Welcome to everything your voice can do - Welcome to VoiceScienceWorks!    We take contemporary research on the voice and translate it into directly applicable information so that you, the voice user, can immediately apply it in your practice. Our website is free, accessible and friendly to all voice users who wish to deepen their understanding and empower their learning process! ​​

New video: 1 singer- 17 styles of singing with spectrogram analysis

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 Vocology is the science and practice of voice habilitation.  Basically, it’s the nitty-gritty of how we make sound and how we teach people to make the sounds they want to make.  Vocology’s ultimate goal is to help all voice users gain a greater understanding of their instrument and all of its wonders, and to begin to relate to their voice through measurable, predictable, and repeatable information in order to develop confidence and clarity.  At VoiceScienceWorks, we strive to take complex science and focus it into digestible, and immediately applicable concepts so that you can begin to use cutting edge information in your personal practice right away. 

Vocology draws on the fields of Vocal Performing Arts, Logopedics, Speech and Hearing Science, Audiology, Neurology, Laryngology, and Otology, and relies on knowledge of vocal anatomy, physiology, biomechanics, perceptual-motor learning principles, acoustics, the physics of sound, and vocal pedagogy and practice.  This includes research about the voice, vocal training for singing and speaking, and detecting and treating pathologies through therapy.
We've heard of audiology, the science of hearing, but what about vocology, the science of the voice?
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Imaging that you’ve been asked to bake a cake, and you’ve been put in a kitchen with no light, filled with ingredients without labels, and you don’t have a recipe, oh yeah, and you’re going to be judged on how well you do, the whole time.  That’s what voice learning is like.  The sheer complexity of the instrument matched with the fact that you can’t see it creates barriers that are difficult to overcome even for those who come to their voices with greater ease or lengthy study. 

​To follow the metaphor, voice science begins by letting light in, and creates clearly defined labels that eventually lead to understanding recipes for completing your singing goals.  If we’re successful, science can also eliminate much of the judgement.  By executing measurable, predictable, and repeatable goals, we can let the “good/bad/ugly” language go, and simply talk about what it means to make certain sounds, how it feels, and where we can go from here.
How can we help the tenor who feels like he's yelling above middle C? What about the actor who has trouble being understood, or the workout instructor whose voice fatigues?
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Creating this list feels kind of like picking the best artist of the 1960s, but here’s a thumbnail of some of the essentials that help to define the parameters of voice.

Knowing how your body learns and what your conscious mind can do to guide that learning will change your world, alleviate pressure, and open new doors.  Target practice is where it’s at.

Your voice is complex.  Complexity means that it’s difficult to learn.  It also means that you have loads of options for how it can work for you.
People identify deeply with their voice.  This leads many to say “I have one voice, and it behaves in one way”.  That is one option.  Another one is realizing that you have many options that all feed one another.

Breath is key, but breathing has more to do with allowing the body to work for you than with forcing muscular engagement.

Those eleven tiny muscles that sit inside the larynx are important, get to know their function and they will be your friends. . .but remember that you can’t feel them, you can only feel the results of what they do.

You vocal resonator is the only kind of resonator (all instruments have them) that can change shape, and each tiny shape change can have major impact on your sound.  How you perceive sound (psychoacoustics) impacts how you shape your vocal tract.  Herein lies a gold mine.

Your vocal folds create harmonics.  Your vocal tract amplifies or dampens those harmonics based on its shape.  Learning to shape your vocal tract so that it reacts to the harmonics coming from your vocal folds is one of the main tricks in voice habilitation.

The emotion we need for communicating through our voices has to be habituated as a regular part of the learning process.
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There are many, many approaches to voice instruction and learning.  Empowering yourself with knowledge will help you guide your learning, and help you avoid being confused by different approaches.

​Using our voices can be so much fun!  Keep track of the fun quotient as you go, and refocus if it gets too low.  Turn exercises in to games as often as you can.
There is so much to know! And always more to learn.
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featured pages

The Voice Learner's Three Guiding Principles
1.  You, the singer, are the expert on how singing feels to you. In every learning experience....

2.  Most of the vocal instrument cannot be seen or touched.  Empower yourself by seeking out knowledge in contemporary voice science to...
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3.  Make expression and communication a regular part of your practice routine. Allow yourself to get close to the emotional...
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​The Voice Learner's Three Guiding Principles
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1.  You, the singer, are the expert on how singing feels to you. In every learning experience, own this expertise by noticing, listening and asking questions.

 
2. Most of the vocal instrument cannot be seen or touched. Empower yourself by seeking out knowledge in contemporary voice science to help demystify the singing process.   Working from a place of knowledge saves time, diminishes stress, and increases enjoyment.
 

3. Make expression and communication a regular part of your practice routine. Allow yourself to get close to the emotional aspects of your repertoire every time you sing.  Bringing together artistic experience with developed skills takes intention and practice.  
Straw Phonation
singer's toolbox 
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Build your own Warm Up
warm ups & exercises
Other  Websites
who else is doing what
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Book Reviews
vocology blogs

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Be a scientist, not a tourist, in your vocal experience.

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