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Welcome to eZINE 37
In this edition, we have news of a brand new course in Cambridge for
choral and recreational singers, and a roundup of our summer courses
so far.
We include Gillyanne's abstracts
for her two papers at PEVoC 8 in August, and we've news of a
private Singing and the Actor Training. We highlight two courses of interest
from the BVA and Meribeth Dayme, and there's an article from Jeremy on the Front foot/Back foot
technique. |
 
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First of all, many thanks to you for sending more congratulatory emails and letters
to us about our 10th anniversary - we were thrilled
with the messages from you, and it's great to
know that so many of you are supportive of the work we are doing.
So much has happened in the last couple of months
(the launch of the new teaching DVD and eight separate training
events!) that we haven't
even had time to send you an eZINE! So let's start with
our brand new course coming up in September.
How Your Voice WORKS
Here's a new date for your diaries. Vocal Process will be in
Cambridge on Saturday September 12. We've been invited by one of
the UK's leading choral groups to give a training day for choral
singers and their trainers. The multi-award-winning Cambridge Chord
Company (Llangollen Eisteddfod Choir of the World) taking over one
of Cambridge University's lecture halls at the Woolfson College for
the event.
The chorus is sponsoring us for the whole weekend, and is opening
the Saturday event to anyone interested in improving their singing
voice. This means that prices that are up to a third lower
than our normal daily rate for workshops!
The open event is called
How Your Voice WORKS, and we've set up a
special webpage with all the details. Places are already booking
up, so if you don't normally
have time for singing lessons, or if you want to find out more about
what your voice can do, or if you haven't yet experienced our
training methods, make your way to Cambridge on September 12!
And
here's what we've been doing in the last few weeks:
Summer roundup: May
 Our
regular trips to Scotland included two visits in May: Successful
Singing Auditions coaching at Motherwell College (now in a new
building, picture right), and four hectic days at the RSAMD working
with the MA Musical Theatre students.
Gillyanne gave a bespoke workshop based on Singing and the Actor
techniques to the MA in Voice Studies students at Central
School of Speech and Drama, organised by Katerina Moraitis.
" The
student feedback from your session was great and they really
appreciated your sharing your time and expertise."
The month ended with the With One Voice seminar with David
Carey and Gillyanne at RADA. With One Voice was attended by actors,
classical singers and teachers of singing wanting to learn about the
links between singing and speaking voice. There was a particular
interest this year on healthy speaking voice use, and questions on
why some singers experience vocal fatigue when speaking on stage or
teaching in a class situation. With One Voice forms the final part
of our Integrated VoiceTM Module One (see below for more
on Integrated VoiceTM).
Summer roundup: June
June saw a trip to Cardiff for two days of musical theatre
coaching and training, sponsored by the Welsh Assembly. The
musical theatre tradition is very strong in South Wales, and we
enjoyed working with both the performing arts students at St David's
College, and the musical theatre staff. We also gave presentations
on healthy voice use in the classroom, vocal projection, and
shared information on working in the musical theatre industry. Many
thanks to Catherine Webster for organising the visit.
We had a two week holiday on the Welsh borders (the first time in
years we've been able to take two weeks for a proper holiday!), and
we came back to a packed schedule, beginning with the presentation
for the Wellcome Trust in central London.
 The
Wellcome Trust is the largest charity in the UK, and their
central tenet is the exploration and support of human and animal
health. The charity is divided into several sections, and we were
contacted by the Wellcome Collection, an extraordinary art
gallery/museum/event space/meeting place "for the insatiably
curious".
We were invited to take part in a series of public lectures called
Apparatus, that focuses on the bare bones behind performance. Vocal
Process gave the sole lecture on voice, Vocal Limits, which
included our How Does Your Voice Work video (created for the Science
Museum), songs performed by Jeremy, interactive demonstrations and
techniques led by Gillyanne, and an interview and Question and
Answer session facilitated by popular science communicator and
standup Timandra Harkness. The whole event was recorded, and we're
hoping to have snippets of that recording on the website later this
month.
Summer roundup: July
The five days of Singing and the Actor intensives flew by.
With singers and teachers travelling from all over England and
indeed from Paris, the group bonded exceptionally quickly.
 We had no
less than three of our Integrated Voice participants acting as
assistants - thanks to Adrian, Fran and James for their able
support. We insist that our Integrated Voice Module Two participants
are mentored in their teaching practice: learning information is one
thing, but being able to teach it accurately and clearly to others
is a separate and highly valuable skill. Adrian and Fran each
presented a vocal topic to the group, and then coached individual
people through the techniques to make sure they had understood and
could apply what they had learned.
Here are some of the comments from those first three intensive days:
"What a wonderful three days
- I am still feeling so excited by the
work that we did, I feel like ringing all my students and
telling them
to come for a lesson immediately, I can't remember the last
time that
I felt so motivated as a performer and a teacher - it is really
quite
extraordinary especially as I came expecting to gain more
confidence
in my teaching and went away believing in myself as a
performer." Teresa, opera singer and teacher
"I just wanted to send a
note to say thank you for such a fantastic course this weekend.
The information I learnt was invaluable and there were
certainly a lot of 'mist clearing' moments! I think one of the
most important things I got out of the course was a new
confidence in my own singing. I am looking forward to applying
both this new found confidence and technique to my singing
and teaching." Katherine, singer and teacher.
The Advanced Singing and the Actor Training
took place a few days later at our studios in Forest Hill. This
course has developed so much in the last few years, and makes some
strenuous demands on the participants! While the first course is
about finding out what can be done with your voice, the Advanced
course is about finding out what you are doing with your
voice, and how you can change it.
It's an immensely practical course, with more than 70% of the two
days spent experimenting, singing, making sounds and listening
together and and in small groups. The timetable included sessions on
discovering many different mixes of vocal quality and how to find
them. We had half a day on the passaggio, and a superb demonstration
lesson on the first register change, which, depending on your vocal
setup and voice quality choices, we found could be anywhere in our
female participants' voices between middle C and the D a ninth
above! Jeremy is gently pushing Gillyanne to share her very exciting
and practical research work on the passaggio and its variations in a
new open day course, so watch this space.
"I enjoyed
the group (dynamics and size) very much and also the opportunity
you gave us to sort out “burning” issues in the masterclass and
question session(s).
Adding “moaning” to the lower notes has helped with the gear
change hugely. You make a wonderful team with your ever
enquiring minds and knowledge. Thanks
for an excellent course." Linda,
singer and teacher
Touring and writing
 Jeremy
has been performing everywhere with Hatstand Opera, from Yorkshire to Norfolk, Devon and
Derbyshire. The latest Hatstand show, Vocal Vices, has been
very well received, although there was one Church committee who
were concerned about having the show in the church itself because of the
name. (Can't really see the problem with the word Hatstand...).
The Vocal Vices show has a vast range
of music from Mozart to Stephen Schwarz and even Les Reed -
including a crazy version of Tom Jones'
'Delilah'. Hatstand Opera's byline is "Opera has never been so much
fun". So if you really want to see Jeremy in a genuine
Haarlem zoot suit and a blond wig,
book your seat at a Hatstand event.
Meanwhile, G illyanne
has been putting the finishing touches to the first volume of
Singing Express.
Here's more information from A&C Black, our publishers:
"It supplies everything that children and teacher need for singing
together - brilliant, cross-curricular singing materials, which
naturally and easily help grow confident voices and full guidance
and help with using them. Each book and DVD-ROM pack provides songs,
chants, rhymes, stories and warm ups. Easy to access, easy to learn
and share with children. The materials are designed for whiteboard
display and include backing tracks, lyrics, song movies and
specialist singing help whenever needed."
Book 1 is aimed at children aged 5-6 and their teachers.
You can pre-order it through our dedicated
Vocal Process Musicalstore
PEVoC 8
 Gillyanne will be presenting two papers at the Pan
European Voice Conference (PEVoC 2009) on August 26-29 in Dresden,
Germany. Click on each paper title to go to the PEVoC 8 website for
the full abstract.
The first paper, with Johan Sundberg and Graham F Welch, takes place
on Thursday 27th in the main concert hall as part of the Singing
Voice Free Paper session.
Song tessitura and vocal comfort: Comparing F0 histograms for
speech and songs in female singers of Contemporary Commercial
Music ['CCM'] with Gillyanne, Johan Sundberg and Graham F. Welch
Pitch range is an important aspect in all types of vocal art.
Each singing voice may have a typical pitch range of maximum
phonatory comfort. In Western Lyric singing, one aspect of vocal
‘fach' is a match between ‘comfortable pitch range' and song
material. On the other hand in ‘CCM' singing, desirable
expressive effects might well result from a mis-match between
comfortable pitch range and song material.
In this study six female singers were selected: all were
experienced performers or teachers of ‘CCM' genres. Each singer
performed a reading test and sang two songs from her performance
repertoire. In addition each singer demonstrated her
‘comfortable pitch range' in singing and was interviewed about
her experience of vocal effort needed to sing the songs.
For the full abstract,
visit this page and click on the Singing Voice I Free Paper
link in the timetable on Thursday morning.
And Gillyanne will be giving a second paper on Friday 28th, also
in the main concert hall, with Sara Harris
Singers' internal gestures and genre: Mapping vocal
gestures in female singers of Western Lyric and Musical Theatre
singing
Skilled singers must show consistency in their vocal
production when performing roles in opera or musical theatre.
This implies fine control over vocal tract configurations and
phonatory settings. A clinical procedure such as fibreoptic
nasopharyngoscopy enables viewing of the supgraglottic
structures with a relatively small impact on singer performance.
In this study the researchers view vocal tract shaping of the
larynopharynx in Western Lyric and Musical Theatre singers,
including a subset group of singers originally trained in the
Western Lyric Tradition and now performing in Musical Theatre.
Singers from the 3 different groups were asked to perform in
their normal genre. They performed pitch glides in ‘range tests'
prior to singing a song extract of their choice, followed
immediately by a ‘scale in mode of song'.
For the full abstract,
visit this page and click on the Singing Voice II Free Paper
link in the timetable on Friday morning.
Integrated Voice
We have four people close to
completing their Integrated VoiceTM modules this month:
 James is finishing Module One, and
found the opportunity to facilitate on the Singing and the Actor
Training invaluable:
"Thank you for a great
SATA course. I enjoyed it immensely and found the
facilitating opportunities to be hugely rewarding. It was
such a lovely group and new friendships have been forged."
James
Fran, Anne and Adrian are finalising
their work for Module Two, with a number of mentoring sessions from
Gillyanne and Jeremy. "The mentoring session with Jeremy was
excellent and gave me some great pointers on clarity and effective
communication of topic" Adrian
The next run of Module One starts in January 2010.
We've already been contacted by several people interested in joining
the programme, who have not yet completed their Singing and the
Actor Training. Therefore, we'll be running a private Singing and the Actor Training
for all the prospective participants. We're going to include
just four places on the course for people who aren't ready to do
Integrated Voice, but who would like to take Singing and the Actor
Training. If you'd like to join this private run of the course,
please let us know as soon as
possible.
Have you grabbed a larynx recently?
So far this year, Vocal Process has
given away more than 1600 larynges.
 And
the larynx is featured as a Resource in the Summer 2009 edition of
the prestigious and wide-ranging Speech and Language Therapy in
Practice magazine.
The template is downloadable for
free directly from the Resources page of the website
http://www.vocalprocess.co.uk/resources_1.htm
And if written instructions don't work
for you, remember that Jeremy has put a free silent movie showing
how to build the larynx on YouTube. The film shows Jeremy making a
larynx "before your very eyes", and the whole film was done in one
take. In keeping with the silent movie theme, the film is slightly
speeded up, and accompanied by the lovely Victorian piano piece
Thalia, played of course by Jeremy (well if you're a professional
pianist, you might as well...)
The film's got a five-star rating, and
was discovered by one Attila the Mum for a science fair project! So
check it out (it's 4 minutes long).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1UEzPc3I2g
Courses of interest
We have two voice-related courses that might be of interest to you:
 Rock
and Pop Day
Here's Kim Chandler on the British Voice Association's Rock and
Pop day in September:
"The BVA's interactive and highly informative "Rock and Pop" day
for singers and teachers has come around again and it's set to be
jam packed with presentations and demonstrations from medical
specialists (ENT, SLT and physio) and from nationally and
internationally recognised vocal coaches such as Cathrine Sadolin
(Denmark), Mary Hammond (UK), Helen Rowson (UK/Spain), Dane Chalfin
(UK), Kim Chandler (UK), Pamela Parry (UK) and Mark deLisser (UK),
plus a few other surprises including a celebrity interview!"
Visit
www.british-voice-association.com for more details and to
download an application form.
 CoreSingingTM
Meribeth Dayme is running a new course for singers and teachers in
London in September and October. Here is Meribeth on the thoughts
behind CoreSingingTM
"CoreSingingTM offers participants new ways to govern
their learning, develop self-confidence, conquer performance
anxiety, and restore the personal and creative power that has been
diminished or lost due to flawed perceptions, outdated teaching
methods, or lack of inner direction. This approach encourages
singers, like top athletes, to employ focus and intent,
visualization, and special ways of breathing to develop and master
peak performance.
I have drawn on my own experiences in the oriental mystic arts
and healing energies, to create an approach to singing which will
raise any performer and performance, whether you are a newcomer to
the stage, or an experienced performer looking to retain and enhance
your power of performance."
Contact
Meribeth@aosinging.com or visit
www.aosinging.com for more
details.
And here's one of Jeremy's latest articles on performance
techniques, focusing on music and energy
 Front foot, back foot - changing the energy flow in
music
There are many ways to shape musical phrases - with dynamics,
with tempo, with rhythmic intensity or variation. here is an
exercise I use with high-energy performers to help them grade their
performances. It will work in any musical genre, and will also work
for speeches, both in the theatre and in the wedding reception. For
this you will need a favourite song, speech or phrase.
First, let's examine the physicality of the front/back foot idea.
Stand up with one foot slightly in front of the other, about
shoulder width apart. Stand with your weight balanced over both
feet.
Stand on the outside of your feet, so that your weight is pushing
outwards slightly.
Now stand on the inside edge of your feet, with your weight pushing
inwards slightly.
Move your weight to your heels, then move your weight to your toes.
Finally, stand with your weight balanced on the centre of both feet,
evenly distributed.
You may notice now that you have an habitual stance, on the outside
or inside edge, or slightly back or forwards. This is the
preparation for the front/back exercise.
Move your weight now onto your front foot. You may find yourself
leaning forwards, or you may be able to balance successfully without
the lean. Nevertheless, more of your weight will be on your front
foot, with less on your back foot. This has an inherent emotional
and directional feel. The emotional feel is more urgent, faster,
more aggressive, more pressing. The directional feel is forwards and
either down or up, depending on how your weight is balanced. You
might also feel narrower in your upper body, and your breathing
might change or feel different.
Now sing your favourite song or start your favourite speech, staying
on the front foot. Notice the feeling of your body and emotions as
you continue your vocal task, staying on your front foot.
Now do the opposite. Move your weight onto your back foot. You may
find yourself leaning backwards, or you might be able to shift your
weight backwards easily without the lean. Notice the inherent
emotion and directional feel. This feels less urgent, more "laid
back", slower, even more accepting. The directional feel is
backwards and either up or down, depending on how you are balanced.
You might also feel wider and more open in your body, and your
breathing might alter.
Sing your favourite song or start your best speech again, staying on
the back foot. Notice how your body feels, and what emotions emerge
as you continue to speak or sing, staying on your back foot.
Now do the same song or speech, but this time stay balanced upright
with your weight equally on both feet. Notice the emotions and the
feelings in your body that arise.
These different "directions" can be used very well in music - many
pieces have phrases or sentiments that have a forward, urgent feel
and others that have a more laid-back, lazier feel,. this form of
tension and release in the phrasing is something that experienced
performers use constantly. Many comedians and presenters use the
front foot/back foot technique to encourage an audience to laugh,
applaud or quieten.
It's a very effective way of adding interest and variation to your
performing.
Jeremy Fisher trains singers and performers to find and maintain
their best. He's the author of Successful Singing Auditions, and
creator of the Voicebox Videos (featured on the BBC and broadcast to
an estimated 44,000,000 people). Sign up for Jeremy's free
newsletter containing original interviews, pre-release offers and
receive your BONUS free copy of "86 things you never hear a singer
say" at
http://www.vocalprocess.co.uk
[You are very welcome to publish this article in its entirety in
your own blog, ezine or website, provided that the author paragraph
above is included with the live link to Vocal Process. Thanks]
And finally
 Jeremy's
blog this month contains thoughts and articles, including a
completely new meaning to the phrase "playing by ear",
and a quick (high-pitched)
note on the Mosquito "teen repeller".
The blog itself is celebrating more than three years of thoughts, comments and articles on
singing, performance, musical theatre and auditioning. The complete
archive is still available, so check it out
by clicking on the box.
http://www.singingcoach.blogspot.com
Jeremy's Singingcoach blog is also being featured on the excellent
Collaborative Piano blog - the number one blog for accompanists
and pianists who work with other performers.
 
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