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How Vocology Study Makes Better
Voice Teachers – John Nix
Last summer, I was asked by Scott McCoy, director
of workshops for NATS, to participate as the “clean-up” or final speaker
in a national-level workshop on vocology. Scott gave me a topic to
speak on, which was “How Vocology Study Makes Better Voice
Teachers.” As I told the attendees, the more obvious title
for the presentation I did was “Well, this has been a great
workshop, and I think I have really learned a lot, but how on earth
will I apply this to my teaching?” Hopefully this article will
also serve a similar purpose – to open your eyes as a reader
to the potential vocology study has to enhance your teaching of singing.
Let’s begin with a few definitions:
Vocology: “The science and practice of vocal habilitation and treatment
of voice disorders” (Titze, Principles of Voice Production). This
definition emphasizes the interdisciplinary nature of the field
of vocology. Vocologists include those who explore how to best enable a
person vocally
- why one approach works better than another, for example (voice
scientists and medical doctors) as well as those who take this knowledge
base and apply
it in the training of voices (speech pathologists, acting voice
coaches, singing voice teachers). For vocologists who specialize in the
singing voice,
our job is to find a way to implement the most up-to-date, scientifically-based
knowledge on voice training, which has been gathered from all voice
disciplines as well as from the fields of psychology and medicine, in the
training of
an artistic endeavor. The science informs our methodology.
Habilitate: To equip or make fit. (Random House College Dictionary). So
in habilitating our students as vocologist- singing teachers, we are equipping
and enabling them with the skills they need to sing in an artistic fashion.
How does studying as a vocologist make one a better singing teacher? I
see several aspects of teaching that benefit from vocology study:
- Vocalizing, by including the incorporation of non-singing
strategies and exercises from other disciplines, such as laryngeal
massage, using vocal
fry, humming, lip buzzes, raspberries, chanting, etc.;
- Organizing teaching methods and practicing strategies
based on motor learning theories;
- Using technology from the speech sciences to assist
with initial assessments of students, to enhance the teaching
studio environment and to track progress
objectively;
- Choosing repertoire;
- Pedagogy teaching (drawing from all voice disciplines
for resources; using technology to enhance learning pedagogical
principles);
- How one listens (functionally as well as artistically – this
can be learned in part with the assistance of technology);
- Collaborative relationships between teachers of singing,
teachers of acting voice, medical doctors, speech-language
pathologists, voice scientists,
which aid all parties in understanding the relationship teaching
singing has with other voice disciplines.
What
follows is a discussion of each of these aspects, with examples drawn
from the author ’s experience. VOCALIZING
Here is a sample dialog between a vocologist/singing teacher and a new
student. Note the types of questions the teacher asks:
Teacher: What's your favorite vocalise? Can you sing it for me?
Student: OK. [Sings 1-3-5-8-5-3-1 arpeggio on /i/]
Teacher: Ok. Nice sound! But how do you use it?
Student: What do you mean?
Teacher: In what range?
Student: Well, I generally start at the bottom and work my way up.
Teacher. Ok, that helps me understand what you do. [Taking notes]. Do you
always use the same vowel?
Student: Well, I start with /i/, then try other vowels.
Teacher: Do you ever use consonants with it – like
using a consonant to start the exercise, or one at the top of the arpeggio?
Student: Oh, sometimes I will – other times I just
do vowels.
Teacher: Ok. When do you use it? Do you use it early in your vocalizing?
Student: Fairly early. Usually I do some sighs first, then this exercise.
Teacher: Ok, that’s good for me to know. How long
do you stay with this one exercise?
Student: Oh, I go through different vowels and so forth, then move on to
something else.
Teacher: OK. Why do you like it? What does it do for you?
Student: Oh, it helps me feel like I have my voice focused on the way up.
From here, the teacher can examine how this student’s
favorite vocalise works: the vowels, the consonants, the pattern, the
range the student uses
it in, when he or she does it, and what it is doing physiologically.
Then the teacher might be able to suggest ways in which the student might
make
it more effective.
Here’s another sample dialog between a vocologist/singing
teacher and a new student.
Teacher: Tell me how you vocalize...you know, what do you do first, second,
third, etc.
Student: Oh, well, I generally stretch some, then do some lip buzzes on
descending patterns, then maybe some
descending scales [sings 8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 on /u/], then some shorter
ascending patterns, like [sings 1-2-1-3-1-4-1-5-1 on /va-i-a-i-a-i-a-i-a/].
After that, I might do a down-up-down pattern, like [sings 8-5-3-1-3-5-8-5-3-1
on /e/], then maybe some long scales or some phrases from pieces I am working
on.
Teacher: How long do you spend vocalizing at one time?
Student: Oh, about 25 minutes.
Teacher: How much time do you spend with each exercise?
Student: Depends on how I feel that day, I guess.
Teacher: How many vocalises do you do in one session? You mentioned four
before you started working on repertoire.
Student: Yeah, that sounds about right.
Teacher: How many times a day do you vocalize? Do you do several sessions
per day, or just one?
Student: Well, if I have a rehearsal with my pianist or an opera rehearsal,
I might practice more than once in a day.
Teacher: Did you devise these exercises yourself? Did you get them from
your former teacher, or from a book?
Student: From all of the above – some I had heard
other singers doing, and tried them and liked them; others are from my
old teacher …
Teacher: Do you vary your vocalizing when you are warming up to perform?
Student: No, typically I just do the same stuff I always do.
Teacher: Why do you do what you do? Why in that order?
This type of initial dialog can give the teacher a great
deal of insight into the student’s practice habits and how they
have gotten to where they are technically. From this short interview,
the teacher can begin to
help the student shape their practicing in more effective ways.
Let’s talk now about some of the organizing principles of vocalization,
in light of current research in vocal physiology, aerodynamics, biomechanics,
acoustics and motor skill acquisition. We might call this “What Impact
Does Vocology Study Have On Making and Using Vocalises.”
Why do we warm up? Why vocalize? Are they the same thing? What goes on
in a warm up?
(a) A warm-up is a means to renew the mind/body relationship. It is coupling
intent with action
(b) Physiologically, exercises used in a training session
should (to paraphrase one of Ingo Titze’s columns): stretch tendons,
ligaments and muscles; move joints gently through their full range of
motion; increase the blood
flow to active areas; increase the precision of muscle action;
foster stability or balance of function between antagonist pairs; encourage
efficient and
rapid transitions from one activity to another; and develop overall
power.
So what about warming up versus vocalizing? To a vocology-trained singing
teacher, there is a difference:
(a) We warm-up to renew/review established skills and to “prime” ourselves
for music making; we vocalize to learn new skills and to transfer those
new skills to the performance of music. So maybe instead of vocalize, Titze’s
and Verdolini’s term vocal skill acquisition might be more accurate.
(b) When to warm up versus when to vocalize? If making music
is the immediate focus (performance), then warming up is way to go. Pre-performance
is a
time for re-assurance of skills, not swimming in unfamiliar seas.
But almost all other times, it is best to spend time vocalizing every
day. The singer
constantly challenging him or herself with learning new skills
is the singer who will avoid falling into a “rut.”
But how do vocalises work - what are the variables that
teachers have to work with? First, there’s direction; is the pattern ascending versus
descending? For further reading, I would recommend the writings of Oren
Brown, Barbara Doscher and Ingo Titze. Then, there’s the pattern,
or in musical terms, is the exercise about agility vs. fioratura; sostenuto
vs. staccato; scalar vs. arpeggiated; conjunct vs. disjunct; etc. There
is also length – how long is the exercise? Then, what about the vowels?
Vowels are a key variable in vocalises; learning how to adjust vowels in
accordance with the location of formants is of particular importance to
classical singers. There are also consonants - for further reading, I would
recommend Richard Miller’s Structure of Singing, appendix five; Berton
Coffin’s article, “Articulation for opera, oratorio and recital,” in
the NATS Bulletin, Feb/Mar 1976; and Garyth Nair’s recent book, Voice:
Tradition and Technique. Finally, let’s not neglect to mention tempo,
the length of the exercise’s note values, the number
of repetitions of the same exercise and the dynamic
level. Teachers should remember
that there are no magic exercises that help all singers. Other factors to
consider
include habituation and generalization. As a behavior is repeated,
it becomes more habituated (more automatic) and it can also become generalized
(the
behavior has an effect on other behaviors and situations). With
respect to singing, over time, the habilitative effects of a vocalise may
change
or even become negative rather than positive. A wide variety of
exercises which are constantly being re-evaluated and which are used in
a rotating
fashion seems most effective.
So what about designing your own exercises, rather than
relying on vocalizes in a book, or ones you’ve learned over the
years? There are a number of factors to consider in designing and organizing
exercises. In addition
to the variables discussed above that are at work in each exercise,
here are a few more physiological criteria that a vocology-trained singing
teacher
might consider:
- Muscle activation level: for instance, how much
TA activity does the exercise encourage versus CT; and what about adductory
activity? What
kind of things will this exercise do for LCA and IA versus PCA;
Will this exercise help develop a better balance of function in the extrinsic
musculature?
- Tissue fatigue (i.e. the lamina propria
of the vocal folds). Exercises that are high and loud are particularly
taxing to the lamina propria
because of the high frequency and high amplitude of vibration of the vocal
folds.
- motor learning aspects (more on that below)
-
psychological factors: in other words, balancing the need to
succeed – the
reassurance of skills - versus the uncertainty of learning
new ones;
- Musical factors: the relevance of the exercise
to musical applications
- does it assist in the transfer of skills to a piece
being sung by the student?
ORGANIZING VOCALIZING
How does vocology study improve how we organize our teaching
and our own practicing? Let ’s look at a few important points:
(a) % technical versus % musical: Richard
Miller has written very eloquently about this; we must never forget that
the technical skills
acquired through
carefully designed exercises are only a means to an end - that
making beautiful music, not just beautiful sounds, is our goal.
All of our singing should
be done with an artistic goal in mind. At the same time, artistic
expression demands having a full command of one’s instrument. A Vocology-based,
analytical approach to the teaching of singing does not prevent (or absolve)
one from being an expressive musician! If anything, vocology study gives
a teacher more tools with which to work towards artistic goals. Current
research into motor learning indicates that transferring a skill (such as
singing a rapid scale) to novel situations (such as singing a rapid scale
in the context of a piece of music) must be built into one’s planning
of practice sessions from the very beginning. (b)
From the general to the specific: How many readers play
golf or tennis? What is the first thing you did when you first started
playing golf? Did
you go to a course and practice a back-spinning fade? No, you had
a bucket of balls and you worked on the basics of your swing. Have you
even seen
how pros like Tiger Woods warm up before a tournament? They start
with general skills on the driving range. They make sure the fundamental
aspects of their
swing are working before reviewing specific skills. The same should
be true with how singers organize their practice sessions. We begin with
gross motor
control by using simple vocalise patterns, and then gradually work
towards ever finer and finer elements of technique. Save the messa di
voce on a
note in the passaggio for later in the vocalizing session. This
is the case with how we approach young singers as well. As teachers, we
must establish
gross motor control of “the big picture” items before expecting
more refined sounds. This applies to vocalizing, repertoire selection,
how we give feedback to a student, and so forth.
(c) blocked versus random practice: blocked practice is
doing 10 reps of vocalise A, then 10 reps of vocalise B, then ten reps
of vocalise C, and
so forth. Random practice is doing one rep of vocalise A, then
one of vocalise C, then one of vocalise D, then one of vocalise B, then
one more of vocalise
A, and so on. To borrow terms from the sports world, blocked practice
is doing sets; random practice is doing circuit training. Let’s
also define two other types of practice, constant and variable. An example
of
constant practice would be always using major triads and scales
in all vocalises. Variable practice would involve using major for exercise
A, minor for exercise
B, lydian mode for exercise C, a whole tone scale for exercise
D, etc. So the difference between blocked and random practice is the order
in which
we repeat an exercise; the difference between constant and variable
practice is how similar one iteration of a pattern is from another.
In an upcoming book by Titze and Verdolini on Vocology, the authors discuss
the pros and cons of difference types of practicing. If you want an immediate
performance gain, blocked constant practicing is best; if, however, learning,
retention and transfer are your goals, random variable practice is best.
That which enhances short term performance suppresses long term learning,
and vice versa.
(d) Massed versus distributed practice: We’ve all done massed practice.
If you have a university degree in music, you had hundreds of lessons in
this format - where you went to your lesson and did all of your day’s
singing in one session. The lesson was just you and your teacher - there
were no distractions. On the other hand, if you have a university teaching
position, you probably now do a lot of distributed practice, where you have
ten minutes of time to vocalize in the morning, then you demonstrate here
and there for students in lessons, have another 15 minutes of practice time
after lunch, in between the phone ringing and students stopping by your
studio, then you demonstrate at a studio class in the afternoon, then stop
by your colleague’s office at the end of the day to quickly run through
a duet you are singing on a recital later that week. Again, as was seen
above with blocked versus random practice and constant versus variable practice,
massed practice enhances immediate performance, but distributed practice
enhances learning and transfer of skills. An added benefit is that distributed
practice is much less fatiguing to vocal fold tissue! It is interesting
to note that Mathilde Marchesi set up her studio in such a way that her
students worked on their voices in a distributed fashion throughout the
day. She had some outstanding results. And if you are interested in how
to apply such a distributed model to the university setting, then I would
refer you to Robert Holden’s article “A New Model for Training
the Collegiate Voice Student,” in JOS March/April 2002, p.299-303.
Without going into a heavy discussion of motor learning theory,
he describes a practical means for re-making the college voice teaching
wheel in a more
learning friendly model.
(e) Pre-performance versus new music learning: It’s
quiz time: Immediately before a performance, what is recommended? Blocked,
constant massed practicing
of exercises, starting with general and moving to more specific
aspects which are similar to the demands of the music (and/or excerpted
phrases
of the music itself) will give the best results. The goal is immediate
performance of tasks that are already habituated. If you are working on
new music for
a recital months in the future, random, variable distributed practice
is the way to go - here learning is the focus, not immediate performance
level.
USING TECHNOLOGY IN THE STUDIO
You’ve probably seen presentations about technology at workshops.
There are lots of books you can read which do a great job of explaining
how programs work. What follows here instead are a few “big picture” comments
I want to share with you about using technology in teaching singing.
Science and medicine are revolutionizing sports training
and competition. Why can’t we also use similar methods to revolutionize
the training of artists, especially artists whose instrument is their
body, artists who
must tune and play their instrument at the same time?
The American sprinter Michael Johnson was wearing shoes
with a micro-chip inside during the 1996 Olympics. From the chip in Johnson’s shoes,
his coaches were able to gather and store data (such as impact force, stride
length, stride frequency per minute, etc.) from every single step he ran
in every race. The data was captured, stored, analyzed and compared against
visual images collected from the many cameras set up around the stadium.
This type of enhanced feedback was, of course, after the fact - Johnson’s
chip could not tell him he was in third place and needed to go
faster! But it helped him and his coaches evaluate his performance and make
adjustments
for subsequent races.
Six years later, in the voice world, we now have a number of relatively
inexpensive means for providing both teacher and student with real-time,
instant feedback. Depending on how much money you want to spend, you could
use Gram, Voce Vista, or a Kay Elemetrics system and an EGG machine. My
personal favorite (and I am not getting an endorsement payment for this
statement!) is Voce Vista.
Having one’s artistic training informed by science
and other non-artistic disciplines does not in itself mean such training
will make one a less spontaneous
or less artistic singer; quite the contrary - the more one is technically
enabled or habilitated, the freer one can be to be expressive.
You may be sitting there saying, “I don’t want to turn my students
into techno-robots. How do I incorporate technology into teaching with out
tying my students up into knots, or distracting them from being creative?” Realize
the following somewhat contradictory ideas:
(a) Don’t underestimate how tech savvy some of your
students are. College undergrads have grown up always having computers
in their lives.
(b) Every student is different; some like the objective visual feedback
a voice analysis program gives.
(c) Always, always link objective information that you provide or that
a program provides with a kinesthetic experience - or it is of no value
at all to a student (who must perform on stage without you and the computer
at their side).
(d) Teach the student according to their needs at that lesson.
Just because you have voice technology in your studio doesn’t mean
it is right thing to use for every student all the time. The equipment
is your slave;
you are not a slave to it.
(e) The motor learning literature talks about implicit versus
explicit learning. Our students learn motor skills more efficiently when
we don’t
take a lot of time talking about muscle function via mechanical instructions.
My recommendation to you today is that voice analysis programs are fabulous
for visual feedback, but save detailed explanations about muscle action
and the heavy duty talk about formants and partials for pedagogy class.
In a lesson situation, helping your students experience technical mastery
kinesthetically (not intellectually) is the most important thing you can
do. Barbara Doscher used to say to me, quoting Berton Coffin, “Speak
to a person’s muscles, not their brain.” Barbara Honn said much
the same thing at the NATS Intern Program: students need to be
singing and feeling during a lesson, not listening to an explanation of
something. What
this means is the teacher benefits from having a vocology knowledge
base under his or her belt so that he or she designs exercises and pick
repertoire
and listens in an informed fashion, but students sing better when
they are not overwhelmed with lots of technical information. The goal for
a lesson
is to help them experience what you as the teacher knows they need
for their technical development rather than talking about it!
REPERTOIRE
No matter how talented and knowledgeable we are in assisting
a student to establish a technical foundation through vocalises, we can
retard our
students’ development or even tear down the technique we helped our
students acquire by assigning inappropriate literature. It is our
task as teachers to carefully choose repertoire that insures success and
progress
while challenging (but not defeating) the student.
Many criteria must be considered when choosing repertoire
for singers. These criteria fall into four broad categories: the physical
limitations
of the singer, the voice classification of the singer, expressive/emotional
factors, and musicianship skills. Depending on the type of student–beginning,
intermediate, advanced, or professional–these criteria take on differing
levels of importance. For the beginning singer, physical limitations
and voice classification issues are paramount; for intermediate, advanced
or
professional singers, emotional factors and musicianship skills
also become important.
Vocology study is an excellent way to enhance one’s
knowledge base in the first two categories, physical limitations and voice
classification
issues. In order to better understand how vocology study can make
a difference in selecting repertoire, look at a familiar piece that one
of your students
may be singing through a set of vocology glasses. Look at the piece
with the following points in mind:
(a) Age of the student. Age is important in understanding
what state the singer’s instrument is in developmentally. Is he
or she physically mature enough for the demands of the piece?
(b) Length of time the student has been studying. How long has this singer
been training his or her muscles and mind for the act of singing? How established
are certain technical habits? How long has he or she been studying with
the same teacher?
(c) Individual technical problems. Do they have difficulties with a register
bridge? Are certain vowels or consonants especially easy or troublesome?
Is the student capable of managing his or her breath skillfully throughout
a long phrase? Is the student in transition from a lower voice classification
to higher one?
(d) Voice classification, including the following considerations:
the pitch location of register bridges in the singer’s voice, the tessitura
of the voice, the timbre of the voice, and its range. Location of register
bridges and tessitura are widely considered to be the most accurate ones
to use in determining voice classification, although all factors deserve
consideration. It is essential that a teacher have accurate information
about the location of each student’s register bridges when selecting
repertoire.
(e) Vocal timbre. Timbre is the result of several factors, including vocal
tract length, the amount of vocal fold adduction used during singing, the
thickness of the vocal fold mucosa, prior training, and personal preference.
Timbre is often very important in determining sub-classifications within
a voice category. The timbre must match the style of the music and the text.
(f) Range. Not only the obvious extremes, but also the context of the notes:
How are the extremes of the piece approached? By leap or by step? Are they
part of a scale pattern or rolled-over in an arpeggio? How long are the
critical notes? Are they staccato or are they whole notes? Is the high or
low note isolated, or are there several high notes in quick succession?
What vowels are set on the crucial notes? What consonants are paired with
those vowels on the high and low notes? Are the phrases ascending, descending,
or is there a good balance between the two. Is the text set in a syllabic
or melismatic fashion in the passaggio and at the extremes?)
PEDAGOGY TEACHING
I would like to refer you to my recent article in the Journal
of Singing about the acquisition of observational and listening skills
- it is listed
in the suggested readings list; rather than taking a lot of time
and space here, this article states my feelings about using a vocology
approach, including
technology, to teach pedagogy. I also strongly recommend Garyth
Nair’s
book, Voice: Tradition and Technology. It is a nice how-to book for using
spectrographic analysis software in the studio. In the near future, look
for Titze and Verdolini’s text, tentatively titled VOCOLOGY and to
be published by the National Center for Voice and Speech.
EXAMPLES OF VOCOLOGIST/SINGING TEACHERS
I have had people ask me before, “Who are examples of vocologist/teachers?” Without
a doubt, I would say Richard Miller, William Vennard, Berton Coffin,
Oren Brown and many others are or have been vocologists/singing teachers.
These
are people who have collaborated with professionals across voice
disciplines. Their teaching and writing has benefited from these collaborations.
While
they did not have the benefit of academic courses of study in vocology,
as young teachers now can take advantage of, they did take it upon
themselves to find peers in other fields to mentor with.
COLLABORATIONS BETWEEN SINGING TEACHERS AND OTHER VOICE PROFESSIONALS
In my current position at the National Center for Voice
and Speech, I have had the pleasure of working with colleagues from all
areas of voice study – voice
scientists, speech pathologists, acting voice teachers, medical
doctors and other singing teachers. Here are but a few examples of the
types of
relationships that can grow out of voice training grounded in vocology:
My colleagues Kate Emerich (singing voice specialist and
speech-language pathologist) and Mona Abaza (laryngologist) and I have
shared a common client
for some years now. I am the client’s singing voice teacher. Kate
is her speech pathologist, and Mona is her laryngologist. I first recommended
my student to Kate and Mona for a voice evaluation when she had a severe
cold and lost any access to the upper part of her soprano range. As it turned
out, she had severe reflux and had suffered paresis of the superior laryngeal
nerve on one side. She began voice therapy with Kate in addition to lessons
with me. She has continued to have regular check-ups with Mona, and Kate
and I compare notes on what is working well in therapy/lessons. I have also
viewed stroboscopic exams of this client with Mona and Kate’s guidance.
Kate and I have also worked as a team with a professional
singer in my studio who had suffered a vocal injury due to heavy coughing.
Again, the
student continued singing lessons with me and began voice therapy
with Kate. Kate and I had regular meetings about the client’s progress, viewed
strobe exams together and discussed various strategies for addressing the
problems at hand. I retained my role as the singer’s career counselor
when it came to canceling or postponing performing engagements
during the recovery period.
I have also had the opportunity to be involved in voice research. Jan Svec,
voice scientist, Donald Miller, singer/teacher and voice scientist and I
developed a research protocol for a study of the whistle register in sopranos.
We used software that Don is expert with (Voce Vista). In our lab sessions,
we captured electroglottogram signals, acoustical data and perceptual information
from the four singers; we will also have a group of expert listeners who
will evaluate the recorded samples. The EGG and acoustical data we collected
gave me some more insight into how two sopranos with similar training backgrounds
but very different voices sing their high notes.
SEEING PARALLELS BETWEEN FIELDS
As my journey in vocology has continued, I have begun to
see a number of parallels between my field of teaching singing and other
voice fields. For
instance, my singing teaching mentor, the late Barbara Doscher,
was famous among her students for saying “for God’s sake, don’t peep!” She
did not want her students undersinging. She understood that gross motor
control (remember the discussion above about the general before the specific?)
had to happen before any fine tuning could occur. It was her conviction
that students need to EXPERIENCE their breathing/phonation/resonation system
working at a decent dynamic level first. From a psychological standpoint,
she also knew that young students need to do some reprogramming mentally
as far as their conception of a big sound is concerned. Doscher knew that
speech level energy output would not be sufficient for a singer’s
voice to be heard in a large hall. Now compare this “Don’t Peep!” admonition
with “Think Loud,” the mantra of my NCVS colleague Lorraine
Ramig, one of the world’s experts on voice and neurological disorders,
particularly Parkinson Disease. The hypofunctional Parkinson’s patient
needs to “overdo” to return the system to equilibrium. Ramig’s
research has shown that this simple command helps the breathing/phonation/resonation/articulation
chain to “hook up” again. And her research has shown that Parkinson’s
clients need to “rewire” their perception of effort to vocal
output.
CONCLUSION
As voice teachers, we are charged with the care and development
(both physically and artistically) of part of another person's body. We
owe it to our students
and our art to stay on top of our field and to provide our students
with the best, most individualized, most efficient training available.
To paraphrase
what the late Oren Brown said to our students at the Summer Vocology
Institute in 2001, "you must always know what is happening physiologically and
acoustically when you ask a student to do something in a lesson." And,
judging from the literature in the motor learning field, you must
also know how to structure what you ask your students to do and how much
information
you give them in order to optimize their long term learning of
vocal skills.
Traditional demonstration and imitation (i.e. modeling and trial and error
approximations) will always have an important place in teaching singing.
However, we have many more tools available now to enhance and accelerate
the learning process in addition to the older traditions. As teachers, we
must be open to using any combination of motor learning strategies, modeling,
body mapping, informed imagery, movement work, mirrors, video cameras, and
voice analysis technology to assist in helping the student learn. Vocology
study is all about this synergy of approaches.
Suggested Reading: BOOKS
Baken, R.J. and Robert Orlikoff, Clinical Measurement of Speech and
Voice.
San Diego: Singular, 2000.
Conable, Barbara, How to Learn the Alexander Technique. Columbus: Andover,
1995.
Conable, Barbara, The Structures and Movement of Breathing. Chicago: GIA,
2000.
Doscher, Barbara, Functional Unity of the Singing Voice. Metuchen, NJ:
Scarecrow, 1994.
Doscher, Barbara, ed. by John Nix, From Studio to Stage: Repertoire
for the Voice . Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2002.
Emmons, Shirlee and Alma Thomas, Power Performance for Singers. New York:
Oxford, 1998.
Freymuth, Malva, Mental Practice and Imagery for Musicians.
Boulder, CO: Integrated Musician ’s Press, 1999.
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ARTICLES
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the Upper Extension in the Light of Visual Feedback,” Journal of Singing, 54:4
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Nix, John. “‘Dear Diary:’ Body Monitoring
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Nix, John. “Developing Critical Listening and Observational
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Nix, John. “Lip Trills and Raspberries: ‘High Spit Factor’ Alternatives
to the Nasal Continuant Consonants,” Journal of Singing, 55:3 (Jan/Feb
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Titze, Ingo. “The Five Best Vocal Warm-Up Exercises,” Journal
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Titze, Ingo. “Lip and Tongue Trills-What do they do
for us?” Journal
of Singing, 52:3 (Jan/Feb 1996), 51.
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(March/April 1996), 31-32.
Titze, Ingo. “The Use of Low First Formant Vowels
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