Body and Voice: Somatic Re-education

Body and Voice: Somatic Re-education is an excellent resource for teachers of singing, voice coaches, and speech-language pathologists who work with singers and other voice professionals. It provides a new paradigm for working with singers in a way that allows for improved kinesthetic awareness needed to work with their body rather than against it. The text contains a series of lessons designed to train singing teachers, coaches, and voice therapists to recognize in their students the patterns of use and posture that interfere with respiration, phonation, and/or resonance. In addition, it provides tools for the teacher to guide the student to a level of self-awareness of habituated patterns along with strategies to implement change from the inside out.

Few pedagogical or therapeutic approaches provide any training in the recognition of the subtle, indirect patterns of use, stance, or tension that prevent students from relaxing the jaw, releasing the breath, lifting the palate, or any of the other demands teachers make to get them to sing well. Even when the teacher recognizes that there is a problem, the knowledge of how to retrain the student’s neuro-musculo-skeletal system in order to effect real change and self-awareness by the student is often limited or lacking. Body and Voice: Somatic Re-education addresses this need.

This book begins with a brief definition and theoretical overview of body reeducation, its principles and applications. Subsequent chapters teach how to recognize poor body dynamics. The final chapters provide specific lessons as well as guidance for independent explorations that will increase the student’s kinesthetic and body awareness.

A CD-ROM containing the lessons described in the book is included.

Reviews

"...The ease of reading this book is attributable to the very clear organisation, integrating theoretical background, interesting and relevant case-studies with verbatim dialogues with students, supported by excellent illustrations. The CD included further demonstrates the practical aspects of having a conversation with the student's nervous system, rather than through their conscious, cognitive mind. By hearing the author's instructions one appreciates the appropriate pacing and pausing to allow time for processing..."
—Helen Sjardin, Australian Voice Association - VoicePrint (2015)

"Body and Voice focuses on the most overlooked element in voice teaching; the nervous system. It addresses the problem faced by voice teachers who frequently deal with students who have postural habits that comprise voice production. It teaches how to have a conversation with a person's nervous system rather than their conscious cognitive mind. (2014:5)...As a licensed speech pathologist, Gilman is an impressive practitioner. This book is a result of her interest and research into the somatic aspect of voice training and it is very much the missing element in vocal teaching. I would certainly give this book 5 stars!"
—Deborah Winter, Director of Voice Workshop, Voice Workshop

Table of Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

PART I
Chapter 1. The Somatic Awareness: Body and Voice

Chapter 2. Body and Voice: Somatic and Physiologic

Chapter 3. The Significance of the Unremarkable

PART II

Introduction

Chapter 4. Diversionary, Parasitic, or Other

Chapter 5. Releasing for Breathing

Chapter 6. Mobilizing the Pelvis

Chapter 7. Improving Stability

Case Studies

Index

DVD Table of Contents

Chapter 4, Lesson 1: Bringing the Head Forward and Back
Chapter 4, Lesson 2: Lifting and Lowering the Shoulders
Chapter 4, Lesson 3: Freeing the Jaw
Chapter 4, Lesson 4: Anchoring the Tongue
Chapter 5, Lesson 1: Release of the Breath
Chapter 6, Basic Lesson: Rolling the Pelvis
Chapter 6, Variation 1: Hand on Head
Chapter 6, Variation 2: Hand on Head, Head Tilts
Chapter 6, Variation 3: Standing Variation
Chapter 7, Lesson 2: Circles Over the Feet
Chapter 7, Lesson 2: Pencil Lesson