Kleine-Levine Syndrome (a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty Disorder), or KLS for short, is a rare condition affecting 1 in a million that wouldn’t even show up in the medical books for several years after she was born. KLS is known for making patients getting ill and then fall asleep for days and even weeks at a time.  Although waking for an hour or two, the person is not really awake, which is why it is referred to as a walking coma.  When the disorder is active, it can last for several years and cause other lesser known issues to cycle such as mutism. 

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Without knowing why, Melody was fascinated with voice and speech from an early age. The love of music of all kinds was always there but she was fascinated with how the sounds felt in her mouth and how those feelings sounded.  Add words, communication and music and there was no turning back. 

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Excelled in academics, athletics and the arts, the KLS or mystery illness wasn’t as sever as it was when she was younger.  Until her last couple years of highschool.  With long periods of being unable to stay awake for more than just a few hours, she learned how to drop what wasn’t absolutely necessary from her schedule.  Music was absolutely necessary.  She even dropped out of the second term of calculus, quick her job and the highschool play to stay in classes and graduate with scholarships in voice. 

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For the next several years, unable to find answers, Melody would work through these medical conditions taking classes whenever she could and worked doing compositions and arrangements first for hobby and then for various organizations and publishers.  

Unsatisfied with the traditional classical method of approach to voice and singing at the college level, Melody looked beyond and trained under various teachers and organization therapists.  From speech pathologist, singing instructors of different methods and voice therapists, Melody was not only able to prevent vocal damage from the long term laryngitis, but to help other singers as well. 

 

What started out as a fascination turned to an obsession.  And music composing and arranging turned to songwriting.  Melody’s goal was never to be in the spotlight but found herself there.  That was when she knew it was time to teach full time.  Integrating techniques of the speech pathologists, respiratory and speech therapists,  her previous trainers were referring their clients to her as she was getting great results and reviews with singers.   

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She spent more than 2 decades learning directly under and training with: Seth Riggs, Dean Kaelin, John Henny, Greg Enriques,  Dave Stroud, Linda Tomkinson & more.  Although she laughs when she says she has been asleep for over half her life, she has accomplished more than others attain to do in half their time including running marathons and becoming a second degree black belt in Hapkido.

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Melody will say she is a singing teacher first although her songwriting students would disagree.   

“That’s because you haven’t taken a voice class from me yet.”

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“If you just wrote the greatest song of all time, there is no guarantee people will listen to it.  The amount that others will give it an ear depends on the music behind it and the voice that’s singing it.” 

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“Writing and singing a great song is rewarding by itself.  Empowering others to do the same and seeing their spirit and music grow and spread through out the community is a reward performing and being in the spotlight will never give me.”