The Neuroscience of Speech and Song
Wednesday 2nd October 2024, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM (London Time)
Every syllable and every song comes from a 1kg lump of cells in our skulls that we call the brain, and that’s not half of what it does! Understanding how the brain works is important, but understandably this can get a little complicated and sometimes even a little intimidating.
The Neuroscience of Speech and Song offers an engaging and accessible introduction to the fascinating interface between the brain and some of the things that we use it for. This course is designed to unravel the complex processes underlying how we speak and sing, using simple and accessible language.
The mind and the brain are two sides of the same coin. You would expect an expert in digestion to have a working knowledge of the stomach, wouldn’t you? In just the same way we might expect that an expert in certain kinds of human behaviours -like speaking and singing- should have some understanding of how the human brain is able to do these things.
This course will start from basics and assume very little prior knowledge. We will cover the basic structure of the brain and how it works in general, then narrow in on specific processes that are relevant to speech and song. Examples may be drawn from clinical cases such as Parkinson’s Disease because understanding ways in which the brain sometimes does not work as it should can help us understand how it typically would.
Dr Michel Belyk
Dr Michel Belyk is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at Edge Hill University. He studies the human voice, all the things that it says, and how it is able to say them.
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.
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Dr Claire Thomas
This short course invites participants to critically examine the latest cross-disciplinary evidence on the physical and vocal demands of musical theatre performance. Drawing on a comprehensive literature review conducted by Debbie Winter and Claire Thomas (Voice Study Centre, University of Essex), the course explores research from voice science, dance medicine, sports science, and performance pedagogy.
Thursday 19th February 2026
8:30 AM - 10:30 AM
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Performance Anxiety is one of the most widespread and debilitating challenges facing musicians across all ages, nationalities and musical genres. Despite decades of research and the development of numerous interventions, we do not yet have an established way of supporting performers experiencing performance anxiety. Aimed at performers, teachers, researchers and students, this presentation will first summarise the current state of play in performance anxiety research, before exploring alternative ways to think about performance anxiety, drawing on new research outside of performance psychology...
Thursday 19th February 2026
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
Thursday 26th February 2026
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM
(London Time)
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Louisa Morgan
How connected are acted emotions to our real-life emotions? Are they expressed differently? Do they feel different in the body? This 2-part course with Louisa Morgan looks at the potential impact of acted emotion on vocal health, why we should consider it as voice practitioners, and how to care for our performers needing to work with it.