The 37-year old Brewer, the rare young Black succeeding in the rarified international opera scene, has the kind of formal, toned manner that makes him sound older than his years. The part-time vocal coach and full-time singer who now lives in Weimar, Germany (where he is the "Lyrische Italienische tenor" specializing in the Italian repertoire a la Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti for the German National Theater),
began working with the girls when they were just 8 years old. According to Brewer, he "built their voices", in some cases from the ground up. His voice brims with emotion and the barely disguised anger and disappointment only a teacher or a father can project, when he speaks of his former pupils.
After a long pause, he responds to what he, along with the world, have read in Vibe and Britain’s The Face magazines: the allegations that LaTavia is tone deaf - that the girls can’t sing. To hear Beyoncé and Kelly tell it, they were merely hangers on in Destiny’s Child – "Beyoncé was completely out of line in saying that. It’s not true, it never has been true " Brewer insists.
Brewer, who has also taught Dawn Robinson and members of the R&B group H-Town, has himself been training formally since age 18, although he’s been singing since he was three. He studied at Langston University and got his Masters from the Cleveland Institute of Music. After pursuing post-graduate studies at the University of Houston he trained with the Houston Grand Opera. He became involved with the group variously called Girls Tyme, Somethin’ Fresh, Cliche’, Da Dolls, and Destiny when Matthew Knowles hired him to develop the girls’ vocals.
His work began with Kelly and Beyoncé, who were "eight years old going on nine" at the time, and he stayed with the group through the second Destiny’s Child album, 1999’s "The Writing’s on the Wall."
LeToya didn’t start with the group, or with Brewer, until she was 11, and while she was in the group even before Kelly was added, LaTavia started out as a rapper, not a singer. When the original "fourth member" left the group, LeToya (who attended the same parochial school as Beyoncé) auditioned and was signed on.
Brewer said he was shocked and saddened to read his former girls’ Vibe interview, in which they accused LaTavia (though the article incorrectly said it was LeToya), of being "tone deaf" – hard working but incapable of singing on key. Brewer begs to differ. "LaTavia is completely able to sing in tune," he insists, enunciating into the telephone so that not a word is missed, or misunderstood. "Beyoncé is completely out of her league when she makes that statement. There is nobody on this planet who knows their voices better than I do because I built their voices. Not Matthew Knowles, not Beyoncé. I built them. None of them are tone deaf. All of them can sing. All of them have individual abilities as individual artists do, but all of them have something to offer. It’s just flat wrong. I don’t know why she said that."
Brewer is wistful when he recalls how he taught the girls not just to sing, but to understand the technical and physiological concepts underlying the musical instrument that is the human voice. Even now, reeling with disappointment over what he sees as a change in her character, Brewer marvels at Beyoncé’s natural gifts.
"Beyonce was the only one that came with this phenomenal voice. Kelly’s voice was little more than air. With LeToya, I thought ‘she will take a longer time to learn to sing in a pop or R&B style’ because she had a very naturally high placed voice. I had to teach her to sing in her "chest" voice." But despite their varying talents, Brewer insists that all four girls worked hard to perfect the lessons he gave, and they all succeeded. He even notes that it was Kelly, not LeToya, who failed to get admitted to a performing arts program that she, LeToya and Beyoncé applied to during high school.
"It’s very difficult, even dangerous, to do this type of training with children. I teach without music, so I would know immediately if they could not match pitch. Every one of them could do so. As of a month ago LeToya was singing on pitch to me." He still works with LeToya and LaTavia when he is available. Beyoncé and Kelly have chosen to "go with someone else", and Brewer seems to feel the sting. But with a teacher’s brand of doting, he declines to lay the blame for the change in the weather between himself and Beyoncé and Kelly at the girls’ feet. "I don’t think it was their decision to go with someone else." Enough said.
Still, on the fact of LeToya and LaTavia’s talent, Brewer is unequivocal. "
Neither of the girls are tone deaf. LaTavia was not a singer. I had to teach her how to sing a phrase because there is a different way you use the breath for singing and for speaking (or rapping). When the record company initially decided they didn’t want a rapper they were going to kick LaTavia out of the group. I told them ‘this girl has been there from the beginning, and she deserves a chance’. I asked them to give me six months – just six months to work with her, and I did work with her. She worked the hardest out of all them because she was the weakest. I built her into a singer and, yes, she can sing. Everyone will see that all the girls have talent when their project comes out. I don’t know where that’s coming from. None of the girls are tone deaf. They have never been."
"This is not something that you say about a colleague. It’s not collegial.
From a very young age, they (the original members) were like my children, and I taught them how to be good colleagues. I taught them harmony... how to build cords. I taught Beyonce how to instruct – so she could teach the chords she composed to the others. I taught them how to hear cords, how to sing in tune.
Their background vocals are very tight, as you’ll notice, because they were taught to sing "in vowel" – everybody understands the same placement for "ee" or "ah" – they place each phrase in the same part of the mouth. Each girl’s technique is the same. When they sing "ah’ they do it the same way, so that’s why it’s tight."
He seems proudest of the time he spent with Beyoncé separately, and he still regards her as a rare talent. He sounds like a proud papa when he describes how he taught her to build chords. "She learned very, very well. She was a very bright girl and this is why I’m baffled at why she would make these statements. It is completely unlike her to bash another person and I don’t understand why she did that. It’s inappropriate and she knows it."
On the subject of whether LeToya and LaTavia contributed to the vocals on the Destiny’s Child and The Writing’s on the Wall albums, Brewer is blunt. "This is true for some of the songs.
To save time and money the record company, producers and managers often had Beyonce lay down the background tracks. All four girls learned the tracks in order to perform them live, and we went over the songs extensively. It wasn’t that they weren’t capable. It was about saving time and money." In the music business, time and money can be precious commodities. "I can remember sitting in the studio waiting for producers for 10 or even 12 hours. They were supposed to be there at noon and showed up at ten at night." Even when they’re late, however, producers often show little patience for performers who would use up more than a few hours of studio time.
Also from his website:
Beyoncé:
Quote:
Beyoncé was an eight-year-old cherub when we first met. The year was 1989. I had just moved to Houston from Cleveland, where I had been a graduate voice student at the Cleveland Conservatory. News of my arrival got out: a new vocal coach who offered private lessons. One of the first calls I received came from a woman named Celestine Knowles, asking if I would be willing to allow her daughter to audition for my studio. I said yes, of course, I’d be happy to.
Several days later, Mrs. Knowles and her daughter arrived. The little girl, in a frilly dress and anklets to match, slowly breathed in, and then opened her mouth to start. What she let loose was one of the most impressive sounds I’d ever heard from a child. Something about it grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go. The sound was molten gold, with a distinguished timbre. What’s more, Beyoncé possessed a seemingly innate, physical connection to the music. This was more than just a voice, I thought to myself, it is a spirit. She and I bonded instantly over our mutual passion for singing.
That day marked the beginning of a decade that proved to be as life-altering as it was fulfilling, for both of us.
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Kelly Rowland
Quote:
When I auditioned Kelly in summer 1990, her voice was tiny and exquisitely beautiful. In the beginning it was full of air and so small that I had to nearly stand in her mouth to hear her, but it possessed a natural tearfulness and pathos.
My goal was to teach her to respect and love her voice—really love it. I wanted her to be able to say to herself that her voice was the most beautiful sound she had ever heard. This is crucial in building a real singer. If a singer does not have love and passion for singing and the sound, my work is futile.
The very first thing I did with Kelly was teach her to speak. Speak you say? Yes, speak. She read out loud to me, and I asked her to elongate all the vowel sounds in the words. Overdo it, I said. Her problem was not technical so much as it was a matter of confidence. Kelly had a God-given, naturally placed voice. First awakening her speaking voice, I then helped her to find confidence in her singing as well. Over the years of our work together, she and her voice bloomed to their full BEAUTY.
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Latoya Luckett
Quote:
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It was a beautiful autumn Saturday in 1993 when Letoya Luckett arrived for her audition. When I asked her what she would like to sing for me, she replied, “Lift Every Voice,” the black national anthem. Great, I said. I took a seat and told her to begin whenever she was ready. She took a few seconds and then she began to sing. From the first tone she had me. Her voice was all head tone, but gorgeous. She wore glasses and had braces, but she possessed great beauty, exactly as Beyoncé had described her. I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she sang. She had the presence that I was looking for. With every move she made, you were forced to watch her. She had that something special that the French call “je ne sais quoi.”
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http://www.angelfire.com/band/izdcloved/interviews
http://brewer-international.com/en/US/pop/
Very insightful and interesting.
Great read. Thanks for posting this. 
And had the same lessons. fff why are people always suggesting that Bey had a coach that's why she is good? 
