What Every Singer Needs to Know About the Body

What Every Singer Needs to Know About the Body, Fourth Edition gives singers and teachers a Body Mapping resource—from anatomy and physiology to body awareness—that helps them discover and correct misconceptions about how their bodies are designed and how they function. This book provides detailed descriptions of the structures and movements necessary for healthy and efficient body awareness, balance, breathing, phonation, resonance, articulation, and gesture. Many voice books focus on the anatomical facts, but leave singers asking, "How can I apply this to my singing?" What Every Singer Needs to Know About the Body helps to answer that question, providing practical exercises and detailed illustrations.

New to This Edition

• Updated and revised content throughout the text
• Bulleted review sections for each chapter
• New and updated links to recommended videos
• Information on Biotensegrity and how it pertains to Body Mapping, along with helpful links to resources on the subject
• An expanded glossary

What Every Singer Needs to Know About the Body comes with access to a PluralPlus companion website with audio and video recordings of the exploratory exercises.

This book provides the technical foundation for singers of all styles. The authors do not espouse a single method or attempt to teach singing techniques or styles. Rather, they describe the movements of singing with accuracy and detail so that singers may experiment on their own and communicate with each other in a common language.

Melissa Malde, MaryJean Allen, and Kurt-Alexander Zeller joined the VocalFri Podcast for an entertaining chat about Body Mapping, the Alexander Technique, bears, and more! Listen here. 

Review of the Previous Edition

"In my college days (before GPS phone apps) I would regularly buy new maps of the states between school and home in the hopes of finding a route that would shave some time off the multi-hour drive. Having taken wrong turns, encountered unexpected construction, and muddled my way through confusing directions from local gas station attendants, I understood the importance of a detailed, up-to-date road map.

The same can be said of Body Mapping. Even for those of us who have been singing for years, if our mental conceptions of how our bodies function are contrary to biological reality, our singing efficiency may suffer. Melissa Malde, MaryJean Allen, and Kurt-Alexander Zeller dispel many of these misconceptions in their book What Every Singer Needs to Know About the Body. Its already matchless information has recently been further enhanced, expanded, and elaborated upon in a new third edition.

The most significant additions are the extensive and meticulously compiled online resources, which are practically an entire course unto themselves. The chapter-by-chapter guided exercises, demonstrations, and testimonials appear on a companion website as video and audio clips, most of which feature the authors as narrators and test subjects.

These in-house resources, which are unique to this book, are supplemented by numerous outside sources, cited throughout the book and collected on the "web resources" document found on the website. Even more web content has been promised as it becomes available.

The authors write that no book can serve as the final word on the subject of Body Mapping since continued brain-body research is ongoing and ever evolving. With this in mind, the online component may replace the need for further editions of the book, as new information may be added to the website or updated as necessary.

Just as GPS apps undergo system updates to incorporate new roads and to better locate the smoothest path from point A to point B, the third edition of What Every Singer Needs to Know About the Body provides information on Body Mapping that is more current and extensive than that of the previous editions. Authors Malde, Allen, and Zeller have created and compiled a vast array of new instructional resources that complement and reinforce the information from the text, further uncovering the physical awareness and freedom needed for effective and enjoyable singing."
—Brian Manternach, University of Utah, Musical Theatre Program, in Classical Singer (December 2017)

“What Every Singer Needs to Know About the Body” is an unparalleled resource for anyone who wants to understand the “how” and the “why” of the workings of their body during singing. Using language that is easy to understand and audio- and video-exercises that allow the reader to immediately apply what they’re learning, this invaluable text presents science-based vocal pedagogy in an accessible, easy-to-incorporate way. As a choral director and choral education professor, the content of “What Every Singer Needs to Know About the Body” infuses my rehearsals and the habits I hope to instill in the next generation of choral educators.
-Scott Rieker, Frostburg State University, Department of Music (January 2024)

Introduction by Barbara Conable

How to Use This Book by Melissa Malde

Multimedia List

Acknowledgements

Chapter 1. Body Mapping, Kinesthesia, and Inclusive Awareness

MaryJean Allen

Chapter 2. The Core of the Body and the Places of Dynamic Balance

MaryJean Allen

Chapter 3. The Singer's Breath

Melissa Malde

Chapter 4. Creating a Singing Sound

Melissa Malde

Chapter 5. Resonating the Voice

Melissa Malde

Chapter 6. Singing as Communication: Mapping the Structures of Articulation

Kurt-Alexander Zeller

Chapter 7. Physical Expression for Singers

Kurt-Alexander Zeller

Appendix A. What to Do About Performace Anxiety

Barbara Conable

Appendix B. The Scientific Basis of Body Mapping

T. Richard Nichols

Glossary

Index