About Kristina
My name is Kristina Jones. I am 80+ years of age and a lifelong musician, singer and teacher of bel canto vocal technique. "Bel Canto" (Italian - translation "Beautiful Singing") works for any and all genres of vocal music. It is a terrific voice training that has stood the test of time and is used by many famous singers, including Renee Fleming (opera), Diana Krall (jazz), Tom Jones (pops), and the legendary rock star Mick Jagger (Rolling Stones). It really works! In addition to music, I have been practicing and teaching kundalini yoga meditation in the lineage of Rudi (Swami Rudrananda) under the tutelage of Stuart Perrin, internationally known teacher of meditation for the last 50+ years. It is my great pleasure to teach music from a spiritual perspective!
Why you should choose me
as your vocal instructor
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I am entertained, challenged and inspired by people who love music and want to learn to sing better!
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I respect, love and honor all kinds and styles of music and have infinite respect for all singers who come to me
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I really know a lot about vocal technique, style, languages and presentation and come from a combination of good academic training and performing experience
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I can help you with the theatre side of singing: creating character, using theatre techniques to investigate authentic emotion, researching the richness of your personal presentation skills
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I am a graduate of Portland State University and have excellent credentials from some of the best teachers and universities in the US including 9 years of study with Gibner King (one of the founders of Juilliard School), Margaret Harshaw (Indiana University), Bonnie Hamilton (NY) and Martin Yazdzik (NY).
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I have experienced and believe in the healing power of singing and music and can train you to discover these qualities within yourself.
What I Believe:
It is a joy to sing. It is life giving. It is healing to sing by ourselves or with the radio or with each other. Scientists tell us that singing is also very healthy and current statistics show that those of us who sing will live 5 to 10 years longer than those who do not. The healing vibration of sound through the body can regulate cells and eradicate tension.
All music, everything from tribal chants to Bach and rap is sacred. Every style of music is good! It's all related to the holy sound of life. How many times have each of us been moved and changed by hearing "our music”?
Every human being in the world is born with a unique instrument. The Body, yes, the human body is a resilient, sound-making instrument. Each person is unique and so is their voice, as unique as their fingerprints. This amazing Instrument can be played like any other musical instrument, the difference being that the instrument can never be seen, assembled, handled. It can only be operated by its owner, and it is a question of feeling it within, and learning how to play it!
The Body is a vertical wind instrument. Like every other instrument it has three components: 1. vibration is set up somewhere, 2. it travels somewhere and 3. it is made into sound in an acoustic space. In singing, the three components are breath, posture and resonance. First, we learn how to breathe properly. Breath sets up the energy for the instrument to play. Next, we adjust our posture, lengthening our spine and using our muscles to create a physical path for the breath to travel over the vocal cords and make sound. And next, the magic, the resonance happens in our bones, first in our skulls and sinuses and secondarily throughout our whole body.
In every great religion there is a text akin to "There Was The Word, And The Word Was God, And The Word Created All Life". It is the simple truth that sound is holy. It is holy energy that we can intimately be involved with when we sing. In Asian thought the holy sound is the OM sound. We can hear it at all times and we can learn to let it enter us and help us sing our unique songs.