Five fabulous years!

Happy Anniversary, Eric, my love! I love you more than words can possibly convey. Thank you for five fabulous years!
(And many more! cha-cha-cha!)

See how important my job is?

MUSICOGENIC EPILEPSY CASE PRECIPITATED BY VOICES SINGING INCORRECTLY

Canadian Medical Association Journal, Vol 131, Issue 10 1255-1258, Copyright © 1984 by Canadian Medical Association
S. E. Brien and T. J. Murray

A case of musicogenic epilepsy is reported in which the seizures were precipitated by singing voices. It was found that some singers' voices were particularly epileptogenic and that some of their songs, but not others, would precipitate a seizure. A study of the "offending" songs and singers did not reveal a common key, chord, harmonic interval, pitch or rhythm, and the emotional feeling or intensity of the music did not seem to be relevant. However, the voices that caused the seizures had a throaty, "metallic" quality. Such a singing voice results from incorrect positioning of the larynx such that it is not allowed to descend fully during singing; consequently, the vowel sounds produced must be manipulated by the lips or jaw to be distinguished. This trait is most common in singers with a low voice range who sing softly and use a microphone. It is not seen in trained operatic or musical theatre singers. The results of repeated testing showed that the seizures in this patient were caused by listening to singers who positioned the larynx incorrectly.

Close to home

Helicopters keep flying over our house in what seems like swarms. About 45 minutes ago, there was a gang shooting at a park about one city block from our house. The mother of the student I was working with at the time had just dropped her son off at the park, and just then about 40 kids started to converge on the park, so she decided not to leave. She said it was eerie the way they started coming from all directions. They roughed her son up a little. She got that sinking feeling and called her son back to the car. He said, "Mom, they're asking each other if they brought the guns." Then they pushed two kids on the ground and started beating them up, so my student's mother called the police. "Are they shooting?" "No, but they're fighting - you need to come now!" Seconds later there were several shots. She drove away in a hurry. Two people were taken away in ambulances. This is getting awfully close to home.

The time has come

Friends have been encouraging me to get my own web domain name for years, but I resisted because my website had been hosted on AOL for over 12 years - it's linked all over the web. But AOL finally forced me into a split-second decision.

I pulled up my website this evening and found a very unattractive AOL advertising banner across the top of my site. I was not amused. I contacted AOL to find out if this atrocity would go away if I went back to paid AOL service and was told it would not. Half an hour later, I became the owner of ellieseligmann.com.

There's about a 24-hour turn-around time on the setting up webhosting through GoDaddy.com. When that is complete, I will start moving my files and then look for the most efficient way to forward traffic from the old site to the new site. Or maybe duplicate the site for awhile. See, I've been on the web so long, I have pretty decent status with Google. If you Google "voice teacher aurora colorado" - I am the first web page that comes up. I don't want to lose that priority. But that advertising banner on AOL looks SO unprofessional!!! So, the short of it is that I have to be smart in how I make the move to my new domain name. I welcome the advice of those more experienced in these matters.

Brava, Klara!

Just last month, I wrote about the tremendous positive impact that of one of my voice teachers, Klara Barlow, had on my development as a singer. (See What I need) She was my teacher at IU and is easily the best teacher I ever had.

For years, I have wondered what became of her - she was elderly when I studied with her 9 years ago. I received a message through MySpace today from a friend of hers (a stranger to me, though) telling me that Ms. Barlow passed away last month at the age of 79.

The announcement in OPERA NEWS: http://www.metoperafamily.org/operanews/news/pressrelease.aspx?id=1496

I offer my condolences to her close friends and family. To anyone fortunate enough to have known her well and long, this is a great loss.