About Vera
“I help people to sing different styles of music, record, play the piano, gain good stage presence and write their own songs.
So where did I learn all this, you might ask…?”
What qualifications do you have to teach me to play classical music, read music and pass exams?
By the age of sixteen I was Grade 8 in singing and piano and had won many of the local music festivals.
Thanks to Westholme School in Blackburn, I got the GCSE’s required and
was accepted into The Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester where I gained my teaching qualifications,
Graduate of The Royal Northern College of Music
Licentiate of the Royal Academy of Music in London
Can you teach me to sing modern folk music like Mumford and Sons?
After college I moved to London to sing and play guitar in the folk clubs. I was then hired to entertain the British troops abroad in Northern Ireland, Sardinia and Belize in central America. This is where I learned my knowledge of modern folk music and how to entertain an audience. I did lots of live folk radio shows too. (I was self taught on the guitar so I don’t teach that).
Can I learn to sing pop music after years of classical?
Having done classical and folk music, I moved into pop. I apprenticed myself to a successful record producer called Bob Carter. I helped him out in exchange for sitting in on all his studio sessions for one year. I got to sing backing vocals for George Michael on one of the sessions.
By the end, I had changed my voice from pure and high to a more lived-in contemporary sound and set up my own recording gear in my flat. I worked as a session singer and backing singer and regularly sang with the BBC Radio orchestra.
Since then I have helped a lot of my students develop a pop voice and lose the “choir voice”.
Can you help me with my song ideas?
I studied songwriting and electronic music at UCLA in California.
I was signed to Warner Bros as a singer-songwriter, wrote and recorded many songs for them and had a hit in France with one. I love helping my students to write songs!
I want to join a band. Have you had a band?
I had a band called Pluto. We did covers of The Pretenders, Tracy Chapman, Bob Dylan, Crowded House etc. I did keyboard, rhythm guitar and lead vocals.
So when did you start teaching?
After 15 years as a professional musician I really just fell into it. The owner of the local music shop asked me to take over 5 of his students and teach them in the back of the shop every Monday. I loved it! I was a duck to water and never looked back. I’ve been teaching ever since.
Within 3 years I had created The Solo School of Singing (in Sussex) It was the first to concentrate on pop music for singers. Thousands of students attended over 17 years. Many went on to The Brit School and BIMM. I’m very proud of that school and all the wonderful people who attended.
When did your studio open Clitheroe?
From 2008 I was living in the USA with a teaching practice in Washington DC and another in Florida.
When Covid hit, my whole teaching studio went online with Zoom lessons.
This allowed me to come home and still have my students. Having grown up in Blackburn, I’d always wanted to live in the Ribble Valley. So I bought a house in Clitheroe in 2021 and opened my music studio in 2022. I am very happy to be part of this beautiful town and welcoming wonderful new students to my studio.