An Audience with Lynn Helding

Lynn Helding, Professor of Practice in Voice and Voice Pedagogy at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music, is the author of The Musician’s Mind: Teaching, Learning & Performance in the Age of Brain Science and the chapter “Brain” in Scott McCoy’s Your Voice: An Inside View 3rd edition. A thought-leader in the movement toward science-informed voice pedagogy, she is a co-founder of the new NATS Science-Informed Voice Pedagogy Institute.Helding is a devoted teacher, she was recognized as a “legendary figure in the field of voice pedagogy” by the Contemporary Commercial Music (CCM) Vocal Pedagogy Institute at Shenandoah University, receiving their 2020 Lifetime Achievement Award and was inducted into the prestigious American Academy of Teachers of Singing (AATS) in 2022. Helding created the “Mindful Voice” column in the Journal of Singing, authoring it from its debut in October 2009 to October 2017, in order to advance her proposition that cognitive science must be considered the “Third Pillar of Voice Science.” Helding’s extensive research in cognitive neuroscience, with an emphasis on motor learning and expertise studies, formed the foundation of both “Mindful Voice” and The Musician’s Mind.

We will be discussing:

The role of Cognitive Science in Vocal Pedagogy

What is new in ‘science-informed’ Vocal Pedagogy

The value of empathy in the singing studioand much more, depending entirely on what questions are brought by YOU, our participants on the day.