Anthony F. Jahn; MD; internationally acclaimed otolaryngologist and Director of Medical Services at the Metropolitan Opera in New York; offers a comprehensive guidebook on a wide range of health and disorders that affect the voice. A vital tool for singers; voice teachers; and choral directors; The Singers Guide to Complete Health empowers vocal performers to take charge of their own minds and bodies; providing advice about a variety of health issues that affect professional well-being as well as remedies to the most important and common health problems that singers face in their careers.Dr. Jahn has invited a diverse group of health care specialists and music professionals to share their expertise and tips with singers and their teachers. The chapters cover a broad spectrum of topics; including not only vocal issues; but also general physical and psychological well-being; diet; and exercise; accompanied by easy-to-follow illustrations; diagrams and charts. Each chapter provides a clear explanation of an aspect of health of practical relevance to vocalists. The book enables singers to make informed decisions about their own health; and gives guidance on seeking appropriate professional help and self-remedies. It includes numerous suggestions on ways to prevent illness and maintain a healthy vocal lifestyle; not only with traditional methods such as diet; exercise; and Alexander technique; but also holistic approaches such as meditation; yoga; tai chi; acupuncture; and Chinese herbs.A comprehensive blend of professional voice expertise and medical science; The Singers Guide to Complete Health is an essential addition to bookshelves and medicine cabinets of both singers and those who care for them.
#2066830 in eBooks 2009-01-01 2011-01-01File Name: B00D5Z1KHY
Review
0 of 3 people found the following review helpful. Caveat LectorBy unsworthyetiIt was not right for me; I did not have the background to follow the arguments. Requires much more in-depth background in the visual arts; art history; and the language of the arts. Gave it to library.2 of 2 people found the following review helpful. we can protect ourselves against the worst violence caused by contemporary culturersquo;s society of the spectacle ...By KOElaine Miller thoroughly explores Kristevarsquo;s vast body of work in order to develop a psychoanalytic aesthetic theory. Miller analyzes various ways in which from her earliest work through her latest; Kristeva maintains that art is a counter-balance to depression and violence. Setting out Kristevarsquo;s diagnosis of Western Culture as depressive; Miller attempts to show how art can be an antidote to depression; if not a cure. She calls art and creative writing a ldquo;spiritual inoculation;rdquo; a type of controlled homeopathic dose of the very melancholy symptomatic of the depressed individual or culture. Through this inoculation; we can protect ourselves against the worst violence caused by contemporary culturersquo;s society of the spectacle that discourages thought and reflectivity.Deftly moving through Kristevarsquo;s corpus; Miller brilliantly stages engagements between Kristevarsquo;s thought and that of Adorno; Arendt; Augustine; Benjamin; Freud; Green; Hegel; Kant; Klein; Lacan; and Proust; among others. Millerrsquo;s analysis also sheds light on some of Kristevarsquo;s most intractable concepts; including negativity; the uncanny; time; the semiotic; mimesis; art; the aesthetic; among others. Millerrsquo;s book is filled with keen insights; rigorous scholarship; and beautiful prose. This book is a great introduction to Kristeva and aesthetics.1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Forging Ahead with Elaine Miller on Julia Kristevas Aesthetic TheoryBy Noelle McAfeeTo forge ahead with Elaine Millerrsquo;s bookmdash;and to forge a head; to borrow Millerrsquo;s punmdash;is in fact to learn how both art and philosophy help us to move ahead and continue speaking; representing and symbolizing in dark times. With Miller we can see how Kristeva forges ahead in times that wersquo;ve all lost our heads in neuroses and depression and; alas; those shrinks who try to give us back our heads offer only a little pharmacology; as Miller discusses in her conclusion; when what is needed is a chance to sit with and talk through the pain. Or if one cannot easily mourn whatever is lost; if one is engulfed in the melancholia of needing to hold on to what has crumbled; like the ruin of a lost building; then something else is needed. Analysis; perhaps. But art surely.Millerrsquo;s Head Cases takes the reader through all of Kristevarsquo;s major texts and explores how the themes of those texts open up aesthetic objects as modes of ldquo;spiritual inoculation.rdquo; The first chapter brings together Kristevarsquo;s writings on melancholia with Benjamin; Adorno; to explore Kristevarsquo;s observation that artists can infuse a bit of sadness into their art as a way of inoculating themselves against depression or melancholia; just as; we might say; some ldquo;hair of the dogrdquo; can ward off a hangover or a homeopathic bit of poison can stave off something bigger. Such art can point the way forward toward symbolization; Miller observes; rather than the way back into asymbolia. Chapter two; on kenotic art; focuses on art than can re-create ldquo;what cannot be exactly reproduced or retrieved;rdquo; just as the unconscious eludes mimetic representation. As examples; she considers ldquo;the flashlike temporality of the photograph;rdquo; which like the analytic situation; can ldquo;repeat in such a way that they open up new possibilities.rdquo; Chapter three explores Kristevarsquo;s aesthetics of the uncanny. Chapter four is on Kristevarsquo;s reading of Proust. And the final chapter revolves around the notion of forgiveness and Greek tragedy.The genius of Elaine Millerrsquo;s Head Cases is that it provides a lynchpin between body and spirit; inner and outer: the aesthetic; the realm in which our bodies and pyches are shaken up; dislodged; defamiliarized and something new might take place. This long-time reader of Kristevarsquo;s has too often overlooked the centrality of art in Kristevarsquo;s writings. Miller brings this to the fore to show how art can help us forge a/head.