Product Description

Are you an actor who routinely loses his voice before the end of a run? As a serious student of singing, do you wish those high notes would come more easily? Do you need courage to sing outside the shower?

In this book, designed for both teachers and students of the speaking and singing voice, Jane Heirich addresses some common problem areas of the voice-teaching world: breath management, voice projection, resonance building, ?breaks? in the vocal range, and the relevance of overall poise to vocal output. The step-by-step approach through which she takes the reader allows new skills to develop for both beginning and experienced students/performers.

This book is the culmination of decades of work integrating two approaches that will have a profound impact on your voice; the centuries-old Italian bel canto singing tradition and the FM Alexander Technique.

If you've wondered whether you can improve your voice and enjoy using it more effectively, this is the book for you.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #193702 in Books
• Published on: 2005-01-01
• Released on: 2005-01-01
• Binding: Hardcover
• 192 pages

VoicePrints- the Bulletin of The New York Singing Teacher's Association
...great pleasure to recommend Voice and the Alexander Technique...to teachers and students of speech, singing and Alexander...

About the Author
Jane Heirich taught voice at the University of Michigan for 30 years. She combined the bel canto method with the Alexander Technique. The result is a powerful tool she uses to help singers and speakers of all styles help develop their voices to the fullest. Her book is filled with exercises and illustrations to bring her knowledge to life.

Customer Reviews

Essential!
This book and the included CD provides an excellent way to discover the full potential of your voice. Nothing short of awesome!

Review from VoicePrints-Sept.2005
It gives me great pleasure to recommend Voice and the Alexander Technique, written by the highly regarded educator and certified Alexander teacher, Jane Ruby Heirich, to teachers and students of speech, singing and Alexander Technique.

The book's nine chapters are preceded by an introduction, which is one of several times in which she cautions that the "guidance of an Alexander teacher's hands" would be the ideal way for one without previous Alexander training to use this book, while she acknowledges that not all communities have a certified teacher. The first four chapters cover the basics of habit, a short history of F.M. Alexander and what his Technique is and what it is not, a vocal technique primer, and some common postural and vocal problems. The next four chapters apply principles of Alexander Technique via "Games and Explorations". The final chapter is a two page summary of the book. Four appendices follow: an explanation of IPA International Phonetic Alphabet), an additional Alexander exercise called hands on the back of a chair, contact information for teachers and books, and a generous glossary of musical and Alexandrian terms.

"To Do" sections in each chapter explore ways to address vocal and use problems. Use (as defined in the aforementioned glossary) is "the term Alexander used to mean how a person organizes him/herself in daily activities. He often spoke and wrote about the use of the Self in activity, meaning how one responds to a stimulus or does everything he does." The vocal (sung) "To Do" exercises, included on the CD which accompanies the book, are discussed and then played on a piano in several keys.

Voice teachers may quibble with some of the information found in the vocal primer section (Chapter 3), but most will appreciate her multi-sided approach to the art of vocal pedagogy, combining complex mechanistic and anatomical description, while also offering solutions to problems via imagery and movement. In a later chapter she states, " I will not pretend to define what is meant by all voice teachers when they uses these three terms - support, breath support or project." And to avoid Alexandrian semantic squabbles, she often gives several names for one "Alexandrian" term, for example: Alexander Lie-Down, Semi-Supine and Constructive Rest Position. I enjoyed her definition of "up". "Up" at its simplest means the direction in which the head is releasing away from the other end of the spine, the tailbone." And her discussion of the whispered ah as taught by Alexander (Pages 85-91) resulted in several rewarding practice sessions for me and therefore my students.

The book is tall and heavy which presents an Alexandrian challenge (I propped it up on two pillows), but it is this bulkiness which allows the excellent, clear illustrations by Jaye Schlesinger and other sidebars to appear on the pertinent page. These gray shaded sidebars, sprinkled throughout the book, detail stories about students of the author which are relevant to the chapter.

According to Ms. Heirich, the first factor in the process of changing a habit is that the individual must desire to change and the second is that "we must begin where we are". Reading this book is a wonderful place for either the novice or the professional to do just that. Katherine Keyes, certified teacher of the Alexander Technique, voice teacher, singer. VoicePrints-Sept.2005

American Music Teacher, Volume 55, No. 1, August/September 2005: Review of Voice & the Alexander Technique
Voice and the Alexander Technique: Active Explorations for Speaking and Singing (w/CD), by Jane Heirich, Mornum Time Press

Many books have been written about the art and the science of singing. Most of them follow the medical model, that is, they deal with the actual physiology of making vocal sound. And there is no shortage of written material about the Alexander Technique-the remarkable method of aligning the body for maximum physical efficiency in any endeavor, be it singing, playing tennis, washing dishes or whatever-formulated by the Tasmanian Shakespearean actor F. M. Alexander in the late-19th century. But Jane Ruby Heirich's book, Voice and the Alexander Technique, is, as far as I know, the first to delineate the specific benefits of the Alexander Technique for those who are concerned with the quality and healthfulness of vocal sound in either spoken or sung form.
Heirich knows her business; she dispenses her excellent information with the expertise of sequence and timing that only comes from having coached hundreds of subjects in these techniques for many years. She intersperses her factual material with exercises, which she refers to as "to dos," and almost every page has a box in the margin with an anecdote pertaining to the problem at hand or a technique used for its remedy. There are many well-executed and useful illustrations, and the material, even though sophisticated and scientific in nature, is presented in the clear, easy-to-understand English similar to a do-it-yourself self-help manual. Furthermore, there is a glossary of terms, appendices with all manner of other useful information and a CD with recordings of vocal exercises recommended in the book is included.
I have only one complaint about this publication: it is hardbound, over-sized and rather expensive. So, many students who should have access to this information, will pass it up for economic reasons. Let's hope for a quicker-to-read, smaller and cheaper reprinting in paperback. Reviewed by Benton Hess, Webster, New York.

Reprinted from American Music Teacher, Volume 55, No. 1, August/September 2005, with permission of Music Teachers National Association.