I'm an English learner and actress, and I've been working with Alicia for three years so as I can Americanize my accent. The lessons that I've learned from her have helped me immensely in my career, and, likewise, my communication skills has also improved a lot. Since English is my second language, she knows specifically what obstacles and difficulties I need to target for me to enunciate and pronounce well. With her professional training, she gave me some exercises, such as tongue twisters, and sentence rhythms to further improve my communication skills which has significantly improve how people understand me with ease as I speak. As a result, people who talk to me assume that I'm a native English speaker and are highly surprised when they find out that I am actually not native speaker. In the end, I'd refer them to Alicia if they would want improve their speech skills and achieve the same results as I did. Thank you Alicia. read more

Alicia is a wonderful voice and rehearsal coach! I am an academic and regularly give research talks, but more importantly, I try out for academic jobs in which the fabled "job talk" or my performance during a research presentation will be the decisive part of my job interview. I would have the worst thought possible before those job talks, that is, I wish to disappear. Alicia grasped the painfulness of this experience immediately :"Actors love to act, but they HATE to audition!" Exactly! So I went to Alicia with the goal of being able to get through a low-stakes research presentation. But I came away with so much more, including a success story where I obtained the position after the job talk. Alicia was great at providing me all kinds of voice techniques to help me reconnect with my body when I feel under pressure. I found these tiny adjustments helped me during lectures in the teaching setting as well. Her rehearsal techniques are ideal because I can start using them even if I am still fine tuning the text of my presentation. She even has some that you can use on an airplane -- for those times you are really last minute with a presentation. When I go to give a talk now I have no fears about the tech suddenly failing me - I can count on my presentation being with me, in my body, and coming out of my diaphragm and voice in such a way that I am natural, confident, not monotonous but not overbearing either. read more

Alicia is phenomenal at what she does! I have been looking to improve my communications skill for quite some time. I've tried Toastmasters a few times but I realized that I needed a more 1:1 coach with what I was looking for. When I decided to invest in a speech coach, Alicia was one of the few people that had time and was within my budget. Not only is she incredibly smart, but also patient, thorough and passionate about her work. She comes up with a dedicated custom plan to fit your needs when you first meet her and works with you to help you improve the areas that you want to work on. From articulation, body language to speech, she will support all of her teaching with the anatomy of the body and mind. I hear and listen to people's voice and communication skills in a whole different light now and cannot thank Alicia enough for the way she's made an impact on the tools I have now. I would recommend her to anyone that's searching for a service like this. read more

I work as a stage manager and collaborated with Alicia Bales on a show last year. Alicia was the voice coach, and worked with a cast of 6 to speak with a highly specific accent. Not only did she come in very well prepared, but the cast absolutely loved her!! And the accent turned out beautifully. She also made my job of scheduling with the actors so easy. She was very clear about when she was available, always showed up on time, and responded clearly to any notes I sent her way. What a dream. To top it off, the show ("Trailer Park Gods" by Nayia Kuvetakis) was nominated for 10 TBA Awards! Nominations included: Outstanding Production of a Play Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Principal Role in a Play (Paul Rodrigues) Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Featured Role in a Play (Dave Levine) Outstanding Performance by the Ensemble of a Play I highly recommend working with her! read more

I worked with Alicia for 1:1 coaching and it was a great experience! I had been in toastmasters for a long time and I wanted to have a more professional voice, but I didn't know how to do it on my own. Alicia taught me useful tools on how to have more control of my voice quality and I have definitely heard a difference. She has a positive attitude and is fun to work with. I highly recommend her, especially for women like me who want to improve their voice quality (or work on common female qualities that may be giving you a disadvantage in the work place i.e.) read more

Alicia is a great at her profession, she knows people from different nationality has different weakness and if you continue fellowing her direction to work on yourself after having a session with her, you will notice a big improvement. read more

A few months back, my sister and her fiancé asked me if I would take part in their wedding by officiating the ceremony. I was really excited and honored to accept the opportunity! I'm a bit of a romantic and loved the idea of helping to make their day as special as I felt it could be. My excitement, however, was dwarfed by the fact that I was terrified of the public speaking aspect. I had been avoiding public speaking as much as possible in my 34 years on the planet. I spend my days behind a computer as an accountant, moonlighting as a massage therapist - both cater very well to my introverted, shy-of-the-spotlight way of being. I also never liked my voice when I heard it in recordings - it sounded terrible in my ears. I would have described it as nasally, effeminate, lacking in confidence, and unappealing to listen to. I realized, though, there was no way I could avoid my voice and public speaking if I was going to do this. I'd better get used to the idea and get some practice in beforehand. I initially thought I'd do something like Toastmasters, just to get used to speaking in front of people. I started doing some internet research. Thanks to Yelp's savvy algorithms and the grace of the universe, I was quickly guided to Alicia Bales. Her website and reviews made me realize there may be more possible than merely fighting through the fear of public speaking. Perhaps I could even learn to skillfully use my voice to become a better public speaker? Maybe I could change my relationship to my own voice so that I would be excited to speak publicly? It was worth a shot! Working with Alicia has been one of the best gifts I've ever given to myself. From our initial contact I could tell that she was passionate about the work that she does. Vocal performance is an art form to which I had never been exposed. Alicia has been studying this stuff for years and her knowledge reflects that. Upon an initial assessment, where Alicia asked me to perform some basic vocal exercises combined with a general discussion of my relationship to my voice, she drafted up a training plan to get me ready for the big event. It was comprehensive and sounded exactly what I needed. We had 10 weeks until the wedding. I met with Alicia once a week. We started with some practice of relaxing my body through Alexander technique exercises. Once the body, the instrument that creates our voices, was more at ease and prepared, the practice shifted to learning how to play the instrument. I was learning more than how to speak confidently. Alicia was teaching me to renegotiate my relationship with my body as a means of vocal self expression. We discussed the anatomy of the body's vocal system, and then used that knowledge to more effectively speak. Every session built on the previous work, from relaxing the body, to breathing, pacing, resonance, and articulation. On top of just getting in front of of people and speaking, I was also in charge of writing the ceremony for the wedding. I procrastinated on this a bit, as I struggled to come up with the right approach and sentiments. Alicia helped me stay timely in my preparations since I had to get the script written in advance so we could use it in practice sessions. As we walked through it, she helped me understand how to connect more authentically with the words I had written. Rather than a dry, monotone recitation of a script, she helped me bring more life to my words. All of the preparation paid off more than I could have imagined. While nervous on the day of the wedding, the tools we practiced made the nerves bearable so that I actually could enjoy the event. The feedback I received from the audience was so gracious. People loved the ceremony, and I owe a large part of that to the preparation that Alicia coached me through. For me, the greatest part was that I actually enjoyed myself while speaking in front of a large group of people. It was fun, I felt confident, I was able to express myself in a way that I hadn't been able to previously. I actually look forward to the next opportunity I have to do some public speaking. Thank you, Alicia - your work and coaching has made a world of difference to my experience of my voice. I'm so grateful for that! read more