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This is a beautiful book, and essential reading for anyone who teaches, communicates, and/or simply enjoys asking interesting new questions. Sousa is as focused in his communication of a significant body of information as he is clever in his approach. The book excels at explaining how the brain learns, but its greatest strength lies in Sousa's ability to create the learning experience in book form that he hopes to inspire in others' classroom leadership. He provides copious, current, and well-documented information about the brain, and immediately helps the reader apply that to their own experience. He then helps the reader create their own structures within which they can begin to share their new-found knowledge and processes. Further, it reads easily, and can be digested in small chunks, or read in a concentrated sitting. If you are a lover of learning or science, or just want to read a really well-written book, pick this one up. |
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Charlotte Selver belongs with voices like Alexander, Feldenkrais, and Elsa Gindler as a pioneer who explored the positive impact of the body on brain function. Waking Up is a collection of conversations written down by Littlefield and Roche from classes that Selver taught. She never took the time to write her own book, but this one suffices to communicate some of her core ideas. The bulk of Selver's work happened before science caught up with her. Her guru-like approach requires the patience of experience, and a willingness to get on the mat and listen. The core premise of the book, that allowing our sensory awareness to occupy a larger part of our working memory, and that by doing so, we will open ourselves to the world in new, exciting ways, has significant support from the neuroscience community. That people struggle to accomplish these goals attests to the continued importance of voices like Selver's today. For performance artists, focusing on sensory awareness can make enormous differences to learning, and sustainable practice. By drawing our attention to sensory intelligence, Selver reminds us that our conscious minds, the so-called "higher order" thinking, represents only a small portion of brain function, and that by attempting to rely solely on the conscious mind for understanding leads to unhappiness and inefficiency. |
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Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow has achieved such an iconic status that people use the concept regularly, often, one might presume, without knowledge of the research and insight that went into its creation. It comes from the 1980s, a time when budding neuroscience and an ever-eager drive to redefine psychology and learning spawned new interest in humanity's finer points, among them, the search for happiness. It's an important book for these reasons. It also struggles to hold up to the piles of new research that Csikszentmihalyi, and others in his era, helped to inspire. The core concept (spoiler alert), that Flow occurs when "skills" and "challenges" are essentially balanced, seems lithe and crisp at first. As Csikszentmihalyi attempts to support its application as a way to explain human happiness, the argument breaks down. The preponderance of human-interest stories that make up most of the book are interesting, though, function more as a means of establishing the reality that people the world over are happy for different reasons than as a support for his premise. As a launching point for others, however Csikszentmihalyi does create an outline of meaningful questions for us to ask about human happiness, an area of research that has become as respected and essential in the psychological community as it is influential on the day-to-day life of people outside the sciences. |
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Kay Peterson and David A. Kolb are well known in the learning theory world, and prolific authors. One of their best-known contributions is "The Nine Learning Styles", which is a prominent feature in this book. How You Learn Is How You Live is a compact approach to learning theory that seems to be tailor made for corporate retreats and middle managers hungry for a way to get through to their people. The learning styles conversation, began in the 1980s as a counterbalance to the predominant lecture-hall teaching approaches that are themselves deeply challenged, has obtained a pop-culture status through any of a great number of attempts at redefining it. Each of them suffers from the same challenge of summing up all human learning into a very few categories, often with little science to back up assertions. Peterson and Kolb do their best to overcome this by offering a modicum of neuroscience, and expanding on the "each person has one way of learning" to include "we can all learn in all 9 ways with intention and practice." This is much appreciated, as it allows for the reader/practitioner to step outside of their narrow identity bubbles to realize that learning is a broad, complex, expansively gorgeous activity. Although there are more interesting ways to discuss learning, How You Learn Is How You Live has the potential to do what it is created to do, which is provide context for a narrow exploration of communication patterns within an intimate group. |
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There is no doubt that Johan Sundberg's "The Science Of The Singing Voice" stands out as among vocology texts. Sundberg brought us, in a particularly important moment in the development of the field, new clarity, a greater collection of studies, cunning insights, and a litany of new and newly-phrased questions that opened doors for countless explorations, many of which have played out over the thirty years since its publication. Reading it again recently I was struck by how this text did what a science text wants to do, in that it gave us the best understanding at the time, inspired new questions, and eventually became less current due to new discoveries that answered the questions it asks. In the decades since its publication, institutional bias has begun to shift, opening our imagination to the great wealth of vocal opportunities available to us. More and more people have taken up the vocology challenge, and put Sundberg's ideas to the test. Some of his assertions have stood up, and others haven't, but with his good natured approach and curiosity-focused book, he created a catalyst that inspired a new generation of vocalists to want to know more. |
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Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is iconic in art circles for its creative transference of neuroscience into the arts classroom. Over the last four decades, Betty Edwards has deepened into what she discovered even before she fully understood what she had found, and has brought countless people's creative minds to life through the power of the brain and drawing. In the book she not only teaches you how to draw (and it really works!), but also carefully walks the reader through an introduction to the cognitive elements of the brain that the arts awakens. This book translates easily into the voice curriculum, offering avenues for vocalists to begin to realize how to help guide their brains for their own needs, and, in the meantime, you get to draw, which is always worth the time. Edwards underscores over and again that all people can draw, and that everyone approaches drawing through their own personality. Her message is the perfect visual arts equivalent of VoiceScienceWorks' "Your Voice, Your Choice". |
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Stephen Chun-Tao Cheng's "The Tao of Voice" either captured some of today's more popular Western voice instruction techniques, helped to create them, or some combination of both. This part of the book is interesting from a cultural development perspective, but what he does with deftness, and the real benefit of the book, is to bring concepts of body-mind development into clear focus including physical training exercises to align the body-mind, emotion-focused exercises, and an understanding of the "core" that has actual functional capacity. His physical, body-mind exercises are some of the best out there, and beautifully translated from more complex body-mind practices into the voice studio. By viewing Western singing instruction through an Eastern lens, Cheng succeeds in creating a full-brain approach to singing that opens doors for singers to experience the healing power of body-mind integration. In using the Western-based exercises, he outlines popular images and exercises like the "open throat", "maintaining good posture" discussions, the "two finger opening", the "open Ah vowel", the "yawn" and "siren", and several popular vocalise exercises that expose the challenges that these Western instruction tools face. Although there is value in each, they also contain elements of confusion, particularly in how their function tends to be explained. When he attempts to explain them, he often misattributes acoustic and laryngeal phenomena. To his credit, the book was written before much of the understanding that rebuts his claims existed in common form. It is well worth the read, and is a standard in voice pedagogy. |
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Written in 1978, Lewis Hyde's "The Gift" was an instant classic, and remains near the top of the critical reading list for those who relish creativity and believe in the power of community. Hyde's storytelling capacity keeps the reader enraptured while he slowly opens our eyes to the life-affirming power of the arts, the manner in which artists relate to their craft and others within their communities, and how an understanding of these interactions can help communities create favorable conditions for all its members even within the context of capitalism as a driving economic force. Hyde also establishes important contexts for understanding the challenges surrounding creativity and individuals who structure their lives around creativity, offering insight and encouragement for members of the creative class. For voice users, this book helps to build a case for working toward paradigms of sharing that can ultimately diminish the silo effects that the voice community's response to market forces has led to. |
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Norman Doidge, MD has written two of the more important books of this century. His careful, researched understanding of brain plasticity actually pales next to his ability to communicate the subject with clarity, simplicity, and such enthusiasm as to bring the reader to the point of wanting to begin to define their personal understanding within the context of their changing brain maps. For voice users, this book reinforces why science and understanding the voice can lead to easier learning, and more fulfilling performance. Doidge lays at our feet a chance to understand in concept what voice users have long experienced, but been unable to define. He opens our understanding away from the "I don't know how to explain it, but you know what I mean, you just have to feel it" toward meaningful, direct adjustments based in cognitive research, and all without the layman's challenges of reading scientific research journals. |
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To the seemingly endless contention around breathing for voice users, Hixon brings a lifetime of research and significant informational girth. This book is certainly an important step in the respiration debate, if only to set a bar for technical discussion. Though interpretations will certainly abound, Hixon offers enough critical data to help settle some questions. Still, his viewpoint is decidedly of the twentieth century. As such, some of the contextualizing language (e.g. "control", "hold", "fix"), and even some of the driving questions (e.g. "how much should the rib cage expand"), beg to be reborn in a twenty-first century paradigm that includes significant laryngeal, acoustic, neurological, physiological and body mapping research and experience. In a concise document, Hixon has summed up the breadth of understanding of a century or more of “breath wars” among well-meaning pedagogues and practitioners by offering decades of research data to support and refute the principal claims that drove those conflicts. It has also opened a door for refreshed thinking on the topic of respiration, and more user friendly, community-supported consensus on the topic. |
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Ken Bozman's Kinesthetic Voice Pedagogy, together with its companion precursor Practical Vocal Acoustics is as important a book in the voice literature as there is. I encourage reading Practical Vocal Acoustics first for the sake of thoroughly understanding Ken's vocabulary and pedagogy. In Kinesthetic Voice Pedagogy, Ken reveals why he may be the "mode of turning" (see his book for the metaphoric correlation) for today's voice teacher. While battles over superiority of language choice, tradition, style, and merit rage across the voice community, Ken demonstrates with sage wisdom that with clear, patient language and practice, all perspectives can coexist and thrive within the same house. He lovingly refurbishes old world terminology for a new era, bolstering the ever-present need to build on well-established tradition. In addition, he welcomes the ever-changing world of voice practice. The short chapter that he writes on CCM singing elevates the CCM discussion significantly. There is no defensiveness in his posture, only enthusiasm for communicating the wonders of vocal acoustics into measured practice, and determination to see others succeed. Throughout the book, the reader regularly feels as if Ken's primary focus is the well-being of the singer. The tools that he translates from across the vocal literature provide concise, meaningful opportunities for teachers and students to access some of the most intimate and elusive elements in voice training. In a single effort, Ken nurtures understanding of tradition, acknowledges the expertise of people across the voice world today, welcomes all readers into a curated but non-proprietary experience with complex material, and opens wide a new opportunity for vocalists from all backgrounds. I challenge anyone to do that in 80 or fewer pages. ~David Click here to order on Amazon! |
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Although His Holiness the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop Desmond Tutu don't cover vocology in The Book of Joy, it has significant interest to vocolgy enthusiasts. The book, dedicated to exploring “the goal of avoiding suffering and discovering happiness”, frequently references scientific research on the topic. Alongside the sage wisdom of the combined 165 years of spiritual leadership that these two men bring to the conversation, collaborating author Douglas Abrams helps to guide the reader’s experience by including contemporary neuroscience’s understanding of emotion, spirituality, and human interaction. The book reads like advice from the best friend that we all wish we had, and each page is notable and quote worthy. Click here to order on Amazon! |
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In a field populated by avid researchers and skilled practitioners, the most common academic contributions tend to be those that advance the field in baby steps, offering a little more clarity to well-trodden paths. It is rare to find a radical shift in thought, one that opens considerably new opportunities for everyone. Ian Howell’s “Parsing the Spectral Envelope” is just such a work, however. Howell has tackled one of the longest-held, and most unsatisfying, concepts in musical science, namely, that sound is a combination of loudness, pitch, and timbre, with timbre being “everything else”. Not only has he tackled it, he’s given us definitions to work with that astound the imagination, and charts, graphs, and videos that so easily bring us into these new definitions that, after working with them for a few minutes, it’s hard to imagine how we’ve functioned without them until now. At VoiceScienceWorks, we’ve been using several of his definitions for almost a year, having been privy to his thought process in development, and they have profoundly altered the ways that we explain singing. Ian has opened the doors, now we all have the joy of walking through them to see what brilliant discoveries await. This relatively short piece may have just changed the way we understand the voice, forever. We can all be pleased to have lived to see such a moment. For now, at least, you can download it for free (video links are listed in the body of the paper) here. ~David |
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This is an important book. Although I disagree with Olson some of the time, she has organized her writing in a way that brings clarity and focus to the great choral director/singing instructor divide that has so plagued the voice habilitation world for all of my life, and presumably for long before. The conflict that she exposes creates a wonderful conversation for choral practitioners and voice teachers alike. Her attention to voice science and its role in helping to create options for singers can not be underscored enough. So much of the perceived need of the soloist community to define boundaries around their choral experiences comes directly from the actions of choral practitioners who, though they mean well and know much about their craft, continue to operate without requisite knowledge of the vocal instrument. They, therefore, create expectations on singers that force them to compromise their own understanding of their voices, or worse, to make unknown adjustments that habituate unpredictable patterns. On the other side of the coin, however, the soloist community tends to promote a “one voice” approach to training, suggesting that singers have but one capacity, and that capacity must be honored at every turn. By this logic, vibrato, tone quality, volume, etc. become proprietary elements to be fought over. Olsen singly represents the voice teacher perspective at times. She also does a nice job of opening doors to a recognition that the voice has many capacities. Woven within her exploration is a sense that when voice leaders appreciate the value in variation, and the needs of vocalists to have instruction that allows them to grow into their craft, be freed to explore their instrument, and represent themselves in their singing, everyone will be happier and healthier. From within her pages, many vocal instructors can find a map toward appreciating the value of working together as a habilitation team. This book follows the industry standard of approaching solo singing from only the Western classical (bel canto) perspective. Perhaps a loosening of the choral/voice teacher fight might occur more easily when soloists allow for their knowledge to be assessed across the stylistic range of variance available to singers. Choral practitioners can certainly vouch for the challenges of working with soloists from many different backgrounds, and the benefits of having singers trained in multiple styles to help provide leadership when the choir accomplishes repertoire in varied styles. ~David Click here to order on Amazon! |
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The highlights of Donald Miller's "Resonance in Singing: Voice Building through Acoustic Feedback" range from his philosophical treatise on why voice teachers can and should adopt technology into their practice to his explanation of how to utilize two specific technologies (VoceVista and the electroglottograph) to promote healthy and advance acquisition of vocal acoustics. As a reader, I felt as if I were sitting at the foot of a benevolent and wise father, garnering patience and focus along the way. If you're going to use the EGG, it's a good place to start. If you've never considered vocal acoustics before, however, you might want to give Ken Bozeman's book a read first. Miller is without question one of today's leading experts on vocal acoustics, and there is much to be learned from his texts. This book expects the reader to have a functional vocabulary in order to access its gems, however, and as such, will prove a challenge to the beginning voice science user. He is clear that the focus of this text is on classical singing instruction, though, I am eager for vocologists to give up this mantel and begin to address the voice as a whole. Miller even demonstrates his ability to do so at the end of the book when he analyzes Babbs and Ethel Merman. He also gives the clearest explanation of the head/chest metaphor complex that I've read. It still has trouble as a whole, but Miller's organizational scheme gives it more credibility than most, because of his understanding of acoustics. Further, I haven't read another book that as accurately describes second formant tuning, and the impact of closed quotient on the singing voice. This book is a must read for aspiring vocologists. Even if you don't agree with it all, Miller provides solid footing and countless inspiration. ~David Click here to order on Amazon! |
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Click here to order on Amazon! Wendy D. Leborgne and Marci Rosenberg have produced a book that is well researched, carefully crafted, and meaningfully put together. Their love of teaching, sharing with others, and application of science is evident throughout the piece. Highlights of the book include the brilliant bibliography (which will act as a potent resource for the avid reader of vocology), their even-handed discussion of approaches to breathing instruction, their attention to phonotrauma and health questions (stemming from their SLP backgrounds), a crisp history of vocal pedagogy, and their intention to present research on belting in as complete a manner as possible, giving attention to several of the key players in CCM research over the past few decades. One of the books principal organizational features is the regular presentation of other author's research. I find this to be a double edged sword. On one level, citing copious studies from the field of voice research brings a sense of validity to the document, and offers the reader a trove of sources to mine in their search for more information. On another level, however, by relying so much on other people's data, Leborgne and Rosenberg suffer under a need to prove the data's validity. In a community where the research process itself is relatively new, and where a significant amount of the data cited comes from observational studies that rely on opinions from a very small representation of the field, this burden seems to weigh the book down. Whereas it does show the reader that regular research is taking place in the CCM voice community, it also reveals that much of the current research simply states in data points what has already been understood as general consensus. Until more revealing data begins to appear (and/or be utilized) across the board, it would seem that an author's best tools rest in defining clearly what they understand to be predictable, measurable, and repeatable information, and to provide readers with tools to achieve an understanding of this knowledge in theory and practice. As with my comments on “So You Want To Sing Rock 'N' Roll” by Matthew Edwards, I am still eager for the CCM community find more applicable language for the head/chest metaphor complex, and to develop a working understanding of vocal acoustics based in recent scientific developments. It’s hard to place these challenges at the feet of any one individual, since the research itself helps to create the confusion of information. This book will serve as an important tool in the ongoing exploration for definition and clarity. ~David Click here to order on Amazon! |
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So You Want To Sing Rock ‘N’ Roll is part of a “So You Want To Sing. . .” series created by the National Association of Teaching Singers. It features Matt Edwards as the primary author, but also includes chapters by Scott McCoy, Wendy DeLeo LeBorgne, Katheryn Green, Christina Howell, and Jonathan Flom. This collaborative, series approach represents one of the books strengths, and NATS is to be commended for their concerted approach to delving into varied singing styles. In So You Want To Sing Rock ‘N’ Roll, Matthew Edwards proves to us why he is a leading CCM voice educators. His clear explanations and logical organization provide a window into the highly successful program he has developed at Shenandoah. Edwards approaches his potential readers (presumably, self-taught rockers) with the respect of a colleague, and the loving care of a parent, and as such, creates permission for the learner to explore and shape their experience. He is sensitive to the varied stylistic approaches and attention to desired individual intention that drives vocalists in rock genres, and he creates appropriate pedagogic opportunities for his readers. One of the gems that this book offers begins in chapter six, where Edwards illuminates the electronic elements most important to amplified singing, exploring with crisp precision the basic essentials singers need to know in order to begin to appreciate the added influence of amplification. Other notable elements include a concise history of rock, a breakdown of vocal ornaments often found in rock singing, stylistic descriptions, exploration of communication habituation, and a tutorial on establishing business practices for self-employed artists. Chapters 5-9 add a wealth of knowledge to the singing and voice teaching canon. This series is an important step for NATS, and the CCM world if only for its efforts in explaining the technique involved in varied singing styles. As an early attempt for these communities, it is necessarily dependent upon past training. Certain aspects of it feel more important for teachers of western classical technique than for people interested in performing rock music. In a way, the book acts primarily as an ambassador for those classically trained teachers who have cross-over students. As such, the book suffers from its adherence to past models in several specific instances. The chapter on breathing relies on technical explanations of past pedagogies, all of which have problems in today’s teaching realities, not the least of which is the inherent conflict found in the “many different methods” explanation. After explaining this confusing and often inapplicable history, the author tells the rock musician that none of it applies to them. She should have begun with that paragraph, and then expanded on why none of it applies to any singer today. It’s time for the voice world to get over outdated approaches to breath, and there is no better place to start than with CCM singing. Further, since this book was published, significant discoveries in acoustics have been illuminated that call into serious question the laryngeal-registration focus presented in its pages. There is enough information on acoustic registration now to encourage the development of clearer language for the oversimplified head/chest metaphor complex . We can hope that future versions of NATS books will avail themselves of this learning, and help singers and teachers change this outdated paradigm. I would read this book to learn process, with an understanding that some of the scientific information about the voice is complicated by new discoveries. Even without the benefits of contemporary acoustic registration knowledge, Edwards creates options for singers and teachers to explore applicable sounds in measurable procedures, all while encouraging a systematic, healthy approach to habilitation. Where he excels, Edwards provides the reader with a credible map to success as a rock singer. By doing so, he offers encouragement and purpose to aspiring singers, and opens a wide door through which the classical voice world can walk into the future. ~David Click here to order on Amazon! |
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Although this may seem like an odd book for a vocology site, we have yet to find someone who describes the body/mind paradigm in such a direct, user-friendly, and pedagogically sound manner. Gallwey’s approach to teaching tennis has endless applications for voice teachers and students alike. The primary benefit follows from his attention to developing self-sustaining learners. He also, importantly, engages in a meaningful exploration of the learner’s personal motivations and learning process. The book is short too, which makes it great for use in environments where time is a constraint. We’ve found that having students translate the tennis-focused exercises into singer-focused exercises creates a rich exploration for singers and young pedagogues. ~David Click here to order on Amazon! |
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Intended as a coffee table style book, Titze has crafted a beautiful primer to entice readers into the world of vocology. In this short, picture-rich read, he teases out some of the more, well, fascinating elements that make the human voice an unique creation in the world. It’s as valuable as a novelty present as it is in regular classroom use. We suggest beginning vocal pedagogy and choral conducting classes by having students read through and reflect on the wisdom encapsulated here. ~David Click here to order on Amazon! |
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Vocology is a book intended for practitioners who wish to change vocal behavior. This astonishing collaboration of two of the most renowned voice experts, "VOCOLOGY", offers an equal amount of theory and application for those looking to embed voice specialty into their program. Whether your profession be music, theater, speech language pathology, otolaryngology, or voice science. In its broadest sense, vocology is the study of vocalization. This can include every aspect of human and animal sound-making in airways within the body. As a professional discipline, we give vocology a narrower focus in this book: the science and practice of voice habilitation, which includes evaluation, diagnosis, and behavioral intervention. The emphasis in this definition is on habilitation rather than rehabilitation. Restating from Principles of Voice Production (Titze, 1994, 2000): "Habilitation is the process of enabling, equipping for, or capacitating. Voice habilitation is therefore more than repairing a voice, or bringing it back to a normal state. It includes the process of building and strengthening the voice to meet specific needs." We have introduced vocology as a discipline that combines expertise from speech pathology, vocal music, theater arts, and otolaryngology. ~review from Amazon Click here to order on Amazon! |
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Ingo Titze’s “Principles of Voice Production” is the contemporary vocology bible. The book approaches the major complications of the voice with thorough, mathematical clarity. Topics such as vibrato, oscillation, breathing, the vocal folds, resonance, formants, harmonics, vocal health, registration, and more are explained in scientific detail, proving, where possible, the realities behind the inner workings of this complex instrument, and providing context around ideas that are still in debate. The challenge lies in its mathematical depth. Singers and SLPs who shy away from math and science will find this daunting, if not an outright turn off. If this describes you, then our suggestion is to find the time to attend the Summer Vocology Institute in Salt Lake City in order to be guided through the material with the experts. If you don’t have the time for that, it’s still worth having the book on your shelf, to work through in small doses, as there is simply no more thorough document available. ~David Click here to order on Amazon! |
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Scott McCoy’s book is one of the first to take the complexities of vocology and translate them into a more practical format for teachers who have not had extensive vocological training. His approach is strictly bel canto, and as such, focuses on the language of that training approach, and leaves less room for other vocal styles. McCoy provides the reader with clear definitions of some of the more challenging vocal concepts, and as such, this is a book worth reading, especially if you are just getting started with vocology. The guided listening exercises and interactive CD make this an even more enticing tool to have in one’s box ~David Click here to order on Amazon! |
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As the author of the introduction says, this is a good book, plain and simple. Bozeman writes as a life-long singer and teacher who has integrated vocology into his practice. The book's crowning achievement lies in Bozeman’s choice to keep the scope narrowly focused on acoustic registration. Given the generally agreed-upon shortcomings of current registration terminology, acquaintance with the concept of acoustical registration in itself is worth the read. Having personally wrestled with the concepts that Bozeman addresses for several years, I found his insights clarifying. I immediately put them into practice for myself and in my classroom with direct, measurable results. Every one of my singers have reflected on their ability to feel and understand the sensations associated with acoustical registration. He also does a nice job with the limited attention he gives to stylistic variants outside of bel canto singing, thereby including all learners in his exploration. His continuously updated website is a perfect companion to the book as well (www.kenbozeman.com). He, almost single-handedly, has brought acoustic registration theory into the 21st Century, and in such a beautifully approachable way. This is a must-have book for any singer's library. ~David Click here to order on Amazon! |
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There is no doubt that this is an important book in the vocology world. Tomatis was a pioneer in psychoacoustics, and a tireless supporter and encourager of every human’s ability to sing. He had a spectacular career, helped to manifest extraordinary changes in people’s voices, and pioneered techniques that have had profound influence on the voice and psychology communities. His perpetually curious, clever approach to hearing, the voice, and the body as understood through an appreciation and description of the integrated systems of the body (the field of cybernetics) makes him an indispensable contributor to the voicing conversation. Beyond that, he boldly crafted distinct approaches to the voice including: filtered listening, understanding vowel through absolute timbre, and, most prominently, the concept that the ears as sensory organs feed the voice through an integrated nervous system thereby making the ear a dominant figure in voice learning. These are all concepts and approaches that have been sadly underrepresented in the vocology field and in voice training, treatment, and practice. Most of the people who employ Tomatis-influenced practices reside in the psychology world. They have shown the profound benefits of ear training on the brain, another angle that the voice world can learn to elicit. It is important to remember that he was a medical doctor first. His deep connection to the singing community came through is father, a famous opera singer at the time, and through subsequent work with a range of singers and non-singers who developed a love of singing. This book holds important answers for teaching and singing, but may be even more important for medical treatment of the voice. The unfortunate part of the book resides in Tomatis’ verbose desire to assert absolutes without the benefits of studies to back them up. Although he wrote this book in 1987, around the time that Titze was writing his influential, study-supported "Principles of Voice Production," and there was plenty of published new information on the neuroscience front as well, he was older, and therefore focused through a different lens. His stories and examples are all from decades before. Notably, he spent his career being attacked by colleagues for being outside of the mainstream. He does offer the benefits of his own research, and describes his process, which is incredibly beneficial in understanding his approach and in recreating/testing the stunning claims that he makes. I offer this by way of explanation, not excuse. His understanding of source/filter theory, for example, demonstrates that he was aware of the importance of acoustic feedback, but instead of following that logical pathway, he veers toward a controlled loop conception developed from his cybernetic understanding. His desire to demonstrate how the loop functions has him insinuate that due to bone conduction, high harmonics are promoted through the skeletal system. This, and a few other, mythological-level assertions make the book a potential minefield for new learners, and a difficult text to use as a learning tool without excerpting the more resilient passages (an exercise well worth the effort). A reader willing to approach the text with Tomatis’ curiosity and a dose of skepticism (essential elements in scientific and artistic learning), however, will find significant contributions in approaches to thinking about and engaging with the voice. As a side benefit, some of his anecdotes are delightful and others reveal the barbarism that often accompanies the voice medical and training procedures, yielding positive warning for voice practitioners today. He reminds us of his greatest enduring contribution in the last sentence: “Remember: we sing with our ear.” |
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