The singing ambitions of yours need no longer be confined to your bathroom shower stall. SingingSuccess.com has found a winning and harmonious formula for providing comprehensive, professional vocal instruction to its customers, who include both novice singers, as well as intermediate and advanced. And the firm’s client list, which includes numerous recording studios, and their client testimonials, attest to the effectiveness of the company’s instructional approach.

As we examined this company we found that there was no separating the firm from its founder, Brett Manning. Manning’s own history included a desperate struggle to improve his singing in order to qualify for roles in musicals that he was seeing in college. After seeing only disappointing results from using the prevailing vocal instruction techniques that were offered to him at that time, he began studying not just voice, but vocal instruction itself. This process gradually led to Manning’s decision to open his own vocal studio in Salt Lake City, which soon became renowned for the success it was having with its singers.

Manning moved to Nashville, where he began a career that involved training some of the nation’s top country artists, and artists in other musical fields as well. He then founded, and today is a teacher at, Nashville’s renowned Brett Manning Studios, where he provide vocal coaching alongside with his hand-picked vocal coaches, proven professionals who have been steeped in the details of his teaching methods.

Manning’s clients include singers who have recorded with Capital Records, Sony/BMG, Columbia, Atlantic, Epic, and singers on Broadway with Les Miserables, among many others.

After more years spent honing his teaching techniques, Manning felt that he was ready to present those techniques and discoveries more broadly, and the result was SingingSuccess, a series of DVD-based lessons in vocal techniques that spans the whole breadth of this field.

Despite his success in Nashville and with these DVD offerings, Manning has remained highly interested in amateur singers, who he believes can approach singing “without any bad habits.” This belief has led Manning to conduct seminars and lessons across the country, where he focus on new, undeveloped talent. This commitment to grooming the next generation of singers is also what stands behind his decision to produce this series of DVD lessons, designed for new singers. The result is that the secrets supporting some of the world’s leading singers are now available to you.

Featured Products

The company’s premier offering is SingingSuccess 360, which the firm bills as the ultimate resource for singers of all skill levels. This product covers any difficulty you may be having as a singer, whether it is in sustaining high notes, singing in tune, finding vocal power and endurance, developing vibrato, or improving vocal tone and style.

You can also order individual DVDs which explore each of the critical, core skills singers require. The firm’s Mastering Mix DVD teaches singers to master the skill of “Mix,” which is the blending of head voice and chest voice, and is a critical skill in developing vocal ability. You are also provided with Mastering Harmony Volume I, which contains lessons that, in the site’s own language, will enable “anyone, anywhere to learn how to sing harmony” by utilizing proven voice training methods. While this sounds overblown, the customer testimonials, which we will explore later, offer some real support to these claims.

The Harmony product teaches students first how to find harmonies, then how to hear them, and of course how to then go ahead and sing harmony. Instruction is also provided on the critical issue of determining whether to sing above or below the melody, and students will even learn how to sing harmony without any accompanying melody, which is a critical skill in developing as a harmonic singer.

The firm also produces a “Mastering Vibrato” product, which instructs students in this fundamental technique of voice control. Vibrato, the site advises, “adds depth and subtle intrigue when sustaining notes.” If your voice merely wobbles when you would like it to beautifully waver, this product may be for you.

The firm also offers a “Top Seven Secrets” series of DVDs, providing students with the top seven Vocal Exercises, the top seven Secrets of High Mix Voice, and the top seven Commercial Secrets (important for would-be professionals).

Prices

There’s no mystery to what these courses will cost. The Top Seven series of sells for $29.95 each, and if your appetite is whetted by those, the Mastering Vibrato course is waiting for $37.45, the Mastering Harmony course is waiting for $74.95, and the Mastering Mix course will run you $149.95. The Singing Success 360 course, which includes everything, runs $147 for the Basic level, $197 for the Medium product, and $247 for the Pro 360 Course, and that top flight course includes a singing lesson with a qualified professional voice coach.

Customer Service

The company maintains a contact form, as well as customer support through email and by phone, and live chat is also provided. They are happy to communicate by any means, and they seem to have a very forward stance when it comes to customer contact.

The firm also stands behind its products with a remarkable, six-month no-questions-asked money back guarantee that gives every indication of meaning what it says. If you are not satisfied with the product you purchased for any reason, all you have to do is say so and return the product within six months of the date of purchase, and you will receive your money back.

The site also has a set of Frequently Asked Questions, designed to inform new students of just what voice lessons can provide to a dedicated and hardworking singer. The questions range from Can I Improve My Tone Quality, to Are Head Voice and Falsetto the Same Thing, and on to Is It OK For Me To Sing When I Have a Sore Throat? (In some cases that could be catastrophic, but in other cases it will be all right. Every single relevant situation is covered). In fact, the answers to each of the FAQs are encyclopedic, and we found that this reflected a real concern for singers and for singing, and a real desire to support and serve this community.

Criticism

The site hosts its own very extensive page of customer testimonials, which are of course all positive (and nut just positive, but positively effusive with their praise). Looking elsewhere on the Web, however, there is very little negative criticism.

Most users are satisfied, even if some failed to achieve the global superstardom that they perhaps hoped for upon signing up. And the broad consensus was that the courses were effective in improving the commenters’ ability to sing.

Final Thoughts

You don’t need to be seeking superstardom to enjoy singing and to want to improve your skills. The Star-Spangled Banner, after all, deserves our best voices at baseball games, and really that is reason enough (if you enjoy putting your voice to a musical use) to study singing. If you are willing to invest some time, and some money as well, into learning techniques that have allowed many well-known singers to achieve the abilities that they have.

At SingingSuccess, Brett Manning seems to have hit on the right formula, after a lifetime dedicated to voice instruction and coaching, for extending the lessons he has learned to others through his innovative products. If your experience with these instructional products follows that of so many other former customers, you will be singing the company’s praises in no time.