| Comment: Re: Is grunting in tennis bad for the vocal chords? | Leon Thurman | May 18, 2012 |
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Inhaling and then closing the vocal folds intensely just before an upper body exertion stabilizes the upper body to provide a neuromusculoskeletal strength advantage to arms/shoulders/torso. Evidently, someone in the 'tennis world' assumed that making a vocal grunt sound (sudden expulsion of high-... |
| Comment: Re: Stuff Conductors say | Leon Thurman | March 26, 2012 |
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Yep. Personally, the title is accurately descriptive. Sure did a few of them back when...
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| Comment: Re: What Makes An Idea Stick? | Leon Thurman | March 20, 2012 |
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Agree completely, Tim. The brothers Heath hath handed us the wholehearted hanswers to sticky-memory's persistent questions. Been using the "made to stick" ideas for some time now as part of the practice of Human Compatible Learning and Teaching and in the education of speakers and my personal ... |
| Comment: Re: Clinics/Workshops | Leon Thurman | March 8, 2012 |
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Jeremy,
The VoiceCare Network has offered comprehensive courses for choral conductors for the past 30 years. Among several other features, the courses address the effects of conducting gestures and singer-spacing on singers' voices and thus on what choirs sound like (choral 'sound,' tone, o... |
| Comment: Re: Appropriateness a minstrel song, specifically Foster's Glendy Burk | Leon Thurman | February 24, 2012 |
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Ray,
A different perspective: You may or may not have heard of an "Informance." It is a designated section of a performance in which the choir conductor and choir combine singing with providing relevant information (education) to a concert-attending audience/community about anything.
Ex... |
| Comment: Re: Skype your next music lesson | Leon Thurman | January 22, 2012 |
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I give voice skill sessions and various voice and learning science presentations via Skype (free) and WebEx ($19.00/month) as part of my business, The Leon Thurman Voice Center.
Right now, I'm working with a high school student in a small town in Minnesota and a man with voice problems in C... |
| Comment: Re: No Energy | Leon Thurman | November 30, 2011 |
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For whatever it's worth unto thee, brother Bruce, what Tom Carter has brought to energized, expressive choral singing is waaaaaaaaay valuable. He articulates the 'big picture' of energized expressiveness and provides specific, interesting, and enjoyable experiences ('exercises') that you can lea... |
| Comment: Re: Use ChoralNet wrong, go to jail | Leon Thurman | November 20, 2011 |
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Waaaaay agree, Allen, about many proposed laws being written by lobbyists for biiiig corporations and handed to their bought members of congress for submission, possible passage, and possible signing into law (including versions of SOPA).
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| Comment: Re: Singing with a hernia | Leon Thurman | October 31, 2011 |
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]]>
You may already know some or all of this, Peter, but here’s some basic info about inguinal hernias.
Anatomy: Inguinal region is the anatomical name for the groin area in both males and females.
All human beings have left and right inguinal canals in that region. The cana... |
| Comment: Re: Women's hair in performance | Leon Thurman | October 18, 2011 |
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When I sang with Luboff, he only told the women to highlight their eyebrows and eyes (minimally) and wear tasteful lipstick, all so that the auditorium lights would not 'wash out' their faces. He never said anything to the men. I assumed that he saw that men tended to have thicker eyebrows that ... |
| Comment: Re: Does weightlifting damage the voice? | Leon Thurman | October 3, 2011 |
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Excellent article, Allan Laino. I recommend it. 'Tis important to note, of course, that serious weightlifting is different from weightlifting to maintain neuromuscular tone, muscule definition, and the 'feel good' that it can produce (expecially when combined with aerobic conditioning). And, w... |
| Comment: Re: Does weightlifting damage the voice? | Leon Thurman | October 2, 2011 |
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The short answer, Michael, is No....unless a lifter grunts a lot during lifting. And Patrick Freer's article will give lots of good details. I look forward to reading it.
When lifting, pushing, pulling anything 'heavy,' us humanoid creatures inhale air into our lungs and close the vocal f... |
| Comment: Re: Voice-centered ENT wanted in Southern California | Leon Thurman | August 3, 2011 |
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Bill,
Please educate me about the location of the Inland Empire. I have some ENT contacts in the other areas, but I may have a contact that is closer to you if I knew about the Inland Empire.
Good for you for being alert to such problems among singers.
Leon
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| Blog post: Learning music versus memorizing it: Two memory systems in us | Leon Thurman | June 25, 2011 |
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We human beings have two memory systems in us, each with different but overlapping neurochemical circuitry. In the published neuropsychobiological literature, each system is referred to with two different labels.
The declarative memory system and the explicit memory system are tw... |
| Comment: Re: Memorization tips | Leon Thurman | June 25, 2011 |
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We human beings have two memory systems in us, each with different but overlapping neurochemical circuitry. In the published neuropsychobiological literature, each system is referred to with two different labels.
The declarative memory system and the explicit memory system are two diffe... |
| Community Forum Post: Learning music versus memorizing it: Two memory systems in us | Leon Thurman | June 25, 2011 |
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We human beings have two memory systems in us, each with different but overlapping neurochemical circuitry. In the published neuropsychobiological literature, each system is referred to with two different labels.
The declarative memory system and the explicit me... |
| Comment: Re: Teaching Ascending and Descending? | Leon Thurman | May 31, 2011 |
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Inaccurate term in my previous post! Third sentence fromthe end, third & fourth words are vertical plane; replace them with the words horizontal plane. Sorry 'bout that.
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| Comment: Re: Teaching Ascending and Descending? | Leon Thurman | May 31, 2011 |
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May be helpful for us to remember that high/higher and low/lower pitches do not exist, literally. They are metaphors, borrowed from vertical spatial arrangements, to represent differences of vibrational frequency.
Find a way to comfortably explain that when we hear anything, something h... |
| Blog post: The Song System of the Humn Brain, Part 9 | Leon Thurman | May 8, 2011 |
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86. W. Ziegler, B. Kilian and K. Deger, The role of the left mesial frontal cortex in fluent speech: evidence from a case of left supplementary motor area hemorrhage. Neuropsychologia 35 (1997), pp. 1197–1208.
87. R.J. Zatorre, P. Belin and V.B. Penhune, Structure and function of auditory cor... |
| Blog post: The Song System of the Humn Brain, Part 8 | Leon Thurman | May 8, 2011 |
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43. B. Maess, S. Koelsch, T.C. Gunter and A.D. Friederici, Musical syntax is processed in Broca's area: an MEG study. Nat. Neurosci. 4 (2001), pp. 540–545.
44. P. Marler and R. Pickert, Species-universal microstructure in the learned song of the swamp sparrow (Melospiza georgiana). Anim. Beha... |
| Blog post: The Song System of the Humn Brain, Part 7 | Leon Thurman | May 8, 2011 |
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References
1. L.F. Baptista, Nature and its nurturing in avian vocal development. In: D.E. Kroodsma and E.H. Miller, Editors, Ecology and Evolution of Acoustic Communication in Birds, Cornell University Press, Ithaca (1996), pp. 39–60
2. P. Belin, S. McAdams, B. Smith, S. Savel, L. Thivar... |
| Blog post: The Song System of the Humn Brain, Part 6 | Leon Thurman | May 8, 2011 |
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3.2. The neural basis of polyphony
Harmonization resembles monophonic singing in that both involve the creation of a single melodic line. Harmonization differs from simple melody formation, however, in that it is done in coordination with a simultaneous musical template. One complication in inte... |
| Blog post: The Song System of the Humn Brain, Part 5 | Leon Thurman | May 8, 2011 |
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3. Discussion
3.1. The human song system
These data provide a picture of the auditory and vocal components of the human song system as well as those neural areas involved in imitation, repetition, and the pitch-tracking processes underlying harmonization. The cortical activation... |
| Blog post: The Song System of the Humn Brain, Part 4 | Leon Thurman | May 8, 2011 |
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2. Results
The mean cerebral blood flow increases for the Monotonic Vocalization task, as contrasted with Rest (Fig. 2, Table 1), showed bilateral activations in the primary auditory cortex (Brodmann Area [BA] 41) and the mouth region of the primary motor cortex (BA 4). Bilateral activations we... |
| Blog post: The Song System of the Humn Brain, Part 3 | Leon Thurman | May 8, 2011 |
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1. Materials and methods
1.1. Subjects
Five male and five female neurologically healthy amateur musicians, with a mean age of 25 years (range 19–46 years), participated in the study after giving their informed consent (Institutional Review Board of the University of Texas Health Science Ce... |
| Blog post: The Song System of the Humn Brain, Part 2 | Leon Thurman | May 8, 2011 |
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REMEMBER, this one is quite technical in neuroanatomy and neurophysiology. Someday, I'd like to do a 'simplified' summary in more everyday terms.
Leon
Singing is a specialized class of vocal behavior found in a limited number of animal taxa, including humans, gibbons, humpback whales... |
| Blog post: The Song System of the Humn Brain, Part 1 | Leon Thurman | May 8, 2011 |
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]]>
The song system of the human brain
Steven Browna, Michael J. Martineza, Donald A. Hodgesb, Peter T. Foxa, and Lawrence M. Parsonsa
a Research Imaging Center, University of Texas Health Science Center, 7703 Floyd Curl Drive MSC 6240, San Antonio, TX 78229-3900, USA
b Scho... |
| PDF Document: SongSystem in HumanBrain.doc | Leon Thurman | May 8, 2011 |
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| Community Forum Post: [NEW] About the new Library Post (SongSystem) that can't be read by some or all... | Leon Thurman | May 8, 2011 |
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Solving the original problem, thnks to Steve.
Leon
Leon,
When I first downloaded this document, it came through with ".pdf" as the suffix, and I could not open the file. I saw that your heading on the post had ".doc", so I changed the ".pdf" to ".do... |
| Community Forum Post: About the new Library Post (SongSystem) that can't be read by some or all... | Leon Thurman | May 8, 2011 |
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Have no idea what hapened. Gonna try this:
I'll break it up into sections and post the sections as a series of Blogs. Maybe it'll work.
Leon
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| Comment: Re: Choral Music and Human Cognition Research | Leon Thurman | May 7, 2011 |
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Anna,
You're right. Not much research has been done that specifically targets 'the connection between cognition and choral music. There has, however, been some research into singing in general, and that may be more fruitful for you.
I&#... |
| Comment: Re: Chorus "Membership" Corporation (nonprofit) | Leon Thurman | May 5, 2011 |
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Check out www.singersinaccord.org based in Minneapolis MN.
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| Comment: Re: Bringing out the pure resonant tone in boys | Leon Thurman | March 30, 2011 |
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Maria,
Every summer, for the past 29 years (this coming summer will be the 30th) a very practical ('how to') and comprehensive 7.5-week workshop/course on voice skills for expressive choral and solo singing. The course includes includes two days of sessions devoted to children and male/fema... |
| Comment: Re: Choral Conventions | Leon Thurman | March 24, 2011 |
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Seth,
The VoiceCare Network devotes two half-days of it's annual week-long summer course to ways of teaching efficient vocal abilities with children so that the learning is interesting to them, fun, and rewarding. Demonstrations with children happen, and repertoire that facilitates voice skill... |
| Comment: Re: Rehearsal advice sought | Leon Thurman | March 7, 2011 |
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Bruce,
That Tom Carter is a leader in opening 'roads less traveled' in the choral conducting profession. I highly recommend his book Choral Charisma (Santa Barbara Press).
Try out these specifics, if you like:
1. Before every rehearsal begins, you or one of the singers sus... |
| Community Forum Post: Near-Continuous Engagement of Singers During Rehearsals Plus Some Ear-Brain-Voice Training | Leon Thurman | March 6, 2011 |
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[From a ChoralNet Forum reply]
Try out these specifics, if you like:
1. Before every rehearsal begins, you or one of the singers sustain a comfortable pitch on any selected vowel as a signal for all the singers to sing that pitch/vowel--a unison or an octave below or ... |
| Comment: Re: Books and Electronic Resources for Vocal Music | Leon Thurman | February 20, 2011 |
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Kyle,
There is a book in three volumes that is an encyclopedia of voice knowledge, written with 'smart,' junior-senior high schoolers in mind, that literally covers just about everything anyone would want to know on the subject of voice, e.g., whole-human-being voice learning (including bra... |
| Comment: Re: Online Registration Tools | Leon Thurman | February 11, 2011 |
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A commonly used payment mechanism is PayPal at www.paypal.com A PayPal icon can be added to your online registration form that will take registrants to the PayPal site for payment via credit card and other means as well. There is a small percentage-type fee, as I recall.
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| Comment: Re: Otolaryngologist/ENT for singers in Chicago? | Leon Thurman | February 10, 2011 |
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Since Van Lawrence passed away in 1989, Bob Bastian has been my primary mentor in voice health and 'things medical' (that's a little over 20 years; where has the time flown!). Bob very graciously authored two chapters in the Health and Voice Protection section of Bodymind and Voice and recommend... |
| Comment: Re: How to train the upper and lower voice range so that both can be achieved equally well??? | Leon Thurman | February 3, 2011 |
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Augustinus,
Yes, a tolerance for complexity is required to master a deep understanding of what actually happens inside us when vocal register phenomena happen. I know this from personal experience. Vocal registers were a great mystery to me for many years of my 70 upon this Eart... |
| Comment: Re: The double-lung transplant didn't stop her | Leon Thurman | January 23, 2011 |
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Speechless in awe.
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| Comment: Re: A 12 year old girl reports pain when breathing in deeply | Leon Thurman | January 12, 2011 |
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Lorraine,
If you haven't already, ask the girl to point to where she feels the pain, and ask her if she has any idea how the pain might have started. For instance, does she or her parent(s) remember if she had a really bad cold with bronchitis 'about two years' ago during which she coughe... |
| Comment: Re: Help for a new choir director with no vocal training! | Leon Thurman | January 1, 2010 |
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Allie, one concept that, I believe, has resulted in several voice problems among us human beings is the idea that we have a singing voice and a speaking voice. Those two 'things' don't exist and never have, just like we don't have running legs and walking legs or grasping hands and pushing hands... |
| Comment: Re: The Choir With No Name | Leon Thurman | December 23, 2010 |
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Brother Tim,
(have a habit of adressing males whom I know to be empathic humans as my brothers)
That is SUCH GOOD NEWS! I'm now excited to attend the Chicago convention and I am attending this year. And I definitely accept your invite to meet at the back of that room to discuss heartf... |
| Comment: Re: The Choir With No Name | Leon Thurman | December 18, 2010 |
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This statement just needs to be in this thread!
The Oakdale choir experience made me a changed man »
Date: December 17, 2010
Kenneth Bailey • Community Music • December 5, 2010
When I considered writing this article, I was unsure what to write. Should... |
| Comment: Re: The Choir With No Name | Leon Thurman | December 18, 2010 |
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I just love the way you write, my brother Steven Szalaj! In my next post on this thread, there will be a copy of a statement by a prisoner who sings in a prison-community choir that is led by Dr. Mary Cohen, mentioned in my earlier post, who also is a member of VoiceCare Network.
This g... |
| Comment: Re: The Choir With No Name | Leon Thurman | December 16, 2010 |
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This leaves me in deep-felt awe.
So do older adult choirs like Young @ Heart (Massachusetts, I think) and The GoldenTones, led by ChoralNet member Lana Mountford (Washington), and MANY other older adult choirs in the world. Prison choirs leave me that way, too [contact Mary Cohen at U o... |
| Comment: Re: Sinus Surgery | Leon Thurman | December 10, 2010 |
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Just so you know, Lydia, I worked in a medical center setting for 12 years with my speech pathologist colleague (Carol Klitzke, Fairview Voice Center) and area ENT physicians. Unfortunately, I was 'let go' during an institution-wide downsizing due to severe financial stress. In my past, two in... |
| Comment: Re: Must Have Texts For The Choral Director | Leon Thurman | December 5, 2010 |
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Yes. Completely agree. Choral Charisma by Tom Carter is an absolutely essential book to have, read, and incorporate into what you do as a choral conductor, Stacy. And if you ever have a chance to observe Tom working with a choir and talk to him afterward, then do whatever you can to have that ... |
| Comment: Re: Vocal Pedagogy Books | Leon Thurman | December 3, 2010 |
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Brad,
Regarding a list of sources for male adolescent changing voices, I regret omitting the work of one of today's most prominent advocates for teaching male (and female) changing voices: Dr. Patrick Freer, Associate Professor of Music Education at Georgia State University in Atla... |
