15.02.2025 | SPECIAL GUEST: Singing with Distortion with Mauro Fiuza

Beschreibung

SINGING WITH DISTORTION with Mauro Fiuza

Distortions are rough sounds perceived as noisy. In speech, it is applied during moments of arousal, such as extreme happiness or anger. For artistic purposes and to preserve vocal health, such voices should be intentionally produced. Creating a rough voice involves specific behaviors inside the vocal apparatus that distort the original voice source signal, giving the voice its rough characteristic. 

Intentional voice distortions (IVDs) is a term used for voices perceived as rough/harsh. Although commonly associated with rock/metal music, IVDs are found in many other Contemporary Commercial Music (CCM) genres, traditional music, experimentalist singing, and even in certain classical singing performances. Additionally, actors/actresses employ IVDs for acting and in voice-overs for movies, narration, and games. 

Due to its broad applicability, voice practitioners (singers, voice teachers, speech pathologists, ENTs, etc.) and researchers have shown increasing interest in understanding and developing practical approaches for its development. Physiologically, there are several ways to produce IVDs, resulting in diverse voice qualities determined by the vibration patterns of the engaged laryngeal and/or pharyngeal structures, in addition to combinations of vocal tract shapes and subglottal pressure levels. 

During this workshop, you will learn

• the science (physiology, neuromotor control, and perception),
• history,
• and practical application of IVDs in singing.

You will be invited to access and explore

• different vibration patterns of true vocal folds,
• distinct types and degrees of vibration of the ventricular folds,
• and how to intentionally engage their aryepiglottic folds, arytenoid cartilages, epiglottis, and uvula, as oscillators in the vocal apparatus.

You will realize

• how subglottic pressure levels, thus, loudness control, are important to create such sounds while preserving vocal health.
• You will also perceive how the vocal tract gestures impact the perception of pitch, even for aperiodic phonation, and alter timbre, as well as how the type and degree of vocal folds adduction are crucial for characterizing IVD, impacting on voice identity.
• Finally, you will learn strategies to preserve vocal health and to combine elements in different ways, thereby increasing artistic possibilities.

Mauro Fiuza is a Brazilian teacher of singing and a voice researcher who is currently finishing his PhD on Singing Voice Education in Madrid/Spain, at the Voice, Music, and Language Laboratory of the UNED. His interest in IVDs started as a metal singer, intensified during his Masters in Speech Pathology, in which he studied the acoustics and physiology of voice distortions. A still undergoing topic of his researcher. Mauro is a guest teacher in different postgraduate courses in Brazil, Colombia, and Spain, and has presented workshops, courses, and lectures on voice science and pedagogy online and in-person in many countries, such as Argentina, Austria, Brazil, Colombia, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Latvia, Peru, Poland, Spain, Sweden, and the USA. He is also a founding member of the Brazilian Association of Teachers of Singing, former coordinator of the World Voice Day Website (from 2018 to 2023), and the pedagogical coordinator of the Voice Science and Pedagogy Online Course and the Voice Education Institute (Instituto de Formação em Voz – IFV/Brazil).
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