If You Can Talk, You Can Sing
Tuesday 28th May 2024, 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM (London Time)
Frankie believes passionately that singing is our birthright. For thousands of years, our ancestors sang as naturally as they spoke. They sang to accompany everyday activities – at work, at play, at devotion and dance – and for their own pleasure. No one was excluded, so everyone’s skill and confidence developed naturally.
Some cultures do not even have a word for ‘singer’ as everyone sings, just as we do not have a word for ‘breather’! It’s only in the past couple of centuries that the notion that there are people who can’t or shouldn’t sing has come about, largely in white Western European culture. This elitist idea has impacted on millions of people, who have been told they are non-singers, have unacceptable voices or are ‘tone-deaf’. They have therefore never had the chance to experience the stepping stones that have traditionally encouraged people to sing - in the same way as they learned to talk. Hence they have been robbed of one of the essential forms of human expression.
To quote the Institute of Education, we now know 'music is hard-wired into us', and that it is criticism and judgment as a child that has robbed many people of their innate musicality. As voice practitioners and singing teachers, how can we help to unlock this innate capacity for those people?
Since 1975, Frankie has developed a teaching approach that provides stepping stones, with permission and encouragement, for people to explore confidence in their voices and self-belief in their musicality. She has used this in contexts including community groups, hospitals, theatre companies and schools, as well as at the National Theatre Studio, London, for over 20 years, and she has presented at international voice conferences in Europe, North America and Australia.
She uses the body and imagination to invite people to be curious and adventurous in exploring their voices in a non-judgemental atmosphere, without the need to "get it right”. The aim is to tap into the joy, strength and energy of singing with others, and to find a range of colour and expression in each of our voices.
Frankie Armstrong
Frankie Armstrong has has been singing professionally since 1964. In 1975, she began her pioneering voice workshops based on ethnic styles of singing, where singing is as natural as speaking.
Attend this course for as little as £22 as part of the Voice Professional Training CPD Award Scheme.
Learn MoreSorry, this is an archived short course...
We have plenty of upcoming short courses coming soon. See details of some of them below or look at the full list of short courses.
Thursday 1st May 2025
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Thursday 8th May 2025
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Thursday 15th May 2025
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Thursday 22nd May 2025
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
Thursday 29th May 2025
5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
(London Time)
Trauma-Informed Voice Professional Certificate with Dr Elisa Monti
Dr Elisa Monti
This five-part certificate course is designed to help participants learn the theory and practice of trauma-informed approaches. The concepts and activities included are tailored to meet the needs of voice specialists who want to acquire more specific tools to navigate the space with their students and colleagues.
Tuesday 6th May 2025
3:00 PM - 5:00 PM
(London Time)
Mindfulness and Voice: Exploring the Intersection through Peer-Reviewed Literature
Catherine Brown
Despite strong interest, only a handful of peer-reviewed studies have examined the relationship between mindfulness and voice. Emerging research indicates that mindfulness can help voice users learn to respond to stress more effectively and may help them manage performance anxiety. In this course, we will examine several types of peer-reviewed literature: a) mindfulness studies that indirectly relate to voice work. b) We will review research that examines mindfulness as it relates to voice-adjacent fields (e.g., music performance anxiety and stammering/stuttering). c) We will look at the few published studies that have directly investigated the relationship between mindfulness and voice and d) we will examine directions for future qualitative and quantitative research.
Tuesday 6th May 2025
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Wednesday 7th May 2025
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Friday 9th May 2025
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
(London Time)
Acceptance & Commitment Coaching for Beginners: An Overview and Guide for Using it to Address Common Performance-Related Problems of a Psychological Nature (3-part course)
Dr David Juncos
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy or Coaching (ACT) is an empirically-supported psychotherapy & coaching intervention for a variety of common issues facing student and professional musicians from across the world. Some of these include performance anxiety, perfectionism & self-criticism, procrastination, and work-related stress & burnout.