During the Edinburgh International Festival of August 2012 twenty two talks were given at Leith on the Fringe at the Out of the Blue venue.  They were free and open to everyone
 

Name of speaker and subject:

Dr Denise Borland

Title of talk:

Psychology of Vocal Performance
The Singer’s Psyche: a psychological approach to vocal performance aimed at creative artists and those who support them, teachers, ENT, producers, managers, agents within the popular music field.

Bullet points of what you would like to cover:

• Greater efficacy in vocal performance – resources and creative team
• Greater efficacy as a teacher – the healthy helper
• The ‘interpersonal intrapsychic Intersection’ – the voice (the bridge between the two worlds, internal and external)
• The ethical boundaries of the multi disciplinary singer/songwriter/teacher
• How to survival the industry ‘enough of the dying stars’ the collateral damage is too much, too frequent and mainly unnecessary.

Suggested you-tube links, websites and / or texts where further information may be found:

• Psychology and Music by Diana Deutsch
• The psychology of music by Robert Gjerdingen
• The Psychology of Singing by David C Taylor
• Singing in the brain: Insights from cognitive neuropsychology
• A review of The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body by Steven Mithen

A few words about you and your passion:

After performing as a singer/actress, international singer in hotels and the like, I focussed on teaching. I realised that both my career and those of my students were impeded, but not by singing technique – that was the easy bit. I spent 9 years training as a Transactional Analysis psychotherapist (ongoing) specialising separately in posttraumatic stress psychotherapy with Babette Rothschild and other body psychotherapy techniques.

A few lines about the history of your subject:

Everything I bring to you today has been tried and errored on myself and my loyal and wonderful students. I bring to you a holistic, no holds barred approach – a hybrid of my experience. I adore vocal health but think we’ve become obsessed to the point of becoming generic. Singing and using your voice is a most wonderful thing, a way to let go, digest, chew, spit out life emotions and thoughts – an expression of a being – Creativity. (2011)
Brave voice users unite and come and share the good, bad and ugly worries and questions you have.

Anything else you may want to say:

I want to make this as tailored to the people attending as possible; I may vary off topic if questions are asked. I want interaction not dictation. But will spend twenty minutes or so examining my work. After that I would welcome questions and open discussion.