Recently I have been reviewing my PhD  research for publication and although it is 10 years almost, since I finished my thesis I was surprised when I read it again, how much that work has influenced my singing and teaching since then. It has been a really useful exercise and I still feel I have something to say. I was teaching one of my students the other day and using my hands to describe how I feel my voice when I sing and I realised that I do now think of it as a sphere, in a three-dimensional sense, which allows me to feel my sound moving forward and back, up and down, in a space that I can adapt and make as big as Carnegie Hall or intimate like a small chapel. It is a difficult concept to teach in a way and it needs an experienced singing to understand. I have also been assessing students at University again, it is that time of year, and once again I am struck how some singers really do ‘play’ with the sounds of their voices, colouring like a sound artist a singer should be; while other singers seem to sing with no sense of vocal identity or control over the voice and so often it just becomes boring.

More about my research next time!