Emotion in the Singing Voice

While there has been a significant amount of research conducted into how speakers use emotion in the voice and how listeners hear it, how this relates to singing is a relatively new field. This session will explore what we know about how natural and acted emotion impacts the voice, and how singers might be able to use it to enhance their performance.

Singers are required not only to perform with technical skill, but also to communicate on an emotional level to the audience. Knowledge of how listeners decode emotion can improve how a singer implements emotion in a performance. This session will demonstrate how an academic understanding of this can also inform practical applications for singers and voice teachers.

Singers can become concerned about intense emotional performance overwhelming their technique and either destabilising the vocal performance or putting their vocal health at risk. By understanding more about how the body responds physiologically to different emotions and how listeners perceive the emotion, singers can learn to make choices to allow the listener to experience the emotion without the singer needing to feel it so deeply within their own bodies.

This two-hour session will cover:

• How do we perceive emotion in the voice?
• How much control do we have over our emotional response?
• What is the difference between natural and acted emotion?
• How do listeners perceive genuineness of emotion?
• How can performing intense emotion affect our vocal health?
• What characteristics of emotion do we hear?
• What are the practical applications?
• Workshop – some listening exercises and an opportunity to try out the practical applications in the voice.