I found this website the other day and I'm womdering whether this dude knows what he's talking about.
http://www.vocalrelease.com/

rainman1985 said:

It looks awesome, but I find it hard to believe that you can learn to sing from lessons, without the teacher present. If you could learn to sing from CDs, dont you think you already could?

It will help you with certain techniques, like breathing, focus, sibilance, etc, but without a live human being next to you to correct you when you're messing up, I don't know how valuable it would be - that type of information, (breathing techniques, focus, etc) can be found on sites all over the web.

Not to discredit the guy. It IS a collection of great pieces of information about singing. If you dont feel like going out to find the information yourself, then go ahead and get it, learn the basics, and then go see a vocal coach maybe once in awhile to tell you if you're doing everything right. It's what I do, and, I mean, cant nobody sing like me.

I like this guy, and he does seminars all over the country. http://www.vocalawareness.com/ I've been to a few, and bought the books and video, but haven't put them to much use.

Sure, it's better to have a teacher present, but sometimes it's hard to find a good teacher.

It worried me when he said how many coachs he thinks can do more harm than good.

rainman1985 said:

it's definitely good to find a coach that works in the style of singing that you want to sing - AS WELL as, it helps if you CAN sing remotely in that style.

otan said:

I think he means that some teachers might really not be that qualified. I had a "voice teacher" once, I took some private lessons and he wasn't any good. He strained to sing Rockin Robin and was giving me lessons... Plus, he was set on molding me into a Gloria Estefan... Why? Because I'm hispanic? I brought in my sheet music books of Duran Duran and Sting songs and he was like, nope. He said that women had more of a range than men and I should learn women's songs. Whatever... I sang The Rose for an assignment and quit taking lessons from him soon after that.

I think a good way to pick a vocal coach is to listen to them sing, see if you like what they are doing. Second, you have to like their teaching style.

I'd like to be able to rasp like Chris Cornell (Soundgarden, Audioslave), scream like Axl Rose (Guns n' roses) but also be able to sing with a really clean voice too (Various examples).