1 Comment
This 55 minute presentation provides key insights into how people hear what we say, and how we can sharpen our engagement to help them take away from our interaction the points that are most important to us. She focuses the information from a marketing standpoint, but provides a few important concepts that can be used in teaching and communication. Here are a few of the main points if you want to jump around.
9:00 Stimulus Internal Variation 15:00 Dopamine, Pleasure and Response, Anticipation and Uncertainty 22:00 Welcomed Uncertainty 28:00 Attention depends on what people sense 38:00 Attention depends on what people know 40:00 Attention depends on what people infer 46:00 Various levels of processing 52:00 Power of Three Leon Thurman and James Daugherty published the article "Balance or Blend? Are These the Only Approaches to Choral Singing? (A Rebuttal)" in the Choral Journal, April, 2003. Their express intention was to offer insights into an article published in the same journal four months prior. Their article is a brilliant rebuttal, but, it also succinctly defines why the scientific method, specifically the value of asking questions and seeking answers in predictable, measurable, repeatable ways, is critical to the voice world. This article provides such clarity that it can serve as a primer for educational methods, vocology, vocal pedagogy, conducting, and choral methods classes. Bravo to these two veteran musicians for their careful and meaningful encouragement to the rest of the profession. A few of my favorite quotes: "Is desirable voice quality in solo or choral singing determined in large part by the expressive content of the music being sung and the particular stylistic practices of the human beings who created it? Or, is it determined by a single, set way to sing all musics? Is the brain of a trained singer capable of coordinating that singer’s larynx and vocal tract in a variety of profiles in order to efficiently produce a variety of expressive voice qualities? Or, are human brains limited to only one coordination profile that is efficient? " (p. 38) "When any group of choral conductors or singing teachers discusses "the best ways to do what we do," there are likely to be as many opinions, speculations, and beliefs as there are people in the room. Perhaps, that reflects our individual human experiences and the state of accumulated knowledge in our profession. Once we decide to test, in some fashion, the validity of opinions, speculations, and beliefs, however, we must necessarily move from the realm of professional opinion to the realm of systematic, controlled investigation. Separating the two is never easy. Nonetheless, is this not a goal toward which we must aspire when our ultimate goal is high credibility in our profession's knowledge base? " (p. 43)
I've just been listening to Tim Hartford's Ted Talk entitled "Trial, Error, and the God Complex." Tim reminds us that any problem faced by humanity is far more complex than can be simply "known." Given the profound complexity of the voice, we face this in voice teaching and research perpetually, yet, we also face the fear of being wrong. This fear leads many in the voice community to accept the God Complex both taking on the God mantle themselves, and distributing it out to others who are "in the know" as our line of defense. What would the voice world look like if we could release the need to "know", and accept the thing that we are actually quite good at, which is target practice (the equivalent to Tim's "trial and error")? How would that free us to enjoy, experiment, and seek after new information, and learn to look upon one another with less judgement?
Voiceover work might seem to be the most relaxed sort of acting at first glance, but if it’s videogame v.o., it might not even be safe, contends SAG-AFTRA, which has been having negotiations on and off with a group of game companies since the AFTR Interactive agreement expired at the end of 2014. Now, frustrated by the industry’s alleged refusal to respond to a vocal safety proposal, the union has asked California occupational safety regulators to investigate...
How do Broadway singers belt out eight shows per week and keep their voices healthy? Newsworks takes a look-
What's the normal routine for Broadway singers to maintain their vocal health? The answer might surprise you. We head to New York University's Voice Center to look at a few dozen vocal folds, or cords, down in the larynx in the neck to find out how they function and what it takes for high level performers to avoid vocal injury. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
April 2019
Categories |