Short Courses & Events / Archive

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...

CPD Course Logo

Attend this course for as little as £22 as part of the Voice Professional Training CPD Award Scheme.

Learn More

Sorry, 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.

Improving Lyric Italian Diction for Classical Singers
Thursday 18th December 2025
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
(London Time)

Improving Lyric Italian Diction for Classical Singers

Professor Conroy Cupido

Join Professor Conroy Cupido as he offers an in-depth exploration of the most frequent pronunciation errors made by classical singers in Italian lyric diction. Designed for both emerging and advanced singers, the course provides a structured and practical approach to mastering Italian pronunciation as used in opera, oratorio, and art song.

Level One Certificate in Accents and Phonetics
Monday 12th January 2026
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Tuesday 13th January 2026
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Wednesday 14th January 2026
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Thursday 15th January 2026
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Tuesday 20th January 2026
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Wednesday 21st January 2026
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
(London Time)

Level One Certificate in Accents and Phonetics

Louisa Morgan

Are you a voice, acting, or singing coach looking to expand your expertise and add accents and phonetics to your teaching repertoire? This 6-session course covers essential topics such as articulatory, acoustic, and auditory phonetics, the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), and ethical approaches to accent and dialect coaching. By the end of this course, you'll be equipped with the knowledge and practical skills to start to bring phonetics and accent coaching into your coaching and provide more comprehensive support to your clients.

Emerging and Developing Voice: Singing and Speech
Monday 12th January 2026
2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
(London Time)

Emerging and Developing Voice: Singing and Speech

Karen Brunssen

How does the singing voice influence the speaking voice? How does the speaking voice influence the singing voice? When is there a disparate relationship between the two? Can they help each other? Can one harm the other? How can we use them positively in the voice studio. During this short course we will consider the voice as we sing and as we speak. The acquisition of language is a very interesting journey from birth through old age. We will broach the topics of “lexical” which refers to learning words, and “semantic” which is how we use words in the context of language.