"I tell students they don't have to practice; they just have to play all the time," he says. "I remember I sat down once with a piano book — 'Great Songs of the '60s' — and played through the whole book in six hours. It was fun."

Kaelin attended Skyline High and played for the school's baseball and football teams, as well as the family band. He had become the group's lead singer "by default" when he was 13. By 19, his voice was damaged from long nights of singing and his tendency to "scream" when he sang. After Kaelin sang three-hour school dance gigs, his voice was reduced to a raspy whisper.

He served a two-year mission in South Africa for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which produced the side benefit of giving his voice time to heal. After returning to Salt Lake City, he attended a voice clinic given by famed Hollywood voice coach Seth Riggs. Kaelin wound up accompanying Riggs on piano, and afterward Riggs invited him to California to fill the same role.

He completed a degree in jazz composition at the University of Utah and then drove to California to work for Riggs. As Riggs' assistant, he played piano for Bette Midler, Leslie Ann Warren, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder and Bernadette Peters, among others.

"I was there because I wanted to write and arrange," Kaelin recalls. "But I listened to him teach and thought it was great."

He started taking voice lessons from Riggs to learn to sing "in a way that I wouldn't injure my voice, and so I could learn to sing the high notes," he says.

· · · · ·

Eventually, he wearied of Los Angeles and returned to Salt Lake City. After hearing the dramatic improvement in Kaelin's singing voice, acquaintances asked him for singing lessons, using Riggs' methods.

"I started helping them with their voices and suddenly I had a waiting list of 40 students," he says. "For about two years I found myself apologizing for being a voice teacher because I didn't have a great voice. What I realized is that there had never been a vocal problem I hadn't gone through, which helped qualify me as a teacher. I had had an injured voice, a strained voice, breathing problems, no vibrato, an inability to sing the high notes. I never looked back after that."

When Kaelin began teaching in 1983, there was no voice instruction available in Salt Lake City for any style other than opera. He offered the first instruction for singing, performing and recording in the pop, rock and country arenas.

"It took off," Kaelin says. "I had more students than I could handle. I had to train other teachers to help me. Now there are several teachers in town who are excellent."