Singing and Listening as an Intermaterial Vibrational Practice
Thursday 10th October 2024, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM (London Time)
'In this session, I will discuss my practice-based research which focuses on the materiality of singing and listening. I will ground the discussion in my book, Sensing Sound: Singing and Listening as Vibrational Practice (Duke University Press, 2015), offering participatory exercises to help students begin to build their own vocal theory based on their practices.
Brief background:
After decades of working as a voice teacher and singer, I developed a framework for thinking about the physical voice, singing, listening, and the materials through which we sense the voice (for example, air) as vibrational practice. If we consider a vocal sound to be a node along an unrepeatable intermaterial vibrational continuum, concepts such as “in tune/out of tune,” “good/bad,” or “right/wrong” no longer make sense. This idea also forwards the ethical dimensions of singing and listening: to hear a voice is to sense its vibration through your body. Moreover, it refutes the notion that singing is for the sense of audiation alone, allowing us to explore the multi-sensoriality of both singing and listening.'
Nina Eidsheim
Nina Eidsheim is the author of Sensing Sound: Singing and Listening as Vibrational Practice and The Race of Sound: Listening, Timbre, and Vocality in African American Music, and co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Voice Studies and Refiguring American Music.
Attend this course for as little as £22 as part of the Voice Professional Training CPD Award Scheme.
Learn MoreSorry, this is an archived short course...
We have plenty of upcoming short courses coming soon. See details of some of them below or look at the full list of short courses.
Tuesday 5th May 2026
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Tuesday 12th May 2026
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Tuesday 19th May 2026
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Tuesday 26th May 2026
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Tuesday 2nd June 2026
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
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2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
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Voice pedagogy has advanced significantly in the last decades in relation to knowledge of the vocal apparatus (anatomy and mechanics), acoustics, and performance psychology (to name just a few subfields) – this is a wonderful thing! Nonetheless, musicianship and the foundations of music theory are still relevant to the teaching and coaching of singers and this course aims to empower voice teachers and coaches with skills to support the fundamental musicianship development of their students.
Thursday 7th May 2026
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
(London Time)
Embodied voice research: negotiating the ‘inner’ and outer’
Marth Munro
The central thrust of the session will be around the employment of Donald Schön’s concept of ‘reflection-in-action’ and ‘reflection-on-action’ to contextualise the potential interface between the inner and the outer in embodied voice research.
Tuesday 12th May 2026
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
(London Time)
Prosody in conversation – crucial for effective communication?
Beatrice Szczepek Reed
In this course, we will take an introductory look at what prosody is and consider its functions in natural everyday dialogue. Prosody refers to the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech. It's the musicality of language that helps convey meaning, emotion, and emphasis in conversation!