Voicescienceworks in Denver and ashland

In late June, Laurel and I had a chance to bring our workshops to two of our hometown communities.  I lived in the Denver area for almost a decade, and Laurel spent her teen years in Ashland, so we had a taste of home mingled with people from the voice communities there who we were fortunate to meet.  From SLPs to operatic divas, college professors, choral singers, communication teachers, middle school science teachers, collegiate-level voice students, and interested family members, we enjoyed the spirit of discovery that led both groups into joint exploration.

What strikes me the most each time we teach a workshop is how immediately accessible the material is, and how quickly people apply it to their current knowledge.  We regularly witness the experience of people walking out of Plato’s Cave for the first time, and their joyful engagement with this new material.

Here are some of their responses. . .

I loved that under one roof, in one sitting, a wide variety of topics were covered, from vowel modification, to semi-occluded  exercises, to  research in harmonics.  The thing I like about VoiceScienceWorks is that there is a nice simplification/sorting of a great deal of material which is presented in a good, hands-on fashion.
~Sarah Oppenheim-Beggs
Voice teacher, Ashland, OR

 

You workshop shared direct, accessible strategies for helping student singers with lots of good information in a short period of time.
~Emily Branam
General music specialist, vocal instructor
Arvada, CO
 



The vocal exercises & the straw exercises were wonderful.
~Kerry Resseguie
Piano and Voice Teacher
Westminster, CO
 


I liked that there were specific exercises for my age and my range.
~Leslie Kendall, Voice teacher
Ashland, OR

My favorite part was learning about the theory about vowels. Mind blown. I will put the awesome worksheets into practice - they are fabulous handouts!  I always like to learn more about voice so I was hoping it would be a mix of fun and learning, which it was :), and it had a great balance of lecture and class participation.
~Mandy Manning
SLP, Broomfield, CO



Fascinating, interactive, motivating.  I loved the voice analyzer!
~Marcia Ragonetti, Mezzo-soprano
Denver, CO



I am still soaking it all in, but what I've been focusing on is the concept of the formants, and simply modifying the shape of the formant to  create a desired color. I really liked learning the importance of harmonics in  singing. It's a wonderful mind blown kind of thing.
It was so informative and all the information that was presented was applicable to all vocations that require speaking as well as singing.  There was just so much information and it was all great!
~Keri Murphy, Voice Teacher
Littleton, CO

Our one regret is that we only have a handful of hours.  We’re excited by people’s regular entreaty for more, and hope to be able to set up more and longer workshops in these areas in the future!