The Thinking Voice

In this episode, Stephen interviews the legendary voice teacher Robert Price. 

Stephen and Robert talk about Robert's time in the circus as a metal clown, dropping out of law school and travelling the world teaching vocal massage. 

They also discuss the future of relational vocal massage and establish it -perhaps- as a method of Body Psychotherapy. Celebrating the launch of their co-authored book, The Handbook of Vocal Massage: A Relational Approach, this is a whirlwind episode best listened to in full. 

For details on how to purchase the book, visit

https://www.newvoicepublishing.co.uk/books/

Join our hosts as they take us through their thoughts on breaking free. As you’ll hear, the conversation develops into whether we break free from, or break free in to new habits, behaviours and spaces.

This episode is a precursor to the breaking free conference listed below. Booking through the vocalhealth.co.uk website.

Breaking Free
One-Day Vocal Health Education Conference
9th March, 2025

Friends House, 173-177 Euston Rd., London NW1 2BJ
Breath Support: Breaking Free From One-Size-Fits-All Breath Training
Breath training has been considered an important component of voice pedagogy for hundreds of years. But what is breath support and does it vary by style, volume, or location in the range? In her keynote speech, Ms. Obert will share what she learned at the intersection of respiratory medicine and otolaryngology during her years of working in a busy voice disorders clinic. She will make the case for teaching singers to work with a variety of breath strategies and teach three of them to the audience during the session.
Timbre Shaping: Embracing the “villains” of the vocal tract!
The pharyngeal constrictors and tongue are often portrayed as villains, but their role in shaping timbre is vital and frequently misunderstood. In this lecture, Ms. Obert will share her pioneering research into how these structures can be used to enhance high frequency energy to empower singers to create the sounds they want to make.

In our latest episode of The Thinking Voice Podcast Stephen King interviews Carles Expósito Rovira.

Carles is a performing arts physiotherapist specialising in the artistic voice. When one brilliant vocal manual therapist (Stephen King) interviews another you know you are going to be in for a magical conversation! Stephen and Carles discuss his ongoing Phd research into the tongue and the all-important role of proprioception in training voice users to make meaningful change.  Carles is also  the chair of AMPAE (the Spanish Association of Performing Arts Medicine) and a board member of ENPPA (European Network of Physiotherapists in Performing Arts). He teaches at the Conservatory of Music of the Balearic Islands and the University of the Balearic Islands and his is research focuses on proprioception in the artistic voice.

Stephen and Jenevora are chatting about the process of collaboration. What happens when we look at something with different eyes and skills and backgrounds. They talk about the difference between diagnosis and description, and how often a description becomes misinterpreted as a diagnosis. Specifically the conversation relates to the forthcoming course with Kerrie Obert SLP, who is spending three days with Singing Teachers and Speech Therapists. They will be scoping each other, learning about endoscopic evaluation and vocal function. 

Details are here: https://www.vocalhealth.co.uk/kerrie-obert-london/

What is a safe space? How can we respect another person’s autonomy whilst opening up possibilities for change? Does learning always need a challenge to our sense of safety, or do we need the safety in order to learn? Robert, Stephen and Jenevora discuss boundaries, ethics and the nature of learning in this episode of Thinking Voice.

As ever, the three hosts chat about how this most interesting topic of 'imposter syndrome' matters for singers and voice users. Robert Sussuma talks about how we might come to learn to be an imposter in Facebook groups or forums, Stephen King talks about how The Wizard of Oz is a perfect example of imposter syndrome and Dr Jenevora Williams begins a discussion around the frequency of the imposter feelings.

CONTENT WARNING

In this episode, we discuss things related to trauma. Whilst we don't give any clear examples or case studies it is worth noting that we define trauma and talk around the subject.

In this conversation, your hosts Dr Jenevora Williams, Robert Sussuma and Stephen King discuss the way in which psychological and vocal trauma precipitate. There are definitions, revised definitions and even the DSM-5 makes an appearance! 

Education, rehabilitation after rehabilitation and vocal learning are all discussed in this interesting and thought provoking episode. Stephen's latest paper "Grieving a Previous Voice" is also outlined and discussed within the framework of grief and moving on.

Our three hosts, Stephen King, Robert Sussuma and Dr Jenevora Williams explore the what they might have said to their younger selves. 

This is an intimate conversation that pulls apart the past, present and future, as well as exploring what it means to “do the hard yards” in your career.

Acupuncture has been used and documented to help voice and throat problems since the Book of the Yellow Emperor in 180BCE. In this ancient tome, there is mention of “Plum Stone Throat” or as we would say, Globus Pharyngeous. 

Caroline Van Looy, a Masters level Speech Therapist from Belgium joins Stephen King as they discuss the inclusion of Acupuncture in their voice therapy work. 

Join the up coming Acupuncture for Voice training in July 2024 here: https://www.vocalhealth.co.uk/medical-acupuncture-voice-swallowing/

In this weeks, episode of the Thinking Voice podcast, Robert, Jenevora and Stephen discuss the complexities of gatekeeping and the lengths we go to to keep our education, titles and information truly representable. 

This episode also discusses the intricacy of ‘the journey’, be it to our studio, to work, to learn or heal.