Aligned and Aware
Solutions for the Singing Body
A groundbreaking online video-based movement library for voice pros who are ready to love the instrument they live in.
You know the whole body is your instrument, but no one...not your beloved voice teacher, the countless coaches you've worked with, nor the maestro in master classes...has ever looked at, and really seen, the whole you.
How many of these resonate?
- If your low back isn’t barking at you, your neck is nagging.
- There’s a hotspot of pain right on the inner edge of your shoulder blade that’s way too spicy.
- You have a flat butt (go ahead and look in the mirror to confirm, we’ll wait…)
- The only way there’s ‘strength’ in your core is if you grip it, grit your teeth and heave.
- When you pause for a moment and exhale, you realize you’re holding tension from your shoulders, to your abs, to your pelvic floor.
- And you just know all of this is impacting your ability to sing your best
What's the secret sauce missing from feeling better in your body?
Visualize this:
It’s ease and suppleness in the torso when you breathe.
It’s shoulders and hips that move well, without pain.
It’s a core that’s responsive when you move and sing.
It’s living better in, and loving on, your instrument.
Aligned and Aware: Solutions for the Singing Body
Because while you can practice on your hands and knees it’s not really possible to perform that way…unless you’re in some avant-garde production in which case GO FOR IT!
Your singer needs to get upright and have the same result when they sing.
You need to know the rest of the story – the story of the body, biomechanics, movement science, alignment, and awareness.
Grab your membership and dive in to moving and learning.
Join today for only $44/month
When your body starts moving better
- Bach stops making your low back bark.
- The songs from Newsies no longer make your neck tense up.
- The melismas in masterworks that once made you gasp for breath… now flow with ease.
It’s time to shift away from not knowing exactly what to do, toward confidence in the body’s ability to support singing.
How do you get there?
- With sustainable movements that empower your teaching and your singers.
- With a resource that builds singer’s inner sense of control, safety and trust in the body.
- Those are the key components of singing, movement and healing.
It's all inside your membership in the library.
Press Play to take a tour of the library!
Membership Includes:
Masterclasses
Take a deep dive into the body to discover connections and how the whole body impacts the voice
Breathing Explorations
Explore the breath as a reflection of our inner state and better understand breathing patterns.
Seeing in the Studio
One-move tutorials to apply in the studio and find immediate, impactful differences in the voice.
Movement Classes
These off the mat style classes offer a physical exploration of concepts taught in master classes.
20-60 Minutes
10 Minutes
3-5 Minutes
20-55 Minutes
Grab your membership and dive in with access to the core content: learn new perspectives on alignment, breathing and cross body connections that impact the voice.
From there monthly content includes an assortment of:
- Master Classes,
- Movement Classes,
- Breathing Explorations
- Seeing in the Studio one-move tutorials
- Instructional PDFs
All centered on a topic and designed to help you and your singers address imbalances in the body.
Let’s face it, your teaching and singing just got even better.
Other bonuses:
- Core content is always available to members so when you wake up at 3am worrying about a particular singer, you can drift back off to sleep knowing the answer awaits online
- New videos are added monthly so your teaching is always growing and improving making you a #beastyboss studio teacher
- Supplemental pdfs are created regularly so you can build a resource binder of your own and have the answers you need always at your finger tips
Vocal Interdependence :
The library works because it addresses Vocal Interdependence,
and you absolutely need to know what that is if you’re going to be an effective teacher.
Your voice is a production resulting from the interplay of respiration, phonation and resonance all of which are impacted by and inextricable from our skeletal, nervous and muscular systems.
Vocal Interdependence is just a fancy way of saying
your voice depends on every other system in the body to work well.
Your job as a voice teacher largely focuses on the vocal tract and resonance to produce sounds that are optimal. Your training tends to focus on registration, phonation and respiration – typically learning about them separately and having moments of overlap as we put it together.
AND there’s a lot to know about those things, but you’ve got that part.
You’ve cultivated your ears, now you’re ready to cultivate your eyes and your ability to see the body.
Couple that ability to see with actually knowing what’s happening and voilá, you have better knowledge in real life of how the body works and can solve real problems quickly.
That’s vocal interdependence in action.
Step outside the (voice) box, off the (pedagogy) page today and join the library to start on your path to being the best performing teacher you can.
Join today for only $44/month
Join the library if you...
…are willing to pick your jaw up off the floor when you begin to see and experience the ways the body and voice are interconnected.
…have strong opinions about vocal technique and what works so now you’re ready to understand the rest of your instrument.
…know shoving a body part into the place it should be is an ineffective technique.
…want to train both your ears and your eyes to better serve the singer in front of you.
…are ready to start living well in your own body.
…want to figure out how to take what you’ve learned in your yoga training and apply it in the studio.
…wish for a straightforward way to connect the body and voice.
…wonder about the places in your body and voice that feel mysterious, elusive and painful.
…are a person who loves getting a great value for your investment.
If you answered YES to any of those, Aligned and Aware is the place for you!
Avoid the library if you believe...
…noble posture is the bomb diggity for singers.
…knowledge is not meant to be challenged and expanded.
…shoving a body part where it’s supposed to go is the best way.
…you can bend your knees AND have your hips aligned over your knees (go ahead, try it, I dare you!)
…you already know everything about the body as it relates to the voice.
…living, teaching, and singing in pain is fine.
…breathing doesn’t really matter after the first voice lesson.
…the surface knowledge of the body that’s offered in pedagogy texts is all you need.
Meet Your Friendly Librarian, Sarah Whitten
Credentials
- MA, Vocal Pedagogy
- MM in Vocal Performance, both from The Ohio State University
- Additional coursework in Voice Disorders from the MGH Institute of Health Professionals
- 500 hr Certified Yoga Teacher
- Additional studies in Yoga as Therapy with Susi Hately and Doug Keller
- Multi-Year Restorative Exercise/Nutritious Movement (™) Training Program
- Ongoing study of biomechanics, pain science and movement with multiple teachers.
- 13 years on the Holden Voice Faculty at Harvard University
I’m a voice teacher and yogi turned movement educator. A little buddhist, a little badass, with a whole lotta love for the voice and body.
While performing and teaching voice over the last 20 years I’ve trained in Slow Flow and Iyengar Yoga, Yoga as Therapy and Restorative Exercise™. Coursework in alignment, anatomy, physiology, biomechanics and pain science have taken me deep into understanding the physical body.
It was a journey born out of necessity. As a singer, despite singing at a high level, I received consistent feedback that I my breathing was off, my high notes could be easier and my body wasn’t fully involved in my singing. But, no one could tell me what to do about any of it. I also spent nearly half my life living with low level injuries and after having my second child, was unable to walk for two weeks.
When I expanded my lens beyond my traditional yoga training and went deeper to address my own issues, I not only regained function, but I had fewer aches and pains than I did as a ‘super fit’ 20-something.
In that time I put together new understandings of the whole body as it relates to singing. I’ve honed in on the best ways of bringing together body and voice through movement and developed a much deeper ability to work with the whole body as a singer’s instrument.
Testimonials
Here’s the really good news about the library!
- For the equivalent of just a handful of voice lessons you get an entire year’s access to the chance to expand your knowledge of a singer’s instrument, live with less pain and better function.
- You don’t need a ton of time. Each month your time commitment is between 1.5 and 2 hours. There’s always more if you want it, but it isn’t hard to keep up.
- Joining means you are no longer slamming the door on your body. As long as you are alive tissue can change.
- The library is here to be a partner with you on your journey understanding your instrument. This information isn’t found in even the best of vocal pedagogy books.
Ready to see the voice through a whole new lens and really know what to do with your singer’s bodies?
Sign up today to get started in Aligned and Aware: Solutions in the Singing Body.
$44/month or $440 for the year.
To join the library
Register New Account
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