Everyone, at some specific emotional level, is the expert on their voice. 

Have you ever tried offering unsolicited advice to someone about their voice? 

If so, how well did they respond?  The voice is so connected with our emotional center, and so much a part of each individual's identity, that we can appreciate people having difficulty hearing that you know something that they don't about their instrument.  That idea extends to vocal professionals too.  The very idea that a vocal professional might not know something seems to send us into a dark place.  Yet, when we pause to ask ourselves if we know everything, every one of us has to admit that the voice is too complex to be fully understood, and that we are all specialists in very specific ways.  The industry supports the vocal professional's reluctance to admit that they might not know something.  Past instruction practices, a difficult job market, and a cult-of-personality system of private training have created a scenario in which vocal instructors are unwilling to show any weakness.  Yet, the words "I don't know, let's find out" can be so motivating, and empower the instructor to deepen into their community as well.  So how do we open conversations without the power of wizardry?  Maybe magic is the only answer, or, maybe the voice world is developing the power of inquiry and openness to community in new ways so that new knowledge doesn't make us feel like we're being robbed, and help is always just a conversation away.

~David

At VoiceScienceWorks we make an emphatic point that we are not a “method”.  In the entrepreneurial voice world, new voice teaching methods and quick fixes seem to grow on trees.  We wholly encourage people to find ways to articulate their gifts in order to maximize their sharing potential.  Voice habilitation takes a village, after all.  But, we aren’t interested in creating new methodology, rather. . .

We aim to help all vocal practitioners translate the mind-opening power of contemporary voice science into a manageable resource such that whatever their method, they can continue to seek freshness in their search.

Science doesn’t have all of the answers, in fact, science relishes questions more than answers.  What it has is a structured process for how to ask questions, how we build on what is known, and how we include others in the process.

And what do we call it?  Well, the Scientific Method, of course, and here are the steps:

5) Analyze your data and draw a conclusion: “it looks like his upper harmonics are very faint, but stronger on the [a].  I’m going to surmise that if he can make the upper harmonics stronger, that he can increase his volume.  Given what I know about the voice, that may mean that he needs to improve his vocal fold adduction in that range.”

Can you use the scientific method without a voice analyzer?  Of course, the point isn’t that you have special tools or even special knowledge, but that you are open to not knowing the answer, and to taking measured steps to explore potential answers such that you can refer back to them over time.  Scientists like to take good notes too. 

That’s what we’ve done with VoiceScienceWorks: 
taken good notes, and translated them into quickly digestible information so that you don’t have to read everyone else’s long-form research in order to get started.
 
When we choose to approach our voices using the scientific method, we find that our hunger for knowledge increases, and we’re much more likely to look for hard scientific answers to help us build our hypotheses.  Eventually, we realize that there are questions that no one has yet found answers to, and that’s when the real fun starts!
 
And what about the question of emotion?  Can you be a scientist and still offer a sensitive, emotionally-charged performance?  We’ve found that not only can you, but that an organized physical training process such that the scientific method provides communicates much more seamlessly with our emotions. This is because clarity creates confidence so that we aren’t worried about what’s happening physically, and are much more able to focus on training our emotional responses too.