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Our one-to-one sessions in London's West End are still going strong, but as technology improves, we've found more and more people wanting to have personal input from us without the hassle of tackling London's traffic. Jeremy has Skype clients across the world, and here he describes working in classical repertoire across the internet with young singer Rosanna in Canada.

Jeremy: Rosanna contacted me because of her end of year recital at college - she wanted some intensive coaching on a wide range of pieces, so we organised three Skype coaching sessions close together.

Rosanna: "The Skype sessions I had with Jeremy exceeded my expectations. Aside from the vocal aspect, Skype worked wonders. I thought there would be a big time lag but it was bang on 99% of the time, even 3000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean! The only downside was that Jeremy was unable to accompany me live because of the very slight time delay. However, I overcame this by using pre-recorded accompaniments and singing a cappella at times.

Everything Jeremy told me to try clicked with me instantly, and if something did not work or achieve the result he was looking for then he approached the technique in different ways until it worked.

As we had to get through nine pieces, I decided to focus on a few important aspects of each piece, but not go into great detail. The task was to find the single piece of information (or two) that would change the way Rosanna thought about and sang each piece.

We started with Handel's Rejoice Greatly. It's a tricky little piece with a lot of runs, and a fine balance of vocal agility and breath control. Like most good coloratura composers, Handel writes in patterns, and once you know what each pattern is, you know which the important notes are, and which you can "throw away". Also, the human ear hears movement more easily than sustained sound, so it's appropriate to sing coloratura with less volume - we still hear it, you conserve breath, and your voice moves more easily. It's a win-win-win! The golden rule in Handel passage-work is NOT to sing each note with the same weight or try to match everything for volume. We worked on finding the key notes in each run (and in each pattern within each run). "Rejoice requires a lot of flexible singing and I found it difficult to ensure that each note was sounded in the coloratura passages. But as soon as Jeremy challenged me to find patterns and to emphasize the important notes within those patterns, it made singing those passages a lot easier."

On the same theme, the von Suppe Walzer (from Ten Belles Without A Ring) has a number of cadenzas, and the task was to make the cadenzas sound fresh, meaningful and accurate. A vocal run in 19th cadenzas will often have what I think of as a "platform note" - a jumping off point for the shape of the phrase. "In Walzer Jeremy wanted to help me highlight the ending cadenza section. We tried pausing before and after certain notes, experimenting with platform notes and playing with different tempi until it had the wow factor!" Rosanna's mother, the singer Karen Malim, was in the audience for the recital, and she wrote afterwards "the coloratura in the 10 Belles piece was total fireworks!"

For Deh Vieni from Mozart's Marriage of Figaro, which is particularly suited to Rosanna's voice, we worked on finding a deeper meaning to the words. Susanna is singing these words in the full knowledge that Figaro is listening, and every word is designed to punish him for his mistrust. By taking extra time in the recitative, and exaggerating the emotions slightly, Rosanna was able to find a more pointed, heightened performance. We worked on using certain consonants to extend the languidity of the writing, and even added a few small portamenti and volume changes to highlight the musical shapes.
As I write this down, I realise it looks wrong on paper, but I encouraged Rosanna to do a little more "sliding around" between the notes - this practice allows a young voice to sound a little bigger and more mature, without losing the freshness. More on this topic later!

Rosanna: I think my singing and acting improved because Jeremy has a natural way of connecting with his students and honing in on what they need to improve individually, down to the smallest of details. He was able to communicate different choices in order to help me overcome certain challenges and he did this in ways I understood and was able to put into practice. I have never had such a strong connection with a teacher before and this did not change throughout the three one hour sessions we had. I look forward to working with him over skype again and hopefully in person in the near future."

If you've not considered Skype before, it's a surprisingly effective way of getting one-to-one attention from Gillyanne and Jeremy. Both of us are experienced at using Skype and knowing what will work in a coaching situation, and all of our Skype clients have booked repeat sessions. Email us for more details.

Just when you thought it was safe to go back to the shops, another three Voicenerd Collection fashion statements turn up. Here are three items from the fertile imaginations of Paul McNally, Lynn Hawkins and Kirsty Young.

The Loudest t-shirt

For those days when you know in your heart that your singing isn't going well, but at least you'll give it everything you've got (and hope no-one notices)

Vocal Warmups Keep Out The Cold

When you're collecting your stuff ready to go to the rehearsal, this will remind you that the most important thing is your vocal warmup

Best 16 Bars

You get to the audition, you hand your music to the pianist, and he questions your decisions, so you just flash this sticker at him - that'll shut him up