PEVoC 15 (PanEuropean Voice Conference)

Describing the human voice is a difficult task, so journalists and music critics have created a plethora of strong, sometimes extravagant, metaphors to characterize it.
Apart from professional writers, voice teachers and singers are also faced with the challenge of speaking adequately about the voice to work on the individual sound, to reduce the tiring of the voice, and at the same time promote stage-effective singing, all of which are the primary goals of professional singing classes. The widespread view among the professionals that it is impossible to speak objectively about the voice, or rather, that there are only a few codified terms available for it and the fact that those mentioned above constantly discuss the singing voice prompted me to investigate how communication is done in professional singing lessons.
Indeed, technical terms are available for the physiology and functionality of the voice, but they are hardly sufficient to capture the complexity of the voice. This is due to the fact that speaking about the sound of the voice is meant to create vocal incentives for the singer to overcome the discrepancy between inner and outer hearing and to guide him/her in experiencing this process reflectively. Which form of communication - linguistic, musical or gestural - is primarily used depends on the situation, the communication partners and the goal that is to be achieved with the pointing. Creative uses of words arise in and from new situations. Students learn new uses of words and thus new concepts, actions and behaviours. Musical and gestural pointing is used where linguistic competences diverge, misunderstandings become apparent where there are gaps in terminology and where linguistic coding would be too extensive, complicated, complex or disruptive.
Using specific examples from the analysis of press texts, interviews with students and experts and the observation of singing lessons, the presentation will reflect on the pragmatic availability and the semantic range of descriptions of vocal sound phenomena, and will outline the importance of engaging in a critical investigation of these communicative practices for vocal pedagogy, logopedy and music journalism.