Thinking Outside The Voice Box: Adolescent Voice Change In Music Education

The goal of this workshop is to encourage new and holistic ways of thinking about the [assigned at birth] female and [assigned at birth] male adolescent changing voice.

We will step away from typical considerations of voice change and explore the experience within the bigger picture of adolescence.

Conversation will include topics of physical development during adolescence, including the body, brain, and auditory system; vocal anatomy and physiology in general, as well as during male and female voice change; the impact of hormones on the adolescent voice, especially for female singers; ideas of resolve and perseverance that are essential to adolescent navigation of voice change; and the influence of a voice change simulacrum that influences societal thinking about the voice change phenomenon.

A brief examination of voice classification systems and other foundational ideas in choral music education, as well as emerging considerations of adolescent voice change beyond classification systems, provide new food for thought about working with the adolescent changing voice.