Singing and the body: body-focused and concept-focused vocal instruction

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (s4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Beatrice Szczepek Reed

Abstract The body is the singer’s musical instrument, and therefore it is impossible to teach singing without the instructor involving their own and the learner’s body in the process of instruction. The teacher’s challenge is to communicate physical skills but also artistic, musical and vocal concepts. The body is centrally involved in the performance of both; however, an analysis of vocal instruction shows that teachers differentiate between learning goals, or ‘learnables’, which they treat as primarily embodied (body-focused instruction) and learnables they treat as primarily conceptualised (concept-focused instruction). When teaching learnables as embodied skills, instructors foreground the body. They do so by referring to the body explicitly and using their own body for demonstrations. They also depict internal physical processes, manipulate the student’s body through touch, share the student’s embodied stance, make use of physical objects as tools for practicing skills and orient to the student’s body as visually assessable. In concept-focused instruction, teachers foreground mental engagement with concepts rather than the embodied aspects of their execution, even though embodied skills are required to perform the learnables in question. They do so by referencing concepts explicitly, demonstrating how the piece should be sung and physically depicting emotional states and musical concepts.

1989 ◽  
Vol 28 (03) ◽  
pp. 92-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Neumann ◽  
H. Baas ◽  
R. Hefner ◽  
G. Hör

The symptoms of Parkinson’s disease often begin on one side of the body and continue to do so as the disease progresses. First SPECT results in 4 patients with hemiparkinsonism using 99mTc-HMPAO as perfusion marker are reported. Three patients exhibited reduced tracer uptake in the contralateral basal ganglia One patient who was under therapy for 1 year, showed a different perfusion pattern with reduced uptake in both basal ganglia. These results might indicate reduced perfusion secondary to reduced striatal neuronal activity.


2021 ◽  
pp. 095715582110259
Author(s):  
Caroline D. Laurent

In recent Franco-Vietnamese literature written by descendants of immigrants, the liminality of exile is portrayed in all its complexity through migrant bodies – that of parents’ bodies – and through political and social bodies – linked to History and the Việt Kiều’s positionality in French society. The experience of external movement becomes an internal one, creating porosity between the outside and the body, self and others, places and times. This article argues that, in Minh Tran Huy’s Voyageur malgré lui and Doan Bui’s Le Silence de mon père, by representing their family’s migration, both authors present the silenced histories of the Vietnamese community in France. In order to do so, Tran Huy and Bui first focus on uncovering and writing the stories of their silent fathers: through their embodiment of exilic history, the fathers transmit the wound of their immigrant condition to their daughters. Consequently, daughters come to manifest similar bodily expressions of traumas they have not experienced and know little about. The fathers’ histories are eventually voiced and re-invested by the second generation. This shows how the unearthing of their fathers’ life stories is also about reappropriating a dual identity as well as making Asian diasporic perspectives and histories visible, notably to create new avenues of representation for French individuals of Asian descent.


Autism ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 136236132098795
Author(s):  
Eleanor R Palser ◽  
Alejandro Galvez-Pol ◽  
Clare E Palmer ◽  
Ricci Hannah ◽  
Aikaterini Fotopoulou ◽  
...  

Differences in understanding emotion in autism are well-documented, although far more research has considered how being autistic impacts an understanding of other people’s emotions, compared to their own. In neurotypical adults and children, many emotions are associated with distinct bodily maps of experienced sensation, and the ability to report these maps is significantly related to the awareness of interoceptive signals. Here, in 100 children who either carry a clinical diagnosis of autism ( n = 45) or who have no history of autism ( n = 55), we investigated potential differences in differentiation across autistic children’s bodily maps of emotion, as well as how such differentiation relates to the processing of interoceptive signals. As such, we measured objective interoceptive performance using the heartbeat-counting task, and participants’ subjective experience of interoceptive signals using the child version of the Body Perception Questionnaire. We found less differentiation in the bodily maps of emotion in autistic children, but no association with either objective or subjective interoceptive processing. These findings suggest that, in addition to previously reported differences in detecting others’ emotional states, autistic children have a less differentiated bodily experience of emotion. This does not, however, relate to differences in interoceptive perception as measured here. Lay abstract More research has been conducted on how autistic people understand and interpret other people’s emotions, than on how autistic people experience their own emotions. The experience of emotion is important however, because it can relate to difficulties like anxiety and depression, which are common in autism. In neurotypical adults and children, different emotions have been associated with unique maps of activity patterns in the body. Whether these maps of emotion are comparable in autism is currently unknown. Here, we asked 100 children and adolescents, 45 of whom were autistic, to color in outlines of the body to indicate how they experienced seven emotions. Autistic adults and children sometimes report differences in how they experience their internal bodily states, termed interoception, and so we also investigated how this related to the bodily maps of emotion. In this study, the autistic children and adolescents had comparable interoception to the non-autistic children and adolescents, but there was less variability in their maps of emotion. In other words, they showed more similar patterns of activity across the different emotions. This was not related to interoception, however. This work suggests that there are differences in how autistic people experience emotion that are not explained by differences in interoception. In neurotypical people, less variability in emotional experiences is linked to anxiety and depression, and future work should seek to understand if this is a contributing factor to the increased prevalence of these difficulties in autism.


1998 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 387-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felicity J Callard

Geographers are now taking the problematic of corporeality seriously. ‘The body’ is becoming a preoccupation in the geographical literature, and is a central figure around which to base political demands, social analyses, and theoretical investigations. In this paper I describe some of the trajectories through which the body has been installed in academia and claim that this installation has necessitated the uptake of certain theoretical legacies and the disavowal or forgetting of others. In particular, I trace two related developments. First, I point to the sometimes haphazard agglomeration of disparate theoretical interventions that lie under the name of postmodernism and observe how this has led to the foregrounding of bodily tropes of fragmentation, fluidity, and ‘the cyborg‘. Second, I examine the treatment of the body as a conduit which enables political agency to be thought of in terms of transgression and resistance. I stage my argument by looking at how on the one hand Marxist and on the other queer theory have commonly conceived of the body, and propose that the legacies of materialist modes of analysis have much to offer current work focusing on how bodies are shaped by their encapsulation within the sphere of the social. I conclude by examining the presentation of corporeality that appears in the first volume of Marx's Capital. I do so to suggest that geographers working on questions of subjectivity could profit from thinking further about the relation between so-called ‘new’ and ‘fluid’ configurations of bodies, technologies, and subjectivities in the late 20th-century world, and the corporeal configurations of industrial capitalism lying behind and before them.


2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 195-203 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Sazima ◽  
Cristina Sazima

Several bird species feed on a variety of external parasites and epibionts, organic debris, dead and wounded tissue, clots and blood, and secretions from the body of other vertebrates (hosts or clients). We present an overview of so called cleaner birds from the Neotropics based on field records, literature, and photo survey. We found that 33 bird species in 16 families practice cleaning even if some of them do so very occasionally. The birds range from the Galápagos ground finch Geospiza fuliginosa to the widespread black vulture Coragyps atratus. Clients mostly are large herbivores such as capybaras, deer, and livestock, but also include medium-sized herbivores such as iguanas and tortoises, and carnivores such as boobies and seals - a few bird species associate with these latter marine mammals. No carnivorous terrestrial mammal client is recorded to date except for a domestic dog, from whose hair black vultures picked organic debris. Some clients adopt particular inviting postures while being cleaned, whereas others are indifferent or even disturbed by the activity of cleaner birds. Capybaras, giant tortoises, and iguanas are among the inviting clients, whereas boobies try to dislodge the 'vampire' finch Geospiza difficilis. Most of the Neotropical cleaner birds may be lumped in one broad category (omnivores that dwell in open areas and associate with large to medium-sized herbivores). A second, restricted category accommodates some species from Patagonia and the Galápagos Islands (omnivores that dwell in open areas and associate with carnivorous marine mammals, or seabirds and marine reptiles). Two still more restricted categories accommodate the following: 1) forest-dwelling cleaner birds; and 2) marine coastal cleaners. Additional records of Neotropical cleaner birds will mostly fall in the broad category.


2013 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Melinda Hall

<p>In this paper, I critically assess transhumanist philosophy and its influence in bioethics by turning to resources in the work of Michel Foucault. I begin by outlining transhumanism and drawing out some of the primary goals of transhumanist philosophy. In order to do so, I focus on the work of Nick Bostrom and Julian Savulescu, two prominent contributors to this thinking. I then move to explicate Foucault&rsquo;s work, in the early iterations of the <em>Abnormal</em> lecture series, on the concept of vile sovereignty. Foucault used the concept of vile sovereignty to critique psychiatric witnesses that had been utilized in mid twentieth-century French courts of law. Turning back to transhumanism, I analyze transhumanist discourse on the basis of Foucault&rsquo;s vile sovereignty. Transhumanists promote human enhancement in a way that rejects the body&mdash;especially the disabled body&mdash;and pose the question of what lives are worth living, as well as attempt to answer it. I conclude that because of the undeserved influence and ableism of transhumanism, it is important for feminist philosophers, philosophers of disability, and other disability scholars, who collide at the nexus of bioethical debate (especially with regard to reproductive technology and the body), to work together to intervene upon transhumanist discourse.&nbsp; &nbsp;</p><p>Keywords: bioethics; enhancement; Foucault; transhumanism; ableism</p><p>&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>


2021 ◽  
Vol 24 (5-esp.) ◽  
pp. 611-618
Author(s):  
Vânia Aparecida dos Santos ◽  
Haroldo Ferreira Araújo ◽  
Marcio Luiz Dos Santos

Os rins têm função vital, pois são responsáveis pela eliminação de toxinas, regulação do volume de líquidos e pela filtragem do sangue (filtram, por minuto, em média 20% do volume sanguíneo bombeado pelo coração). Dessa forma, a função renal é avaliada com base na filtração glomerular (FG) e sua redução é observada na doença renal crônica (DRC), quando ocorre a perda das funções reguladora, excretora e endócrina dos rins. Desequilíbrios esses que podem ser de consequência vascular, por comorbidade secundária, por doença renal secundária a drogas ou agentes tóxicos, infecções urinárias de repetição, doença de próstata, doenças policísticas renal, entre outras. Nas terapias renais substitutivas, a diálise é empregada para remover líquidos e produtos residuais urêmicos do organismo, quando o corpo não consegue mais fazê-lo. Tendo em vista que o procedimento hemodialítico tem complicações potenciais, considera-se vital  que o enfermeiro deva estar apto para intervir em tais intercorrências, portanto, ficando evidente a importância deste estudo. Objetiva-se, portanto, descrever as intervenções do enfermeiro em intercorrências clínicas durante a hemodiálise ambulatorial, bem como descrever as principais intercorrências durante as sessões de hemodiálise ambulatorial e se há protocolos específicos de intervenções do enfermeiro em intercorrências com o paciente dialítico. Trata-se de uma pesquisa de revisão integrativa da literatura, pois esta metodologia de revisão tem por propósito realizar uma dada síntese rigorosa de todas as pesquisas encontradas relacionadas a uma questão específica.   Palavras-chave: Enfermagem. Hemodiálise. Intercorrências   Abstract The kidneys have a vital function, as they are responsible for eliminating toxins, regulating the volume of fluids and filtering the blood (they filter, on average, 20% of the blood volume pumped by the heart per minute). Thus, renal function is assessed based on glomerular filtration (FG) and its reduction is seen in chronic kidney disease (CKD), when the loss of the kidneys regulatory, excretory and endocrine functions occurs. These imbalances can be of vascular consequence, secondary comorbidity, kidney disease secondary to drugs or toxic agents, recurrent urinary infections, prostate disease, polycystic kidney diseases, among others. In renal replacement therapies, dialysis is used to remove uremic fluids and waste products from the body when the body is unable to do so. Bearing in mind that the hemodialysis procedure has potential complications, it is considered nodal that the nurse must be able to intervene in such complications, therefore, the importance of this study is evident. Therefore, the objective is to describe the nurse's interventions in clinical complications during the outpatient hemodialysis, as well as to describe the main complications during the outpatient hemodialysis sessions and if there are specific protocols for the nurse interventions in complications with dialysis patients. It is an integrative literature review research, since this review methodology aims to perform a given rigorous synthesis of all the studies found related to a specific issue.   Keywords: Nursing. Hemodialysis. Complications


Author(s):  
Jennifer McKitrick

Dispositional Pluralism is the view that dispositional properties are abundant and diverse. When something has a disposition, it is such that, if it were in a certain kind of circumstance, a certain kind of effect would occur. Dispositions include such varied properties as character traits like a hero’s courage, characteristics of physical objects like a wine glass’s fragility, and characteristics of microphysical entities like an electron’s charge. Some dispositions are natural while others are non-natural. Some dispositions called “powers” are ungrounded while non-fundamental dispositions are grounded in other properties. Some dispositions manifest constantly, some of them manifest spontaneously, while others manifest only when they are triggered to do so. Some dispositions manifest by causing another dispositional property to be instantiated, while others have manifestations that involve non-dispositional properties and relations. Some dispositions are intrinsic to their bearers while others are extrinsic. Some of them are causally relevant to their manifestations while others are not. Some dispositions manifest in some particular way in particular circumstances, while other dispositions manifest in various ways in various circumstances. What makes all of these diverse properties dispositions is their connection to a certain kind of counterfactual fact. Nevertheless, disposition ascriptions are not semantically reducible to counterfactual claims.


2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (4) ◽  
pp. 562-567
Author(s):  
Volodymyr K. Likhachov ◽  
Yanina V. Shymanska ◽  
Yulia S. Savelieva ◽  
Viktoriya L. Vashchenko ◽  
Ludmyla М. Dobrovolska

Introduction: During pregnancy in the body of a healthy woman there are physiological and psychological changes that contribute to the bearing a child and prepare the female for future labour and motherhood. In women who experience failure at the stage of fertilization or during pregnancy, as a result of prolonged negative emotional states, psycho-emotional stress develops. The aim of the research was to study the psycho-emotional state of women with infertility in history, whose pregnancy resulted from extracorporal fertilization (IVF), and to develop methods for reducing their anxiety. Materials and methods: At the first stage, the initial psycho-emotional state of 60 women in the second trimester, whose pregnancy resulted from IVF (Group I), was studied; the control group consisted of 20 healthy women with a physiological course of pregnancy (Group II). At the second stage, 10 art therapy exercises with a requestioning of pregnant women from Group I were conducted for improving their psycho-emotional state. Results: Women of Group I had a high level of both situational anxiety (SA) and the personal one (PA). The prevalent type of the psychological component of gestational dominant was anxiety and euphoric types (58.3%). In one third of women with burdened gynecological history examined mild or masked depression was diagnosed. 43 pregnant women from Group I used a method of psychocorrection – art therapy, which included colouring “antistress” pictures of perinatal topic, making flowers from paper and creating a collage of dreams. Conclusions: After the art therapy course, a high level of SA (from 46.5% to 7.0%) and OA (from 48.8% to 32.6%) decreased, the index of the optimal type of the psychological component of gestational dominant increased from 25.6% to 53.5%. The number of women without depression increased from 62.8% to 93%.


2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-35
Author(s):  
Diane Oatley

Abstract In The Meaning of the Body, philosopher Mark Johnson makes a case for the significance of movement in terms of the body processes he holds as essential to the generation of meaning and knowledge acquisition in physical interaction with the world–equally essential as language and cognition. The article employs this theory in interpreting the experiences of women learning flamenco dance in Spain. The investigation of the perceptions of women studying flamenco dance, a dance tradition often defined as “gypsy,” indicates that exposure to flamenco dance and culture leads to revision of stereotypes regarding embodiment and difference, but respondents did not relate this revision to bodily engagement, or physical processes particular to dancing flamenco. Although Johnson’s failure to properly account for the role of the unconscious proved to be a serious shortcoming in the theory, and one which had implications for the findings, application of the theory disclosed the parameters of a discourse on the body in flamenco. The theory thus represents a radical gesture in redefining embodiment in its own right in a manner that precludes dualism with the consequent opening of a range of alternative perspectives on the articulation of embodied knowledge.


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