uncertain and Denise switched to online lessons with video calls. That also worked quite well. But for me, it can’t replace face-to-face lessons. However, the virus has now been better researched and we can take appropriate precautions. This means keeping our distance, sanitising our hands (or washing them, which I personally prefer) and wearing a mask as much as possible. Wearing a mask when singing is of course a bit impractical, but your room is really big, high and well ventilated. Now the text has become longer than expected. Denise, thank you for your great lessons!

Denise Seyhan is a very dedicated singing teacher: her students first receive basic vocal training. She works very precisely with the pupils and nothing escapes her professional ear. The student concert that she organises is also great, so that we students can get to know each other’s vocal diversity and practise performances in a safe environment. Denise supports each student’s individual vocal development. I went on a very personal journey of discovery of my own voice with Denise. Denise accompanied me very patiently every step of the way. And I am very happy to be able to experience my voice anew and continue to discover its possibilities! My voice has become much stronger and I have the feeling that I know what I need to be able to lead with my voice.

My approach

After 20 years of teaching experience

The vocal cords, or more precisely the vocal folds, are muscles that, like any other muscle in our body, can be trained in different ways to achieve a specific goal. If you want to sing opera, you train your vocal muscles differently than if you want to sing rock, pop, musicals or jazz. Of course, it’s often the case that a voice’s disposition points in a certain direction right from the start. Interestingly, this usually goes hand in hand with the singer’s preference. In my twenty years as a singing teacher, I have never experienced a singer who has a rock voice but really wanted to sing classical music or vice versa. Except for myself. I always wanted to be a rock singer. But I didn’t know opera back then either 😉

Despite these different training methods, the basis for all styles is the same. The muscle must first be prepared, i.e. strengthened. Interestingly, you start with the softest thing a voice is capable of producing: With the rim voice function, also known as the head voice. First the student learns to sing such a soft tone with the pitch l’appoggio (breath support), the adapted palato (soft palate) and the correct position in the upper register sul fiato(on the breath). That sounds incredibly complicated at first. In fact, it is also a very complex process, but with a little patience and perseverance it can be done by anyone who wants to.

There is something very meditative about it and there are indeed overlaps with Tai Chi, yoga and other meditation techniques in which certain energy points, meridians and breathing flows play an essential role. The student enters a meditative state and achieves a very direct contact with his/her body. This way of producing sounds is then effortless in all registers, even in the high register, and is described by most as having the feeling that it ‘sings out of you’ or that ‘the sound comes from outside’. These basic exercises strengthen the vocal muscle to such an extent that the pupil is now ready for the next step. He/she also often notices a gradual improvement in his/her speaking voice. For example, he/she is less hoarse (if there was this problem before) and now has more control over the voice when singing and also more stamina.

The next step is to activate the resonance chambers and strengthen the so-called middle voice. This creates overtones that allow the voice to reach the so-called singer’s formant. This is a frequency range that ensures that a singer can rise above an orchestra and that the voice is heard very well. This work activates the ‘internal microphone’ of the human voice, so to speak. This is particularly important for classical music, where you sing without a microphone. But this is certainly not a disadvantage for other styles either. Once this level has been completed, it gets exciting, because then you have formed your own voice – hence the term voice training – and can move on to pop, rock, etc. or to classical music, which means that you can start working on the corresponding literature.

For me, too, this is definitely the most exciting moment and is tantamount to a revelation. Because only now does the student’s very own timbre become recognisable, which is unmistakable, comparable to a musical fingerprint. I like to compare this process of voice development with the process of a sculptor who works on a stone in secret and then unveils the finished sculpture in public. It may seem boring at first glance that you only do technique up to this point, and it is certainly an unusual approach for singing teachers. But there are a few absolutely decisive advantages.

Firstly, the pupil has enough to do to master the process up to that point anyway. His/her entire concentration and attention is required. Simultaneous engagement with the text or even interpretation is simply not possible and would be completely overwhelming. Secondly, the voice is not yet capable of mastering pieces in a relaxed and therefore healthy way, especially certain passages in the high or low register. Because, and this is the third and most important point: the vocal muscles are only formed in such a way after this process described above that it is effortless for them to sound in all registers. Unsolvable intonation problems, problems with the breath, problems in the passaggio, in the high or low register, in the transitions, problems with the text, etc. are by and large simply not present, or can be corrected very easily. As the vocal muscles are now shaped accordingly, the technique has now been memorised by the body and is largely automatic, you can now throw yourself into the respective aria, song or song with joy, sing and even have the capacity to interpret. And that’s exactly where you want to be as an amateur or professional singer, isn’t it?

Of course, vocal development does not end here, but the foundation has been laid and it is now a matter of further training the voice, building up stamina and expanding one’s repertoire through different pieces, making pieces one’s own, singing ‘into the body’. For me, in addition to being a musician, the singer is also a high-performance athlete for whom the various pieces are like obstacle courses that need to be overcome. And for that you need a suitably shaped muscle. After all, you can only go into deep, wild water unscathed if you can swim and are in the right shape for it.

I explain the most important functions in the folder Tutorials.