Necessary Migrations: the Acoustic and Somatosensory Transitions of Range
Kenneth Bozeman, voice teacher and author on acoustic vocal pedagogy, will briefly review the acoustic landscape that all singers, regardless of genre, inhabit. He will then detail the migrations of vowel, timbre, vibrotactile and acoustic sensation we experience across range. Knowing, anticipating, allowing, and even facilitating these necessary migrations significantly improves laryngeal register transitions across range.
Living and Singing in Our Bodies: Alexander Technique in the Voice Studio and Online Teaching
Sara Goldstein Gall, associate professor of voice and ATI Certified Alexander Technique teacher at Boston Conservatory at Berklee, will guide you through an experiential workshop awakening your senses to anatomical connections and balance within yourself using established principles of the Alexander Technique. You will learn how to apply these important concepts, and to create psychophysical conditions that allow growth and learning to occur in your studio, in person or remotely.
Anatomy and Physiology Overview
Tara Stadelman-Cohen, CCC-SLP, voice pathologist and singing health specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital Voice Center, will guide you through understanding anatomy and physiology as the foundation of technique across genres and how it serves to avoid faulty motor practice when singing. The four subsystems of voice and speech (respiration, phonation, resonance and articulation) will be outlined as related to singing function.
Breathing for Singing: One Way? No Way!
Tara Stadelman-Cohen, CCC-SLP, voice pathologist and singing health specialist at Massachusetts General Hospital Voice Center, will discuss “Is there a 'proper' or 'correct' way to breathe for singing?” Discussion and lecture will help with distinguishing respiratory facts from fiction, recognizance of the potential for an individual's variance, and acknowledgement of various genre requirements assisting effective breathing technique and subsequent singing artistry. A deep focus on respiratory anatomy and physiology, the ever-changing demands of breathing patterns when singing, will be addressed.
Teaching Musical Theater: Securing “Belt,” Mix, and Legit
Kevin Wilson, associate professor of voice and head of vocal pedagogy at Boston Conservatory, will discuss how to functionally train singers for the demands of a 21st-century Broadway career. Discussion will present standard and contemporary concepts around belt, mixing, and legit. He will discuss conceptual registration and demonstrate how to cultivate the voice as a whole to navigate the many demands of the musical theater singer to keep your students singing for a lifetime.
Cross-Training in the Musical Theater Voice Voice Studio
The vocal skill required for a successful career in musical theater today is worlds removed from what was expected 30 years ago. To be competitive and stay competitive, singers must have resilient, flexible voices capable of surviving eight shows a week. Mary Saunders-Barton, master teacher and pedagogue, will present on developing a healthy technique for the stamina paramount for the musical theater singer today. She will discuss how cross-training voices in classical and vernacular styles ensures a balanced instrument, adaptable to a multitude of styles.
Getting High: Exploring Belt and Falsetto Options in the Male Voice
Jared Trudeau, assistant professor at Boston Conservatory, will explore various approaches to developing a flexible approach to the middle and top of the male voice. He will describe a training agenda that addresses the myriad of vocal colors required of the singing actor in musical theater. He will provide various exercises for training the transitions between falsetto, belt, and legit so that students are comfortable in whatever styles are asked of them.
Teaching Tenors, Baritones, and Basses: Building a Foundation
Michael Hanley, assistant professor at Boston Conservatory, will explore common issues involved in the training of beginning male singers, including puberty and voice changes. He will demonstrate a training model that incorporates registration, speech exploration, and passaggio navigation, as well as the basics of call/belt sounds. Additional discussion will focus on how to use repertoire as a developmental tool to introduce students to these new sounds and skills.
Registration and Acoustic Perception
Ian Howell, director of vocal pedagogy at New England Conservatory, will discuss an exploration of the historical, physiological, aerodynamic, and perceptual models used to conceive of registers in singing. This class will cover common language used today to discuss the registration phenomenon.
The Musician’s Mind: The Third Pillar of Voice Science
Given that pedagogy is defined as “the method and practice of teaching,” it is ironic that what has been missing from science-informed voice pedagogy—until very recently—is both the delivery system and the receptacle for information: the human mind. To be successful, a teacher must understand how humans learn. This question—how do humans learn?—is the essential one of cognitive science. Lynn Helding, voice pedagogue and author of The Musician’s Mind, has proposed a paradigm in all music pedagogy, in response to the cognitive revolution: a shift in emphasis from how well teachers teach, to how well students learn. This course will introduce the most essential elements from cognitive science to assist teachers in leveraging what they know toward how to actually train their students.
Teaching Mezzos and Sopranos: Building a Foundation
Patty Thom, chair of voice at Boston Conservatory, will discuss the development of a secure foundation in the young female voice through the presentation of a set of curated exercises. These exercises are designed to guide a young singer in accessing and exploring resonance, ease, and connection through the range of the voice. Drawing on a number of sources, these exercises take the singer through her full range, addressing an array of both technical and psychological considerations with particular attention to that special relationship between a girl and her chest voice.
