Presented by Emily Siar

Voice teachers have no shortage of ways to describe the act of singing. How do we make sure we’re on the same page to best serve our students? This session explores foundational terminology in voice pedagogy related to respiration, registration, and resonance. Participants will gain a clearer understanding of the semantics behind these systems, leaving them better equipped to engage in informed, collaborative dialogue with colleagues and students.

Presented by Ian Howell

Timbre is often dismissed as too subjective to have pedagogical utility. However, long-established psychoacoustic phenomena may be directly connected to real and repeatable functional coordinations in a singing voice. This presentation focuses on these simple aspects of timbre that will dependably occur when the trained ear is stimulated by specific kinds of sound waves. These aspects of sound then become both a sign that a given function has occurred and also a stimulus to generate that function. 

Presented by Mike Ruckles 

Hysteresis describes how a system’s current state/function is strongly influenced by its previous state/function. In this session, we will explore the effects of hysteresis on the singing voice, and how we can harness its properties to our students’ great benefit in the studio. These tools become especially powerful in training the crossover singer who seeks to navigate dramatic shifts in their singing attractor states (e.g. Verdi to Schwartz). This session will also feature a masterclass component, offering practical context and application.