Adventures

Giving Voice with The Left Hand Stair Ukes at Bar Loco – Lights, Camera, Campaign!

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Giving Voice: Left Hand Stair Ukes at Bar Loco with Julie Carr and Liz Panton

The Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists (RCSLT) is inviting people to enter photographs of their Giving Voice events since 12 October 2012 – and the twelve best images will be included in a 2014 calendar:

http://givingvoiceuk.org/lightscameracampaign/

Luckily, there are a couple of photo’s and videos of the Giving Voice “open stage” with the Left Hand Stair Ukes at Bar Loco, Newcastle upon Tyne on 23rd April.  Julie Carr, who joined us on ukulele, has already written about this event in her “Julie Giving Voice” blog:

A song, a speech and some Ukulele’s!

I trawled through the videos to try to find some suitable clips and it was all rather blurry. psychedelic and wobbly.  An excellent evocation of the evening – but calendar material?  Mmm . . . we will have to see what the judges think.

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Voice Care, Improvement and Maintenance

Ukulele Moon Girl from "The Toon Sketchbook" on Tumblr: http://toonsketchbook.tumblr.com/
Ukulele Moon Girl from “The Toon Sketchbook” on Tumblr: http://toonsketchbook.tumblr.com/

First posted on the Ukulele Cosmos Forum, 25 June 2013

I could not find much on Ukulele Cosmos to do with voice and singing – the search function does not help as all the terms I tried were rejected as being “too common“.

So I thought I would start this topic.  I started off calling it “Voice and Singing Resources” but there are too many schools of thought in “singing pedagogy”, so I thought it safer to call the subject “voice” but include some specific resources about singing. Everything that helps to look after, improve and maintain a good voice applies to both the speaking voice and the singing voice. This is sometimes called “voice hygiene” but “voice care” works for me.

On which note – the health warning

PLEASE READ THIS IF YOU READ NOTHING ELSE OF THIS POST

If you have a cough, hoarseness or any other voice problem that lasts for more than two weeks – SEE A DOCTOR!

  • This is standard medical advice, for good reason.
  • If a cough or hoarseness persists for more than three weeks, go back to your doctor. Ask for a referral to a “cough clinic” or a “voice clinic” depending on the problem. These are few and far between so you might instead be referred to a general gastroenterology or ENT (Ear Nose and Throat) clinic.
  • A persistent cough or voice problem might be the sign of something serious and the sooner you find out whether or not this is the case, the better.
  • If you have a persistent cough or a voice problem, you will need an ENT report before you can receive any help from a Speech and Language Therapist. These might be symptoms of an underlying pathology and this needs to be excluded or identified first.
  • Good voice teaching or singing teaching should help you to improve your performance without damaging your voice. A good teacher who has your best interests at heart will advise you to get medical help and vocal rehabilitation if you have damaged your voice.
  • I will do a separate post with information about voice clinics, specialist medical help for performers, etc. This wil be UK-centric but all of the sites and organisations referenced include links to international organisations and/or equivalent organisations in other countries.

OK – end of “health warning” – but please take it seriously – it is all in the news this week – search for “persistent cough Def Leppard” and you will get the idea.

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NoVoiceWeek! SLT students Giving Voice for AAC Awareness

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The easiest way to follow the campaign events as they unfold this week is via the Twitter hashtag #novoiceweek.

Or perhaps even easier, on the Symplur Healthcare Hashtags Project, bookmark this page: #nospeechweek Healthcare Hashtag  and see the “live stream” midway down the page on the right.


While SLT (Speech and Language Therapy) services are working flat-out and fighting cuts at the same time, the RCSLT‘s new-style Facebook  Student Groups Network has mobilised in support of the Giving Voice UK campaign.

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