Previous sport research has demonstrated that athletes of higher levels employ imagery more than low-level athletes. Because there is currently little research on imagery's application in singers, the purpose of the present study was to investigate whether this finding is reflected in low-level and high-level singers. A study-specific…

Curious as to why conducting gesture are both acknowledged and ignored by choral singers, this article investigates the enigmatic nature of the act of conducting. Education and research are biased toward gestural aspects of the choral conductor role. At the same time, research shows that gestural skills rank strikingly low compared with other…

Female adolescent voice change (FAVC) is characterized by objectively measurable developments in both physiological and acoustical aspects of voice. Despite these observable changes, this period of vocal development has had little representation in both scientific and pedagogical research. Furthermore, few studies have articulated the perceptions…

This article is based on the findings of a qualitative exploration of factors influencing confidence levels among adult amateur choral singers. Three focus group interviews, involving 18 singers in total, and 16 individual interviews were carried out. These provided over 40 hours of recorded verbal data, which then underwent a process of…

Though methods of somatic education such as the Feldenkrais Method are becoming more widely recognized as complementary approaches in vocal and choral pedagogy, there is little research that examines the experiences of singers who participate in such mind-body approaches. With the intent of exploring pedagogical implications of somatic education…

The purpose of this collaborative action research project was to examine eighth- and ninth-grade female (assigned at birth) students' perspectives of their singing voice when implementing a practitioner/researcher designed curriculum titled "Supporting Adolescent Female Vocal Development: Teaching Anatomy and Physiology in the Middle School…

This article conveys data collected in an ethnographic case study exploring monthly participatory community singing events in one city in the American Midwest. I analyze these data through the lens of a "traditional" choral conductor who, prior to undertaking this investigation, had little knowledge about participatory singing…

The purpose of this phenomenological study was to gain insight into experiences of adults who expressed personal discomfort with singing, either alone or when others might hear them. Singing agency in music learning, one's belief in one's own capacity to sing aloud, served as the guiding lens for the study. Narrative analysis of interview data,…

Preparation for the operatic stage means that for some students their voice will undergo significant transformation during training. For most operatic singers, voice type will determine future roles, the music they perform and potential career trajectory. Voice type becomes a facet of identity and position within the operatic world. This article…

Early childhood teachers are often required to sing, which requires confidence. The purpose of the present study was to treat early childhood teachers who self-identified as uncertain singers using either a group singing (GS) approach, or a talking approach, based on Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). The aim of the study was to increase…

The effects of musical career disruption are an increasingly important, yet under-researched, area within music education. This article highlights psychological issues that can negatively affect an operatic career. Existing work has examined the effects of redundancy for opera choristers and confirmed the importance of a flexible approach to…

The persistence of young men in choral singing activity has been widely studied in North America, with emerging parallel research in Europe (Freer, 2013; Harrison & Welch, 2012). There has been little such research in Asia. This study, of 12 young men enrolled in Singapore's pre-university schools, collected both written narratives and drawn…