I have recently been watching a lot of videos from various voice pedagogy “leaders in the field”. Some are people I know personally, others I have only experienced from the audience or have never seen before. The manner in which they express themselves varies widely. These experts inspire me to remember how much communication style […]
Tag: pedagogy
Vocal Satisfaction Survey
Hello Singing Friends (pro, avocational, everyone who sings!), If you have a few minutes, I would be honored to have you take my “Vocal Satisfaction Survey” which is part of a research project and the book I am working on. It is anonymous. Thanks!
Training the voice – genre agnostic?
Brad Jenks, a Chicago area voice teacher, recently made me aware of his excellent blog post. He questions the walls that exist between “classical” and “____” voice instruction. I agree with every word, and enjoy the thoughtful and good-humored way in which he describes the issue. Peter T. Harrison also discusses this topic in Singing: […]
I am not a science hater
I have dared to enter the fray in yet another social media discussion on the value of voice science in the teaching of singing. It gets so heated, but my recent reading of David C. Taylor’s The Psychology of Singing has helped me much with being able to articulate my position calmly. In this latest […]
Free books on singing that will blow your mind
There is a wealth of great reading for singers and voice teachers that you can access for free. Several books that are out of copyright that I highly recommend are: The Psychology of Singing: A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern by David C. Taylor […]
Voice Training and Language
This is a topic for a long book, but I’ll practice my conciseness skills. If you are teaching voice (or any other subject) and you use terminology such that “chair” is no longer a piece of furniture on which you can sit, then you had better explain in the most minute detail what the new […]
Assumptions abound
In a Facebook forum recently a “teacher” (looking at her page I saw no qualifications) asked the question: “Can someone give me examples of popular commercially successful male singers that sing high notes other than with falsetto, with a lowered larynx and lifted soft palate and good acoustic space?” Oh my. No, I can’t, because […]
Rethinking “coup de glotte”
“Science is great at describing what happens, but you can’t do what happens.” – Stephen Smith, during his master class at the 2016 Conference of the National Association of Teachers of Singing. Laryngeal tilt, medial compression, singer’s formant, balanced onset – these are all terms with which the voice scientist is familiar. They are things […]
Sneaking up on yourself in the practice room
I enjoy taking a voice lesson with an excellent teacher. It is a wonderful experience to switch back to the other side of the teacher-student equation, and I can often sort out a vocal issue more easily with another teacher than on my own. But all singers who practice must learn how to work on […]
The “Edge Mechanism”
In Singing: Personal and Performance Values in Training, Peter T. Harrison quotes Husler and Rodd-Marling and then gives further definition of the “edge mechanism”: We come therefore to the very heart and soul of the singing voice, the coup de grâce, if you like. I refer to fine muscle-bundles and fibres that Husler and Rodd-Marling […]
The Sacred Cow of the Low Breath
The internet forums are really wonderful sources of stimulation for a blogger. There is so much strangeness out there. Finding things that defy truth and rationality is very easy. There is a forum for voice teachers that I read daily, in which people pose problems and many people propose solutions. It seems that every conceivable […]
What’s personal, what’s universal
We have a hellacious level of confusion in talking about vocal technique due to the conflation of the universal and the personal. In teaching, we must minimize this and make the boundaries between the two very clear. Everyone has a larynx. The anatomical structures and functions are the same for all. There are variations in […]