CONFIDENCE. OPENHEARTEDNESS. PRESENCE.

I'm a Los Angeles-based voice and public speaking coach who works with professionals, performers, and people interested in personal development.

Services

Public Speaking Coaching

How I approach public speaking coaching.
Info on private coaching, workshops, and training for organizations.

Voice Coaching

How I approach voice coaching.
Info on private coaching and workshops.

Breathing and Stress Resilience Coaching

How I approach breathing and stress resilience coaching.
Info on private coaching.

Private Coaching in Voice, Public Speaking, and Breathing

Info on private coaching.

How I approach public speaking coaching.
How I approach voice coaching.
How I approach breathing and stress resilience coaching.

Workshops in Public Speaking and Voice

Next Public Speaking Workshop in Los Angeles

TBA, Summer 2024
Get info or apply for the next public speaking workshop.

Next Voice Workshop in Los Angeles

TBA, Summer 2024
Get info or apply for the next voice workshop.

Custom Public Speaking Workshops

For public speaking workshops customized to your needs, please contact me directly at info@voicecoachLA.com

Clients

My clients include professionals (executives, academics, founders, therapists, writers and visual artists, clergy, athletes, lawyers, and a wide range of others), performers, and people looking for personal development. They typically share a passion for transformative learning, as well as a desire to realize positive change in the world. I work with people in Los Angeles and all over the world. See Testimonials for a sample of my clients.

Bio

I graduated from Columbia University with an MA in Buddhist Studies. For several years I worked as a conflict resolution and organizational development consultant. During that time, I also did some acting. Because anxiety in speaking was holding me back in both areas, I took a class in Fitzmaurice Voicework®, and to my surprise I realized I was home. Its emphasis on being present, relaxed, and vibrant, and bringing that to communication, became the perfect bridge for my coaching practice which over time became more and more focused on voice and public speaking. See my full bio for details.

Public Speaking, Voice, and Breathing Tips (updated April 2024)

Motivation Tip
Do you want to improve in order to avoid shame? If so, consider this: moving toward a positive goal (while also developing a friendlier attitude toward shame) is often much more helpful than working hard to avoid shame.

January 2024

Public Speaking Tip
Rather than talking at people, you have the opportunity to talk with them. That difference really matters.

Read more about how I approach public speaking.

January 2023

Anxiety Tip
Rather than trying to conquer your anxiety, develop a better relationship with it. It’s a part of you, and being at war with a part of yourself makes your anxiety worse.

Read about the anxiety loop.

January 2022

Voice Tip
Water matters. Once you feel dry, and you drink a glass of water, it takes about 4 hours for the water to hydrate your vocal folds. Don't wait until you're dry. Drink water, and drink it often.

See how I approach being a voice coach in Los Angeles.

January 2021

Presence Tip
Get grounded. What does that mean? For a start, it means softening your knees, allowing yourself to breathe, and feeling the floor underneath your feet.

January 2020

Public Speaking Tip
Are you seeing the whole room? Even professional speakers have an unconscious tendency to favor one side or part of a room. That leaves the rest of your audience in the cold.

Find out more about how I approach being a Los Angeles public speaking coach.

January 2019

Breathing Tip
There is no breath in your belly. If you push out your belly as you inhale, you actually reduce the efficiency of your breathing. Discover instead how it's possible to release your belly out as you inhale. (Afraid of having a pooch? Then learn to release it out just enough.)

Learn more about how I work as a breathing coach.

Five Myths about Speaking in Groups

1. It's important to look at each person for 3 seconds (or any other specific number of seconds) while I speak.

This leads to robotic speeches and presentations. Instead of counting the seconds, learn to feel the audience and sense when it's helpful to shift your focus.

2. If I can just get rid of my anxiety, I'll be fine.

You might feel fine, but it's likely you'll also be flat. When you try to dull anxiety, it either makes it worse or it tends to dull all feelings. A presentation without feeling might as well just be a report on paper. The key is learning how to make use of the energy that you experience as anxiety. Here's an article which references good scientific research on dealing with performance anxiety. Here's a great TED Talk that addresses the significance of how we view and deal with stress. The realities of what leads to effective public speaking are more nuanced than in the study or TED Talk, but the principles are worth understanding. Here’s an article I wrote about understanding some of the basics about public speaking or performance anxiety.

3. It helps to imagine the group with their pants pulled down.

This could help if your goal is to talk to a bunch of half-naked people. Instead of doing this, focus on what matters. If you're not sure what's important, figure it out. It will make it much easier for the people you're talking with to follow you.

4. If I pause, or slow down, I'll lose the group's interest.

A well-timed pause, or just about any pause in which you're present, tends to draw an audience closer to you. It makes them wonder what you're thinking, what you’re going to say next. And their curiosity is a good thing. Talking quickly often makes an audience feel like you don't really want to be there.

5. If I prepare, I won't be spontaneous.

This is half true because there are better and worse ways to prepare. But if you learn to prepare in ways that really work for you, it leaves you open to responding to what is happening in the moment. And that engages an audience.

What I Do - The Details

VOICE COACHING IN LOS ANGELES
I’m a private voice coach for Los Angeles-based professionals, performers, and others seeking to develop or find their voice. I work with clients whose voices tend to get hoarse or feel weak, and with people who lose their voice, or don't feel their voice is adequately conveying their experience. I help people whose voice is habitually tight, high, or soft. I also train people to become more resonant and gain a fuller, more vibrant voice. Literally and metaphorically.

I also work with people who experience anxiety around their voice. With people who may experience stage fright when they speak. With people who mumble.

In addition, I have experience working with stuttering and conditions such as muscle tension dysphonia. Some of this work with stuttering and muscle tension dysphonia is done in conjunction with voice therapists or medical professionals.

Some of my clients are already receiving voice therapy when they begin working with me, or have undergone voice therapy and are looking to continue their development. As a private voice coach in Los Angeles, I work with many different kinds of clients with different needs.

I am a vocal coach for singers and singing teachers, but I don’t teach singing. I do teach singers how to find greater freedom and expressivity with less effort. My emphasis is on linking freedom and control in breathing to being vocally expressive in a healthy way, presence, and dealing with anxiety while singing.

PUBLIC SPEAKING COACHING IN LOS ANGELES
I offer private lessons and group workshops. Private coaching in public speaking provides an opportunity to focus on what is important specifically for you. How to prepare your delivery (and when needed, content), how to engage an audience (including developing presence), and how to approach your challenges in ways that work for you.

Many people feel anxiety, stage fright, or fear when public speaking. Finding genuinely helpful ways to address this can be challenging, but it's deeply worthwhile. Private coaching can provide a good foundation, and group coaching for public speaking can be the added springboard that helps clients face their challenges in real time.

While some of my clients are already quite accomplished, most want to discover how they can be better. This can be true for CEOs, presidents, board members… and for people interviewing for their first job.

BREATHING COACHING IN LOS ANGELES Breathing is so fundamental, and it's often unconscious. It gives us the energy we need, moment by moment, to do what we are doing. It is also affected by our experience, moment by moment. For many of us, the physiological processes of breathing have become encumbered such that our breathing inhibits our actions and reflects our rigidity rather than our freedom. The good news is that it’s possible to relearn how to breathe in meaningful and helpful ways.

Rather than showing you what is "correct," I will help you undo any unhelpful learning you may have accumulated over the years. That process of undoing, which at its root involves compassionate awareness, is itself a lesson in breathing. Then we will look at what is possible, paying special attention to what your body wants to do when it is feeling more free. As a Los Angeles based breathing coach, I find special satisfaction in helping people discover what is possible with their breathing. The work I do in this area is rooted in Fitzmaurice Voicework and is also influenced by Somatic Experiencing.

VOICE TEACHER CERTIFICATION:
I was a lead trainer for the Fitzmaurice Voicework Teacher Certification Program and Director Emeritus of the Fitzmaurice Institute. If you are interested in in-depth, holistic voice training and specifically want to be certified as a voice teacher, this program might be for you. Here is some basic information on the voice teacher certification. For more information on this type of voice teacher training, including application information, visit the Fitzmaurice Voicework site.

ONLINE PUBLIC SPEAKING & VOICE COACHING
Historically, I did most of my work in my Los Angeles studio and at clients’ locations, but because of COVID-19 my coaching shifted to remote coaching for voice and public speaking. Now I have a hybrid practice, and you can choose to work via Zoom or phone.

I offer online public speaking coaching for both individuals and groups. Since so many people are still in a lot of remote meetings, remote learning can be a very relevant and helpful format. For others, remote sessions offer a fantastic opportunity to learn from the comfort of your own home or office. While I typically do remote coaching via Zoom and phone, I can also use other platforms as well, such as Teams, Skype, and Hangouts.

I also offer online voice coaching for individuals. Now, no matter where you are in the world, it’s possible to work together.

FITZMAURICE VOICEWORK COACHING IN LOS ANGELES
Fitzmaurice Voicework includes specific adaptations of yoga, shiatsu, Reichian bodywork (from Wilhelm Reich) combined with classical theatre voice training techniques. Fitzmaurice Voicework was developed by Catherine Fitzmaurice over several decades of teaching, coaching, research, and personal exploration. Catherine adapted various disciplines -- such as hatha yoga and shiatsu -- to make them relevant to the voice. In many ways the specific genius of her work is the synthesis that she has developed -- that she then asks the voice teachers she has certified to discover anew for themselves. Her work was originally created to train theater professionals—taught as a core class in many professional theater training programs along with acting technique, movement, etc.—but has since found wide-ranging application beyond theater.

Speech pathologists have increasingly become interested in Catherine Fitzmaurice's methods as an aid in treating people who chronically suffer from a lost or hoarse voice, as well as those who lose their voice often, have a weak voice, or have restricted breathing patterns which limit their expressivity, or other voice problems such as nodules or muscle tension dysphonia.

PUBLIC SPEAKING & VOICE WORKSHOPS IN LOS ANGELES
The public speaking workshops I offer are attended by a range of professionals: from CEOs to mid level managers to people in school, to lawyers, clergy, etc. In these workshops, we explore how to develop more compelling content, as well as how to deliver that content in more compelling ways. Beyond the important technical learning, a lot of this boils down to presence. Executive presence is learnable! Most of the public speaking workshops are in Los Angeles, but I also travel when needed.

Most of my voice workshops are intended for performers or teachers of performers (including voice teachers); however, some voice workshops are also open to everyone who wants voice training. Once or twice a year, I offer a two-day introductory voice workshop in Los Angeles for performers and teachers of performers. From time to time I also teach five-day workshops that explore the whole arc of Fitzmaurice Voicework. In addition, I teach workshops of varying length that cover specific subjects.

The core of these workshops involves breathing techniques useful for speaking; finding a free and easily managed breathing system. If you're an actor and you feel like your acting technique is solid but you know you can be more available and don't know how, the introductory workshop is an ideal place to start. Most of the voice workshops are in Los Angeles, but I also teach internationally.

PRIVATE LESSONS IN PUBLIC SPEAKING
Private coaching in public speaking may seem like an oxymoron. But it's not. The value of private lessons for most students is really three-fold:

First, having a private coach allows you to focus very specifically on your own learning objectives and to do so in a way that fits your own style of learning. The work is catered explicitly to you.

Second, having a private teacher for public speaking allows many students the opportunity to face fears and concerns that they want some privacy about. This privacy can allow for a deeper, more constructive learning process to emerge.

Third, for some people, public speaking is at first too frightening to explore in a group setting. So having the opportunity to work on the fundamentals in relatively risk-free private coaching can be a crucial opportunity.

If you're looking for private coaching in public speaking in Los Angeles, please consider contacting me.

VOICE CLASSES IN LOS ANGELES
My voice classes are for performers and teachers of performers. They are ongoing and offered at a variety of times each week. My voice classes are used by LA-based actors who employ a wide variety of acting techniques and have a wide variety of experience. For some actors, attending voice class means having a place to develop and practice effective, healthy vocal technique; for some it's becoming more vocally expressive or developing certain aspects of the voice; for some it's overcoming phobias and facing their fear of revealing themselves in front of others in specific contexts; for some it's opening up the body and finding a deeper connection to oneself; for some it's about repatterning a habit of getting hoarse after being very expressive; for some it's having a place to play each week. My Los Angeles based voice classes are appropriate for theater actors as well as television and film actors.

Often actors in Los Angeles don't consider voice to be a relevant part of their training. In most professional actor training programs, however, voice class is considered an essential companion to acting technique. For examples of how voice training can specifically benefit actors in Los Angeles, see my article, To Breathe or Not to Breathe.

TED TALK COACHING IN LOS ANGELES
Doing a TED Talk? I have extensive experience in supporting clients with their TED Talks and TEDx Talks. If you want to help people and get your voice heard by giving a talk, and you want support with content or delivery preparation, I’m happy to support you. If you’re in Los Angeles and want to work on your TED Talk or TEDx Talk in person, please contact me.

TED TALK COACHING ONLINE
If you’re doing a TED Talk, and you don’t live near a great coach to do in-person training for your talk, online coaching can be an excellent alternative. Most of the dynamics of giving a TED Talk can be worked on online. When you get remote coaching, you may be surprised by how successful that coaching can be.

MORE INFO

LOCATION
My studio is in Los Angeles, and I also travel widely to teach and offer remote sessions online. I have clients from all over California, the United States, and the world.

I do most of my in-person voice coaching and public speaking coaching in these and other Southern California cities: Los Angeles, West Hollywood, Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Brentwood, Hollywood, Los Feliz, Silver Lake, Century City, Culver City, Studio City, Burbank, Venice, downtown L.A., Bel Air, Malibu, Pacific Palisades, and many other areas.

REFERENCES (see Testimonials for more):

Actor and director David Schwimmer says of his experience with me a voice teacher: “Saul’s approach is invaluable for any actor working on camera and essential for working in the theatre.”

Singer and actor David Rasche says of his vocal training with me, “When I worked with Saul, things moved very quickly. I have been able to do things vocally that I would never have imagined possible.”

Catherine Fitzmaurice, the founder of Fitzmaurice Voicework, says, “Saul is the lead trainer in my teacher-training program because he teaches with a rare combination of clarity and compassion.”

TOUCH
While it isn't necessary, touch can play an important role in the work I do. Through touch, students can learn to become aware of previously unconscious areas and invite the breathing into those areas in subtle ways.

EMOTIONS
It's never the goal of this work to make someone emotional. Instead, the easy attention and awareness that is developed in this work can lead to people gradually opening their emotional experience, or learning to integrate emotional experience in safe ways. I use aspects of Somatic Experiencing® in order to make the work more easily digestible.