UK: MUSIC THERAPIST ELLA WILLIAMS USES TOMATIS TECHNIQUE TO HELP ENTERTAINERS AND PERFORMERS IMPROVE THEIR VOICE

Record ID: 384208

  • Title: UK: MUSIC THERAPIST ELLA WILLIAMS USES TOMATIS TECHNIQUE TO HELP ENTERTAINERS AND PERFORMERS IMPROVE THEIR VOICE
  • Date: 14th March 2002
  • Summary: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (14TH MARCH 2002) (REUTERS) SCU (SOUNDBITE) ELLA WILLIAMS SAYING: "Maria Callas was once partially deafened by her own singing voice. And opera singers, especially singers with very big voices are exposed to the equivalent of a jumbo jet engine inside their heads." VARIOUS , (SOUNDBITE) ELLA WILLIAMS TAKING CLIENT THROUGH POSTURE FOR CHANTING EXERCISES SAYING: "So we're going to do the chanting exercises now. Now there is a listening posture and that involves your feet being firmly on the ground, knees slightly apart, shoulders back and it's important that the head isn't too far up or too far down a nice in-between position. Right. And when you do the humming it's important to push your lips slightly forward in a pout don't overdo it though and remember always to take a very deep, low breath which the electronic ear's helping you to do anyway. OK then so I'll turn it on." CLOSE UP OF CLIENT CHANTING TO TOMATIS EXERCISE TAPE WHICH USES GREGORIAN CHANTS. SCU (SOUNDBITE) ELLA WILLIAMS SAYING: "For me it's something really marvellous because its the missing link between a lifetime of practice and tuning in and accessing intuitive singing and so you know a musician can practice very hard and actually access what there is to be accessed in his ears but there's always more and that's the very exciting thing when you tap that, you're really tapping your true potential and music and musicality is in another dimension." SCU (SOUNDBITE) CLIENT, MICHEL ALKHOURI SAYING: "It's changed everything. Lets start with the posture and the quality of the voice, the sound, the resonance, and the air, everything. ...I have an instrument now where I can play and enjoy myself with. Before I didn't have an instrument." VARIOUS, CLIENT MICHEL ALKHOURI SINGING AN ARIA, 'PER SEMPRE' FROM 'I PURITANI' BY BELLINI
  • Embargoed: 29th March 2002 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LONDON, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment / Showbiz
  • Reuters ID: LVA9OU77EBJ1ZQ0NUZR6AJVTQGDO
  • Story Text: For many of those who have done it it's had profound effects. Entertainers who use their voice professionally have discovered more range, colour and freedom are just some of the benefits. Reuters met with London-based listening therapist, Ella Williams to find out the secrets behind the Tomatis Technique, a listening treatment that's one of the best kept secrets in the business.
    Maria Callas is rumoured to have done it at the start of her career. Sting, Juliette Binoche and even Gerard Depardieu are all said to have benefited from it. The 'it' is 'The Tomatis Technique', a listening program that helps overcome difficulties with speech, singing, memory and attention.
    Dr Tomatis was a French Ear, Nose and Throat Specialist. The son of a famous bass baritone of the 1920's and 30's, he discovered that the human voice can only reproduce what the ears can hear." This might seem obvious but for those who depend on their ears to reproduce sounds with 100% accuracy, like singers, musicians and actors, even small losses or damage to the ear drum can have devastating effects on their career.
    According to London-based, listening therapist Ella Williams, it was his love of music that inspired him to look into why all of us can't sing like the great singers we admire on the stage. "....through his research and his exposure to great singers and artists of the day he found that there is such a thing as a musical ear....and a musical ear is an ear that hears efficiently and quickly in all frequencies."
    Of all the singers and musicians that Tomatis tested over the years, it was the really good ones that were able to hear well in all frequencies. From this he concluded that it was actually someone's listening ability that determined their skill as a singer and that a change in listening patterns would be mirrored in their voice.
    Williams uses similar methods to those of Tomatis to test her own clients listening ability. She describes listening as a desire to "tune in". Many factors can affect our listening skills, anything from ear nose and throat problems in childhood to emotional traumas and shocks. Almost as if when something is too painful we simply "tune out". After a while, not listening becomes a habit and the muscle loses strength and doesn't work.
    To help people overcome their difficulties and access their true potential, Tomatis designed the Electronic Ear, a mechanism which helps restore the ability to hear lost frequencies by exercising the muscles of the inner ear. The exercises are based around the music of Mozart and Gregorian Chants as both contain an abundance of high frequency sounds, the very sounds that encourage the muscles to work.
    Beyond re-establishing the ability to listen, exercising with the electronic ear restores the lost frequencies to the voice.
    "...that is the Tomatis effect", says Williams. "And so that means that anything our ears perceive is transmitted to our voice. So a voice that isn't very beautiful is only because the ears aren't perceiving well."
    An ex-opera singer who studied at the Hochschule fur Musik in Vienna, Williams discovered the Tomatis technique only a few years ago. At the time she was looking for something that would give her voice a little extra colour. She was unprepared for the revolution that took place. Her voice gained not only colour but also range.
    "For me it's something really marvellous because its the missing link between a lifetime of practice - and tuning in and accessing intuitive singing", she says. ".... a musician can practice very hard and actually access what there is to be accessed in his ears but there's always more and that's the very exciting thing when you tap that, you're really tapping your true potential and music and musicality is in another dimension."
    Opera singer and client Michel Alkhouri agrees. He was first encouraged to do the treatment by a friend. Like Williams he didn't expect any miracles but, "It's changed everything. Lets start with the posture and the quality of the voice, the sound, the resonance, and the air, everything. ...I have an instrument now where I can play and enjoy myself with. Before I didn't have an instrument." he says.
    So if your harbouring any ambitions to be the next opera diva, get yourself off to a listening centre and lie back and listen to the soothing tones of Mozart and Gregorian Chants.
    ---ENDS---
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