Sigma Alpha Iota

PAN PIPES • WINTER 2016 • sai-national.org 8 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z SAI PHILANTHROPIES, INC. "… follow the road, pass the red barn, pass the red house selling Honung (honey) and continue about 200m … towards the horse sign … aer the downhill, you see Sandvik on your le." I diligently followed these directions from the train station in Flen, Sweden, for the first day of instruction at Professor Johan Sundberg's annual summer course "Function of the Singing Voice." Although the course is administered by the Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH, Royal College of Technology), classes are held at Sundberg's summer residence near the town of Malmköping. His big red house, its blue and yellow Swedish flag flapping in the wind, overlooks a large forest and a meandering lake; apple trees dot the backyard. An additional building on the property was set up as lecture hall and performance space. It was in this idyllic setting that an international group of twenty-five students, including speech-language pathologists, laryngologists, voice teachers, and singers, gathered for five days of intense instruction by Sundberg and his colleagues from KTH. Sweden has been a leader in the discipline of voice science, primarily due to the work of Professor Sundberg, who in 1979 established and subsequently chaired the Music Acoustics program at KTH until his retirement. His seminal work, Röstlära [Voice pedagogy], still serves as a major reference work in its many editions, even several decades aer its first publication. Professor Sundberg's position in, and influence on, the discipline is extraordinary. Course sessions were held each day from 9 am to 9 pm. Meals were provided by a local caterer, and lunch and dinner gave the students the opportunity to discuss the course material and to interact informally with the instructors. And of course, the Swedish social institution fika (obligatory mid-morning coffee break) was observed each day. e KTH course, at which Sundberg was joined by many other distinguished faculty members, stands as one of the finest professional opportunities I have ever had. In numerous lecture sessions and hands-on workshops, I had the opportunity to experiment with equipment that I normally only read about in pedagogy books, and to learn from leaders in the field of voice science and pedagogy. Some highlights of the many informative sessions: Voice in Non-Classical Styles (Johan Sundberg): Professor Sundberg discussed the acoustic differences between the operatic singing style and musical theater singing style. He also explored the differences between subglottal pressure and glottal adduction in these different styles, as empirically measured in recent studies. Formants and Articulation (Johan Sundberg): It was fascinating to compare the work of Sundberg with that of Ken Bozeman, author of Practical Vocal Acoustics: Pedagogic Applications for Teachers and Singers, whose seminar on acoustic vocal pedagogy I had attended earlier in the summer. Sundberg and Bozeman approach these topics from the perspective of voice scientist and experienced pedagogue, respectively. I seek to reconcile these Function of the Singing Voice Above, an inverse filtering lab in Johan Sundberg's annual summer course in voice science. At left, a masterclass conducted by Professor Håkan Hagegård.

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