![]() ![]() They actually experience less wellbeing and more physiological and psychological arousal and tension. ![]() #OPERA SINGING PROFESSIONAL#Unlike amateur singers who experience singing as a means to reduce tension, and promote wellbeing, professional singers and conservatory students do not derive these same positive results. Through years of practice, singers remain focused on singing technique, their vocal apparatus, and their physical posture. Singers form a professional identity via their ability to produce vocally resonant emotional sounds, and through their unique bonds established between their teachers and between other singers ( Beech et al., 2012). Years of training are essential to prepare them for these performance challenges. While on stage they must give authentic life to the character, interact dramatically with fellow singers, adhere to the stage directions and blocking established by the director, and constantly maintain eye contact with the conductor so that they remain musically integrated with the orchestra. Beyond character work, singers must acquire complex attentional skills to manage intense cognitive demands placed on them ( Corlu et al., 2015). Each time singers prepare a role they must participate in a renarration process, one that requires musical fidelity to the score and inclusion of current values and aesthetics ( Beech et al., 2012). Similar to actors, they must explore the nature of the character they are to portray, a process that can increase psychological distress ( Burgoyne et al., 1999). Unlike musicians, opera singers develop skills to perform dramatic roles within the opera canon. Singers cultivate a keen ability to simultaneously perceive sound production and initiate motor activation. Fundamentally, singing skill acquisition promotes greater interoceptive awareness and facilitates greater implicit motor engagement ( Kleber et al., 2010). Singing expertise (i.e., sound production, harmony and melody discrimination) increases enhanced kinesthetic motor control and sensorimotor integration ( Brown & Martinez, 2007). Years of practice also alter bilateral prefrontal processes and subcortical regions, with increased activation in the basal ganglia, thalamus, and cerebellum. Singers have enhanced bilateral feedback integration in the vocal–motor and sensory–motor regions of their brain ( Kleber et al., 2013). The complexity of human song (i.e., harmonization, monophonic, polyphonic, and antiphonal imitation) indicates that it requires neural specialization that has evolved over human evolution ( Brown, Martinez, Hodges, Fox, & Parsons, 2004). Training singers alters their brain structures and functioning. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |