Somatic Voicework™ seeks to bring the voice, the person, the emotions and the mind together. It seeks to illuminate the path of vocal artistry by conveying objective information about vocal production based on what is currently known and understood in medicine and science. It supports inter-disciplinary exchange. It is an open system. All premises are subject to improvement and personal adaptation. It honors and respects the styles of music called Contemporary Commercial and believes that all styles of music have value and worth.
Somatic Voicework™ rests on respect for the body and allows it to take its time adapting to various stimuli while new responses emerge. It works with compassion, allowing artists to face difficulties, overcome issues and recover abilities even in the face of a diagnosis of pathology or damage. It treats every singer, young or old, famous or unknown, talented or talent-not-yet-tapped, the same. It allows teachers to say, with perfect integrity, “I don’t know. Let me ask.” It recognizes posture and breathing, physical coordination and kinesthetic conditioning, aural acuity and visual feedback and asks only that singers address all aspects of singing function through reasonable, repetitive and consistent training.
Somatic Voicework™ teaches “whole people” not larynges or throats or vocal folds, not time slots (the Tuesday noon tenor, “what’s his name” or the “A# soprano with the wobbly middle voice, Something-or-other Smith”). It incorporates physical, emotional and personal stressors as being factors in living an artistic life and does not diminish singers for having to address these things while training and/or performing. It recognizes that we are not mental health professionals but we are all human beings and that life can sometimes be messy but it is always worthwhile. It teaches careful use of language and its impact on students and taking full responsibility for the learning process as the flawed but passionate people we all are.
Somatic Voicework™ is for those who want to dig deep. It is for those who are not looking for the “10 quickest tips so you can be on American Idol” or the “12 best ways to get really great high notes by next week”. It is not concerned with helping people get tenure, being smarter than people who want to squeeze the throat, position the larynx, vibrate the vocal folds on purpose or with proving that all voices should sing the same way in every circumstance.
Somatic Voicework™ is simple and complicated. It is easy to understand but takes a long time to master. It is available to anyone who wants to investigate it but can only be completely assimilated by those who use the concepts on their own voices over time in many ways. It is up to each individual how much or little the concepts in Somatic Voicework™ matter in their own lives but, as teachers, in order to be both ethical and appropriate, it is imperative that teachers know about all voices, and all musical styles, not just their own or the ones they sing.
Somatic Voicework™ is a method of vocal pedagogy that grew out of the life of Jeannette Louise LoVetri, known as Jeanie to her friends and colleagues. It is the result of decades of singing, training for singing, study, investigation, experimentation and thousand upon thousands of hours spent in voice lessons for almost 47 years. She shares the work with an open heart hoping that it will be valuable to others and perhaps help them avoid difficulty, struggle, sadness, frustration and self-doubt, all of which she had to endure to learn what is in the course. It is not presented as “the way” or “the best way” just one way. She invites you to make it your way, if that would be of use to you.
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