Mind-Body Awareness for Singers:Unleashing Optimal Performance

Includes Foreword by Shirlee Emmons

In Mind-Body Awareness for Singers, Dr. Leigh-Post broadens the scope of recent voice science texts by applying an insightful understanding of mindfulness, cognitive neuroscience and functional neural anatomy for the musician seeking to optimize one's performance in an ideal state--absent anxiety.

This book provides a fundamental understanding of functional anatomy and cognitive neuroscience to guide singers and teachers of singing to unlocking the mystery of the mind-body link involved in the complex audio-motor behavior that is singing. New theories and concepts, rooted in both the wisdom of masters in the field and current scientific research, are introduced from the unique perspective of the performer. Practical application exercises train the singer to work with, rather than against, the systems of singing to integrate the cognitive and conscious with the unconscious sensory and motor processes of our nervous system.

By mapping not only the body's musculoskeletal structure, but also the body's voluntary and involuntary behavioral responses, the vocal artist is empowered with an ability to maintain the following with ease:

• Optimal performance, characterized by elite execution, coordination, and self-correction.
• An ideal performance state, characterized by heightened awareness, vigilant attention, and autonomic balance/an absence of anxiety.
• Imagery or manipulation of a mental representation of a sensory event, characterized by an ability to express one's thoughts and feelings through an infinite supply of phenomenal images.
• Alignment.