Using Acoustic Registration to Train Range, Laryngeal Registration, and Passaggi
Friday 17th October 2025, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM (London Time)
There are acoustic vocal registers as well as laryngeal registers. Acoustic registers correspond to the historic Italian categories translated by this author as: voce chiusa (close timbre), voce aperta (open timbre), and voce piena di testa (roughly equivalent to whoop timbre). There are additional, lower levels of acoustic registration within open timbre. The physical mechanism of acoustic registers is based on the relationship between the inherent harmonic set of the sung pitch and the first resonance of the vowel being sung. Since first resonances lie from just below the bottom to the top of the treble clef and vary per vowel by as much as an octave, the locations of acoustic register transitions also vary per vowel by as much as an octave. Fortunately, acoustic register locations and migrations are predictable by vowel and voice type. Vowel tone color, auditory roughness (buzziness), and locational somatosense necessarily migrate across range, especially at acoustic register transitions. Knowledge and awareness of the timbral and somatosensory migrations of vowels at each acoustic register change is useful in training efficient range negotiation and forms a productive basis for strategies that address transitions through passaggi. Levels of registration that occur within open timbre lie in the bass clef and provide useful “training wheels” experiences at easier pitches for non-treble voices, preparing them for the more challenging, higher transitions from open (aperta) to close (chiusa) timbre that lie between the clefs. Clarifying the sound and sensation migrations of the transition from close timbre into whoop timbre, most of which occur in the top half of the treble clef, is similarly useful for training upper range success of treble voices. This talk will chart, describe, and play examples of these transitions, and offer pedagogic approaches that facilitate their training. (Given the complexity of this topic and the need for multiple video examples, this is best done with a 45-minute slot in order to include a longer Q & A).
🏷️ Price £30 (UK VAT inclusive)
🎥 Recording automatically sent to all who book (even if you cannot attend live)
▶️ Rewatch as many times as you like
📜 Certificate of attendance available
Ken Bozeman
Kenneth Bozeman, BM, MM,Professor Emeritus of Music, taught at Lawrence University for 42 years where he chaired the voice department and from...
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.
Monday 19th October 2026
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Tuesday 20th October 2026
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
(London Time)
Introduction to Vocal Acoustics for Spoken and Sung Voice
Gökçe Kutsal
This course is designed to break down the fundamentals of acoustics for both spoken and sung voice in a beginner-friendly, accessible way — so you can easily understand and apply these concepts to your teaching or research.
Tuesday 20th October 2026
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
(London Time)
Practical Magic*: The Art & Science of Balancing Voices with SOVTs and VFEs
Melanie Tapson
Through live demonstrations, group practice, and peer coaching, you’ll learn how to teach SOVTs and VFEs with clarity and precision, integrate their principles to support vocal health, recovery, and stylistic flexibility and troubleshoot challenges and adapt exercises for individualized results.
Tuesday 27th October 2026
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
(London Time)
Pop Pedagogy - an Overview
Kim Chandler
Some successful pop stars are celebrating career lengths of over sixty years, having been around since the 1950s when pop music emerged and diversified from jazz, so pop singing has been in existence sufficiently long now that, for teaching purposes, we can observe and analyse what type of approach serves it best.