Singing with Your Whole Self: A Singer's Guide to Feldenkrais Awareness through Movement

(Hardback, Second Edition)

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This book teaches performers to use the Feldenkrais Method of neuromuscular activities to ameliorate problems of tension, muscle strain, and illness in order to obtain optimal vocal performance. Singing with Your Whole Self, Second Edition contains an important and unique modularized Feldenkrais Awareness Through Movement lessons specifically designed for liberating function in all musicians, and singers in particular. Modularized lessons allow the user to choose between functionally useful short segments or entire lessons. The first part of the book presents the theory behind why this approach works in an easily understood and concrete fashion. The remaining chapters explore our anatomy by area and explain usage, problems, and how these relate to singing. These chapters include lessons that revolve around improving performance. Includes an index both by lesson and by problem, referring performers to the lessons most effective for a specific problem.

Reviews

The second edition of Singing with Your Whole Self offers several elegant and effective updates. The ingenious presentation of Awareness Through Movement lessons in short modules is retained, and several new and imaginative lessons have been added. An exciting chapter on neuroplasticity and learning will help any singer harness this human superpower in service of beautiful and expressive singing. A resource to bring vocal pedagogy into the modern age! -- MaryBeth Davidson Smith, Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner, The Feldenkrais Center of Houston

Author Bio

SAMUEL H. NELSON is a graduate of the Toronto Professional Feldenkrais Training Program (1987). He has offered Awareness Through Movement classes to the public since 1985. He held a seminar on the Feldenkrais Method each semester at the Eastman School of Music for many years and has presented seminars at music schools in Indiana, Ohio, and Virginia. Nelson also presented workshops for musicians at several area high schools, as well as for physical therapists and equestrians. He has a private practice in Rochester, New York. ELIZABETH BLADES holds both doctor of Musical Arts and masters of Music degrees from the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY. She is currently adjunct associate professor of Music at Shenandoah University in Winchester, VA. Previous appointments were at Heidelberg University (Tiffin, OH) where she served as associate professor of Music, coordinator of Vocal Studies and director of Opera; and as a visiting professor of Music at Nazareth College, Rochester, NY.