Academia can be a real challenge for a musician to navigate. There is no clear blueprint to follow to land your first position, grow your program, or keep your job.

I can help you…

…prepare for auditions, interviews, and the promotion process.

…evaluate your application recordings and scholarly or creative output.

…navigate the academic budgeting and curriculum development processes.

…frame your strengths in terms that align with your institutional culture.

…design a multi-year plan that produces actionable applications for students from the start.

What is an Embodied Music Analysis Lab? 

This is an umbrella term to describe any lab with biometric or biofeedback equipment that deepens the participant’s understanding of music making. Think of these applications as either studying what a musician does and produces or changing their behavior based on what they see or feel. Its utility for your community may be as simple as to measure change over time like we would any athlete in training, as useful as offering realtime feedback about respiration or phonation, or as complex as permitting serious student and faculty research.

A lab can greatly augment active and experiential learning as your students seek to understand how it is musicians’ bodies work and how they work their instruments. Yes, a lab can serve as a resource for more advanced research projects leading toward the creation and dissemination of knowledge through public presentations and publications. However, as much of the pedagogy community presents scientific studies as the evidence that underpins the practical application, an analysis lab offers students the chance to re-create seminal studies, deepen their appreciation for how challenging good research can be, and offers them tools to push beyond the conclusions of the studies that they read.

Many modern pedagogy teachers, especially in voice departments, feel the pressure to offer access to this sort of technology as a supplement to the scientific material they feel the pressure to teach. How one plans to spend money on this sort of equipment matters. It is possible to waste money on gear that guarantees problematic results in the effort to get something going as quickly as possible. My experience will prevent you from spending money unwisely and will ensure that students may explore their voices without compromising on quality.

I have a significant experience selecting and implementing a wide variety of non-invasive music performance analysis and biofeedback technologies. These include: 

Calibrated acoustic signal capture, processing, and analysis, including all elements of the audio signal chain and best practices for capturing clean and useable signals

Labs exploring acoustic registers and resonance strategies of singers, labs exploring perception of the singing voice, and practical introductions to both the harmonic and transient theories of voice production

Labs exploring respiration and acoustic output of instrumentalists

The use of Praat (including the Phonanium Clinical Voice Lab and a simple introduction to Praat scripting), VoceVista Video Pro, and the Tolvan Suite

Calibrated use of the RespTrack respiration measurement system, including use of the hardware and both recording and analysis apps.

Use of and best practices for the Glottal Enterprises Electroglottograph and the Glottal Enterprises MS-110 Aeroview system, including protocols for phonation threshold pressure, nasalance, flow and pressure measurements, and inverse filtering

Use of both Windows and MacOS computers.

The Covid 19 Pandemic knocked the music industry back on its heels. Unable to safely collaborate in person, a patchwork of solutions emerged. Some gave up and decided to wait, boxed in by a lack of either information or technological infrastructure. Others turned to compromised solutions like Zoom that allowed for interaction but imposed delays that made collaborative performance impossible. Now that widespread vaccination and effective medications allow for a safer return to in person collaboration, both of these approaches deserve to be retired. A third solution, online collaboration tools with latency similar to the acoustic delay of an in-person performance, deserves consideration beyond its utility as a pandemic stop-gap. I utilized this third option throughout the pandemic, and I continue to use it on a near daily basis today. 

I helped to deploy and manage a system of 100 faculty and student users at the New England Conservatory that facilitated dozens of daily interactions during the pandemic. I designed and taught a graduate-level course in Real Time Online Music Making at the New England Conservatory, and I have taught two professional development courses in this technology since the summer of 2020. I have been engaged to speak on this subject on multiple podcasts and webinars, and stories about this work have appeared in WBUR, Forbes, Choral Journal (ACDA), Broadway World, and Musical America.

Should everyone use low latency audio and video technology? Absolutely not. It is neither indicated for nor possible in all use cases. However, as we emerge from the pandemic and seek to discard poor solutions, we should consider what we have learned from this experience. What new client bases does low latency technology create? How would facility with this technology advantage your graduates in the professional world? How does this technology highlight the logistical, economic, and social challenges of traveling to a specific building at a specific time?

There is no one right answer to these questions. But there is the answer that is right for your community, client base, or collaborators. I can help you think through how to maximize the value this technology can create.

Since 2013, I have designed and taught one of the most robust and modern graduate voice pedagogy curriculums in North America. My students included pedagogy and performance majors at the undergraduate, Masters, and Doctor of Musical Arts levels. My graduates have gone on to performance careers, advanced performance and pedagogy degrees at schools like the University of Southern California and Indiana University, begun interdisciplinary voice science PhD programs at schools like McGill and the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, becomes Speech Language Pathologists, and won faculty teaching positions at schools like the Berklee College of Music, Scripps College, the New England Conservatory of Music, and the Boston Conservatory. I understand how to curate information to meet the needs of a variety of levels of student, and I believe that complex ideas about the function of the voice must ultimately relate to an actionable, perceptible, and repeatable aspect of voicing. I can help you to update your reading list and rethink your learning outcomes to better reflect the requirements of a modern, evidence-based approach to teaching voice pedagogy.

Many musicians find themselves intensely curious to explore research questions but are wholly unprepared to design studies and perform the analysis. This is a central tension in academic music especially, as publication offers a path to continued employment but the training for those jobs does not equip one to carry out the research needed to publish. Those outside of the academy may have access to professional development courses based on research, but no access to actual mentorship. While the EML will offer classes that cover these topics, we also offer one-on-one and team consulting to help you think through your research questions, design and execute an ethical study, and analyze the results for publication or presentation.

Those of you who have secured academic positions may find yourself in need of a research agenda for promotion. If you are able to enjoy a high-level performing career, have at it! For many, the choice to commit to a regional institution may present challenges to growing your performance resume. The science-informed voice pedagogy research landscape is wide open and offers you the opportunity to explore subject areas you are personally interested in and passionate about. This creates unique opportunities for your students as your research interests integrate into the classes you teach. Ultimately, you need to be able to compete in the world of academic peer reviewed posters, conference presentations, articles, and books. 

My mentees and I have presented at a variety of conferences, including: 

The Voice Foundation (including the young investigator’s forum)

The NATS National Conference (including best research poster 2020 and a featured pre-conference workshop)

The Society for Music Perception and Cognition

Pan American Vocology Association Symposium (including best research poster 2020)

National Opera Association Conference (including best research poster 2023)

PAS 7+

Additionally, I,

— Was awarded the 2022 Van Lawrence Fellowship by the Voice Foundation and NATS for my research into glottal closing patterns of whistle register in a trained classical soprano

— Was presented The American Academy of Teachers of Singing Covid Response Award for my work disseminating research related to low-latency collaboration software

— Served on the PAS7+ and PAVA science review committees, sit on the NATS Voice Science Advisory Committee (VSAC), and evaluate the NATS National Conference Posters

I can walk you through this process, from literature review through to IRB approval and publication.Item description