.sherlynchia.com. Vocal coach. Performer.

Imagery has long been a primary skill of high profile sports competitors like Tiger Woods and Michael Johnson. Yet, traditionally, the value of imagery in the training of singers has been regarded simply as a useful tool to increase dramatically their interpretive skills, probably by at least fifty percent. Alma Thomas and Shirlee Emmons, after many years of combined experience teaching singers to utilize imagery in far reaching ways, propose that imagery skills have more than one application and offer a myriad of benefits.

Far more than increasing singers’ interpretive skills, imagery strongly supports a singer’s ability to give an elite performance by promoting correct performance thinking. Imagery facilitates singers’ capacity to modify their vocal skills toward improvement when that proves necessary.

Imagery enables a singer to practice proficiently and to reduce musical problems to a manageable entity. Imagery provides singers with a method of avoiding distractions during performance. Imagery allows a singer to rehearse silently on those many occasions when that is useful. Imagery helps makes it possible for singers to do under the stress of performance what they have been doing in rehearsal. Imagery can even be utilized to work at controlling singers’ performance anxiety levels.

Our theory, based upon eleven years of shared work as the only known voice teacher/ performance psychologist team, states that imaging for singers can be described as a “method of using all the senses to create or re-create an experience in the mind.” It is clear that those singers fare better in their careers who have acquired a heightened awareness of all their senses: of visual, auditory, and tactile stimuli, of kinesthetic feedback signals, of taste and smell—and are skillful in their use.

They bring a much greater detail to their interpretations and do so with far more ease. They see colors; they hear sounds; they feel the emotions; they sense the performance kinesthetically as part of the body. In addition, it is a simple matter for them to rehearse repertoire while awaiting their turn at an audition or competition. Efficiently and silently they see and hear and feel themselves executing the piece perfectly (while not being distracted by their surroundings).

Those singers who have honed their imagery skills will find it simpler to remember more clearly the essence of a vocal technical skill and repeat it efficiently until it is firmly within their grasp. In this way, they will eventually move from analytical thinking, which is decidedly not recommended during performance, to the intuitive, musically-responsive thinking that is necessary for elite performance.

Nurturing Soul in Adult Learning
John M. Dirkx

"There is more to transformative learning than a cognitive rational process of critical reflection. The soul of the learner must be nurtured in order to reach deeper levels of change and development."


To illustrate the importance of imagination in the process of learning singing, I would normally ask my students to do this imagination exercise: Close your eyes and visualize this scenario- You are sitting on a bench on the street and out of nowhere, a young child comes up and screams right beside your ear.

Now open your eyes. Realized that your muscles twitched when you visualize the child screaming beside your ear? But is it actually happening? Now if our muscles would react to mere imagination, what about our vocal cords? Imagination is absolutely vital when learning any skills; especially one that requires unseen muscles to work- such as the usage of the vocal cords and the diaphragm.

Therefore in all vocal training, teachers and instructors will often use imagination exercises like sing towards the next room or sing towards the back of the mouth etc. Do not neglect the role of imagination in learning singing, it will determine your rate of learning; even your success.

Elisabeth Sulser - "The Synaesthete"

The Superhuman and Quest: Elizabeth Sulser, of Zurich, Switzerland, is a 29-year old synaesthete.

Synaesthesia is an extremely rare neurological condition characterized by the fusing of senses. For Sulser, this means the involuntary fusion of sound, sight and taste. Musical notes prompt different shapes and colours to appear in her direct field of vision, while intervals induce various flavours on her tongue - an F sharp is violet; a minor sixth is creamy; a perfect fourth tastes like mown grass.

Sulser's particular combination of senses is so unique that she is the only person in the world documented to have it. Realizing that others didn't perceive the world as she did, at first Sulser thought she had a mental illness and was confused and isolated by her experiences.

At the University of Zurich, Sulser participated in a study under Dr. Lutz Jäncke, Chair of the Department of Neuropsychology, which scanned the brains of synaesthetes to determine if the structure of their brains was different than non-synaesthetes.

Dr. Jäncke speculates that synaesthetes may have a superior ability to learn, as the basic principle of connecting or associating an item with several other items is strongly linked to memory and creativity. Sulser, a musician by trade, uses her gift to develop perfect pitch and memorize musical scores after looking at them just once.

Further studies and tests at University College London will introduce Sulser - for the very first time - to other synaesthetes, and for the first time she will find a sense of belonging.



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