#132. Opening the Door to Collegiality and Community with Dr. Jenevora Williams

JOIN THE COMMUNITY

Episode Transcription

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  00:05

It’s Marisa lee here, and I’m so excited to be sharing today’s interview round episode with you. In these episodes, our brilliant lineup of guests will include healthcare practitioners, voice educators, and other professionals who will share their stories, knowledge and experiences within their specialized fields to empower you to live your best life. Whether you’re a member of the voice, community, or beyond your voice is your unique gift.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  00:42

It’s time now to share your gift with others develop a positive mindset and become the best and most authentic version of yourself to create greater impact. Ultimately, you can take charge, it’s time for you to live your best life. It’s time now for a voice and beyond. So without further ado, let’s go to today’s episode.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  01:16

Our guest this week on a voice and beyond is Dr. Jenevora Williams, who returns to the show to speak candidly about her teaching career from her early teaching days to the journey which has led her to where she is at presently. In her role as the co founder of vocal health education. Jenevora has earned the respect of our boys community as a leading exponent in the field of vocal health and singing teaching. After a successful career in opera Jenevora turned her attention to investigating healthy and efficient vocal function. The combination of academic study and practical experience has resulted in her unique perception for understanding the human voice. In this interview, Jenevora shares her career journey, the many battles She provoked and endured along the way and the harsh lessons learned both personally and professionally. This discussion is focused around the importance of collegiality, compassion, and understanding in our singing voice community, and how leading in this way can have positive outcomes for our students. Jenevora is an advocate for student-centered learning and the teacher training that she has co-created as part of vocal health education endorses a person-centered philosophy. She explains the importance of this philosophy, the barriers she is trying to break down through this work and how VHE has been developed for all teachers, irrespective of age stage of development and experience. This is a truly honest and rare look into Jenevora’s career, and I appreciate her willingness to so openly share her stories and her thoughts on this show. I felt truly honored to hold space for this discussion with Dr. Jenevora. Williams, and I’m sure you will love hearing her story. So without further ado, let’s go to today’s episode

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  04:00

Welcome to a voice and beyond. It is evening here in Australia and it is morning for you. Dr. Jenevora Williams, how are you?

Dr Jenevora Williams  04:11

I’m really well I’m so pleased that we’re talking together very soon because I think we’re going to have a great time.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  04:19

I’m really pleased to I’m just worried about what’s going to come out about it’s always a concern at the best of times. But you and I have had some wonderful discussions over the last couple of times that we’re connected and I think I think the listeners are going to be in for a treat.

Dr Jenevora Williams  04:40

Yeah, it’s time it’s time for me to to face some of the mistakes that I’ve made and put them in the context of what’s been going on and what is going on and and help myself to move beyond and other people perhaps

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  04:57

so it sounds like this is going to Be a healing journey. And if I had a couch and you’re in this country, I would say Jenevora. Just take it, you know, a moment here lie on the couch and tell me what’s really going on?

Dr Jenevora Williams  05:16

What’s going on? I’m going to begin, actually, with my current teaching philosophy, I can then look at why, why I feel that’s so important, based on on what’s happened for me and for a lot of other people. And my current philosophy, and philosophy is not a method, it’s not a any kind of anything really one could teach other people to do, it’s just a way of thinking. And the philosophy is based on Person Centered interactions. What does that mean? It means that, when I am working with somebody, I’m basing everything I do on them on their, on how they feel on what they want on what’s happened before in their life where they want to be in the future. And are not, I’m trying very hard not to impose my own wish on them. I can use my own knowledge, to inform, but not to impose anything. So for example, if somebody comes in and their body use is a bit haphazard, or a bit, what I would think unhelpful, maybe they’ve got high breathing, maybe they are standing in a way that is is holding on is a bit tense or something, instead of telling them a better

Dr Jenevora Williams  06:51

way of doing it,

Dr Jenevora Williams  06:53

I would explore what their way feels like, why how they’ve arrived at that what is going on with their own body history, they may have had injuries, they may have had things that have happened to them ways that they’ve been taught in the past, they may have adapted, because they’ve played an instrument that is asymmetrical, there could be all sorts of reasons they may be hyper mobile, there are a lot of hyper mobile students in the performing arts. And that in itself will lead to holding patterns. People develop holding patterns because of their psychological state that they’re defending against something, you know, there’s, there’s lots of reasons I can Yeah, and if I can start just go a little bit deeper, into why and what it feels like for the student, then together, we can come up with something that will help them to do what they want to do a bit more easily.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  07:59

I love all of that. Because I completely endorse that. And that is how I teach. And I love how you said too, about how it feels in their body. Because I’m a big one for asking students, I use a number rating system when it comes to energy levels to effort levels, to volume levels, things like that. So I just say if it’s about energy, I say, Well, do you feel like you’re flatlining? Luck, you’re almost dead? Or how energized was that? Would you say that was a 10. But it’s great to know what they’re thinking when not in their bodies. And whatever number they give us, is the right number for them. And then I feel we need to work from there. We need more energy increased from whatever number that is if needs to decrease decrease from there. But yes, but and all of the above of what you said, I think it’s so important that we take that student centered approach. It’s not about us, we need to get out of the way sometimes, don’t we as teachers, were there to guide but we’re not there to impose.

Dr Jenevora Williams  09:21

Absolutely, absolutely. And of course, in the past, I have done a lot of imposing a lot of this is the right way to do it. Because I haven’t an idea in my head of what the most efficient way to use a body to make sound can be. But if I just try and impose that straight away, it doesn’t take account of any of the other factors going on for that person.

Dr Jenevora Williams  09:47

Exactly. And everybody who comes

Dr Jenevora Williams  09:51

to singing whether they’re coming for a singing lesson or whether they’re coming for some rehabilitation work with me, or whether they’re just coming for a little bit of a checkup They are the sum of a lot of different influences in their lives. Even young children have been told many things by many people about what’s good practice, how to stand, how to breathe, whether they need to make a lot more noise, whether they need to make a lot less noise, and they’re all given, you know, shut, you know, shut up messages, and I can’t hear you messages and all of those things which all feed in.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  10:29

So true. So this way of thinking that you have now this philosophy, and by the way, I love that you defined that it was that a philosophy is not an approach. And it’s not a tool, because I think sometimes the word pedagogy is misused also. And we forget about the philosophical side of pedagogy, which is a lot of what it is, and a tool is not actually a pedagogy. And so where you’re at now, now, you’ve had a massive career as a teacher, as a singer. You’re an author, your voice researcher, you’ve done a lot in your

Dr Jenevora Williams  11:11

career. When you first started,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  11:15

what was the way of thinking that you had them? And how did you come to this realization?

Dr Jenevora Williams  11:23

When I first started singing, I was very interesting. Because I came from culture, which was quite an old fashioned way to raise children that you were seen and not heard. And you did, as you were told. And if you did anything wrong, you were sent to your bedroom, to think about it. And there was a lot of punishment and not a lot of praise, because praise would make you big headed, and that’s no good either. So there, there was a quite difficult upbringing. I don’t think my parents weren’t cruel. They only did what they believed was the best way to bring up a child at the time. But yes, likewise, yeah, it didn’t work that well for me, because my response, my feeling was that I wasn’t being heard and that I wasn’t allowed to have feelings. So my response to that was to fight and to be so strong and so proud that nobody could get

Dr Jenevora Williams  12:26

to me. Ah,

Dr Jenevora Williams  12:28

and also, I found that if I, my feelings weren’t being heard or respected, I could be clever.

Dr Jenevora Williams  12:40

So I could get out of

Dr Jenevora Williams  12:41

situations by being clever. And those patterns come through. Yeah, time and time again. And even now, if you asked me what I feel about something, I will stop for a while. And then I’ll say, Well, I think so. And it’s not about what I think it’s about how I feel. Yes, you do these things just get so stuck in?

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  13:08

Yes. I was more like, being Sicilian. It was more about Don’t get mad get even. And if you can’t tell me I can, I can’t do something. Well, I’m gonna do it just to define.

Dr Jenevora Williams  13:22

Yeah, yeah. And I did plenty of that. Plenty of that. So the pattern then, when I was learning to sing when I was a student, I was I did as I was told, because that was my learning pattern. And if I questioned things, I was generally told not to be so demanding. That was always my end of year feedback from the staff at the college I was at was that I was very demanding.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  13:51

What because you asked questions, yes. Okay. Isn’t that how we learn is by asking questions, and then we listen to the answer.

Dr Jenevora Williams  14:02

Hmm. Yes,

Dr Jenevora Williams  14:04

I think I think it probably exposed some lack of knowledge, some weak areas, some insecurities in the staff who didn’t have the confidence and courage to say, I don’t know.

Dr Jenevora Williams  14:26

I don’t know the answer. Whereas I’d

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  14:29

like to think we’ve all come a long way since then, but we’ll get into that very shortly.

Dr Jenevora Williams  14:37

Yeah, so I was quite demanding and asked lots of questions. People couldn’t answer them. So I made things up. Based on my own feelings and thoughts, you know, I invented I invented my idea of how voices worked and then I found the whole community of the voice scientists and that did open up a lot for For me, I opened up a lot. And then I was studying all the Voice Science working out how, again, based on what was known, this was in the 90s. And we were working with quite crude models of, you know, the source filter, model, power source filter, which is not untrue, but it’s very simplistic. And I was working with all of that looking at the structure of the larynx, trying to work all that out. And then I was having my ideas about what was good practice what was safe, what was healthy, and at the time working with a lot of choirs. So I was working with youth choirs, I was working with cathedral choirs. I was working with individual singers, but every time I experienced a problem, I would try and feed that back to the conductor, the musical director and and work with them to sort out away. And that was where I came across so much resistance. Because I was, you know, who was I was there just to sit in a room and do magic with the voices, I wasn’t there to have opinions about how they could be trained in the group setting. So I felt I was not being heard. Right, that was possible that I was just being very stroppy and opinionated. Slowly, not

Dr Jenevora Williams  16:31

you.

Dr Jenevora Williams  16:33

It’s quite possible. I was not making my voice heard in the most diplomatic of ways.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  16:40

Do you believe that to be the truth? Now? A bit of both? Okay. Because there would have been some bullying. I mean, back in the day, there was a lot of misogyny too, especially if you were dealing with males that would have been going on at the time, always with men. Yes. Likewise, always worked with males. And there was a lot of bullying and a lot of put down a lot of silencing by people that I worked with.

Dr Jenevora Williams  17:08

And it’s sad, because these were people and the choral conductors were brilliant in their own right at what they did. They weren’t voice experts. But because they weren’t voice experts, they felt insecure about that. So there was a fear of being found out. And none of the ones that I worked with had the confidence to just say, look, I didn’t know that, can you tell me a bit more?

Dr Jenevora Williams  17:38

Right?

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  17:40

So for them, it was like, there was shame in the not knowing

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  17:47

where it says more shame in not admitting. And if we everyone has their strengths and weaknesses in whatever they do, even as voice teachers, we have our strengths, we have our weaknesses. And I think it takes a lot of courage. And it’s a good teacher who admits what they know and what they don’t know. And that’s on a totally different subject. But that’s when you are good teacher refers out or they go and learn the thing. Yeah.

Dr Jenevora Williams  18:20

Yeah. Or I mean, I have had teachers recently who’ve just said, I don’t know, can you go and find out? Let me know. I find that really exciting challenge. Yeah, I’ll do that.

Dr Jenevora Williams  18:33

Yeah, I’ll do that. So how did

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  18:36

you retaliate with these individuals?

Dr Jenevora Williams  18:40

With the choral directors, I think that was probably what, what eventually prompted me to do my PhD research, and write a book. Because

Dr Jenevora Williams  18:50

when you write, you make your voice heard.

Dr Jenevora Williams  18:54

No one can interrupt you, no one can say shush.

Dr Jenevora Williams  18:56

So true. When you’re writing, and that has been

Dr Jenevora Williams  19:01

a default response time and time again, if I found myself in a situation where I have been trying to talk to somebody about something, they have not listened, or their own opinion has remained, you know, intransigent. I have gone away and written an article.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  19:20

That’s really kind. That’s a kind way of dealing with it. That’s not a bad thing.

Dr Jenevora Williams  19:27

And the article then is a useful resource for other people.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  19:30

Cuz I thought you were going to be a firecracker. Well,

Dr Jenevora Williams  19:36

I did some others, sort of, I think, a lot of the time when I was teaching other people, students, that was problematic. So in a lot of the choir, the youth choir courses that I was teaching on, I would be doing summer school where I would get other people students coming in, I would have 20 minutes or half How to work with them. And my initial response was, what on earth have you been taught? This is just not helping, it’s not working. And in those days, I would just impose and I would go and say, Well, you need to do this, and you need to do this. And you need to get back to your teacher and say this. And this is, and I would I mean, that sounds terrible. It sounds,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  20:24

that sounds that does sound terrible. And I say, I say that with love. That was

Dr Jenevora Williams  20:31

my subtext. All right, that was the subtext. So what I actually said was a little bit kinder than that. The subtext was, I know what’s best for you, and your teacher doesn’t

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  20:45

share nefra? And I didn’t know you had it in you. You said it. I actually didn’t, I thought you Brits were very polite.

Dr Jenevora Williams  20:59

I was very polite,

Dr Jenevora Williams  21:02

not manners. I was very polite, but my subjects My, my, what was going on? In my feeling in my understanding of the situation? Was this quite polarized? You know, I’m right, you’re wrong. How can I persuade you? How can I tell you that that actually there is a better way of doing it?

Dr Jenevora Williams  21:29

See, I bite my lips. You know, like,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  21:33

when I have a student, because I teach in the Conservatorium, it doesn’t happen very often that I only have a half hour with my students. And some of them want longer than that. So they have teachers outside the Conservatorium, or they come to me with years of learning, and they will have been told something by a teacher. And I just honestly, that is when I have to try and be the most diplomatic I can possibly be. Sometimes I just don’t say anything, because if I was to open my mouth, I literally would be opening my mouth to swap feet, I

Dr Jenevora Williams  22:20

love that expression. I love that,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  22:23

you know, it’s just, I just, I’m better off not to say anything, and then just proceed with the lesson and do what I have to do. Sometimes I will explain why that might be problematic

Dr Jenevora Williams  22:38

from science based knowledge,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  22:44

and what we know of the physiology the anatomy,

Dr Jenevora Williams  22:47

and function. But

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  22:51

sometimes I just say nothing, because it’s just no. Yeah.

Dr Jenevora Williams  23:00

Well, this was I’m talking about a situation that was 2025 years ago.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  23:06

This was two weeks ago.

Dr Jenevora Williams  23:08

Yeah. I’ve moved on, things have moved on, teachers knowledge has moved on, certainly has.

Dr Jenevora Williams  23:19

And that is why I’m

Dr Jenevora Williams  23:23

putting this in the context now of the person centered work, because it takes it means I can still make changes, I can still introduce people to new ways of doing things. But it’s one that they will be invested in, rather than feeling that they’ve just been bashed about by two different people with opposing views.

Dr Jenevora Williams  23:46

Fast forward,

Dr Jenevora Williams  23:47

two ways of working with other teachers. And of course, when I started training teachers, which was probably 1015 years ago, I first started doing courses for teachers.

Dr Jenevora Williams  24:01

Then I had a voice and I was listened to. And then I could be generous and humble, and open

Dr Jenevora Williams  24:13

and more of a person who I would want to be and the person who is a more helpful teacher.

Dr Jenevora Williams  24:22

Because I wasn’t

Dr Jenevora Williams  24:23

I didn’t feel I was fighting all the time.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  24:26

You get more bees with honey. Hmm. Not with a baseball bat.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  24:35

That’s more like a bull in a china store.

Dr Jenevora Williams  24:40

I knew I know. So that this I think I’ve just I have taught myself this lesson that looking back and thinking Why were those situations so easy, and those situations not and I think of the wonderful conversations I’ve had with colleagues. For I mean, for 40 years, I’ve been told can tell people about singing and having amazing conversations where people listen. And we listen to each other. And I have had my mind changed on so many occasions by people who have something really, really important and exciting to say.

Dr Jenevora Williams  25:20

Yes. And that

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  25:22

leads me into wanting to ask you a few questions about our voice community. And this ties in with what you’re talking about collegiality?

Dr Jenevora Williams  25:36

How do you think we’re

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  25:37

doing as a voice community now in terms of, you know, being kind of being nicer to each other? The sharing of knowledge? Do you think that we’re faring, okay? And be honest here?

Dr Jenevora Williams  25:55

I don’t really know. Because I’m very aware of the fact that the people I work with are people who’ve

Dr Jenevora Williams  26:02

chosen to work with me.

Dr Jenevora Williams  26:06

So the people that I’m training, the teachers that we’re training with vocal health education, are the most amazing people. I mean, they bring richness and depth and wealth and so much wisdom to the teaching community. Honestly, some of them are very inexperienced, but there’s some, just some wonderful, wonderful teachers. And I’m talking about hundreds and 1000s of them. So I think most people in the world are wanting to do the best they can, nearly everybody is wanting.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  26:44

I agree, I agree with that.

Dr Jenevora Williams  26:47

And if there is a barrier or a defense, it tends to be because of fear, fear of being found out pit fear of being shown to not know fear of being wrong, whatever that is, because there isn’t really wrong or right in this thing. But fear, fear of status being

Dr Jenevora Williams  27:16

threatened.

Dr Jenevora Williams  27:18

And lots of lots of fears people have. And so if you can understand what their threats may be, then you can allay those fears and come in and try and have a conversation,

Dr Jenevora Williams  27:35

giving somebody the

Dr Jenevora Williams  27:39

platform to say how they feel and what they want before you charge him.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  27:44

That sounds like a totally different philosophy to the one that you had. Yeah, it’s not my philosophy, yet. I, well, sometimes will I feel that because I’ve come from the CCM world, I feel like we’ve had to fight

Dr Jenevora Williams  28:04

for, you know,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  28:06

to be be able to stand alongside our classical colleagues. So I feel that there is a little bit of fighting me. And sometimes I don’t like when things aren’t fair. Or people are not being kind. I have been a witness to this. And

Dr Jenevora Williams  28:27

I feel that yeah, there is.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  28:31

I know this, we have spoken about this, that there is competition, and they can be fighting, and they can be point scoring in the world. And I believe that it does happen within our teaching community as well. And I think you’re right around the fear aspect. I don’t know why singing teachers are so fearful about I don’t know, if it’s, they’re fearful that they’re going to lose students lose their jobs. They’re fearful that they’re going to be found out if they don’t know something.

Dr Jenevora Williams  29:08

Maybe all of the above.

Dr Jenevora Williams  29:11

The truth is that we don’t really know that much about singing and voicing. So when we think we’re hugely informed, and I’ve got, you know, shelves and shelves of books, and I’ve written hundreds and hundreds of 1000s of words.

Dr Jenevora Williams  29:28

Actually,

Dr Jenevora Williams  29:29

there are some times I come across a conversation or a thought. And I think, Whoa, yeah, we don’t really know really know what the most basic influences are on the way we use our voice. And this has become very evident to me as I’ve done more rehabilitation work. Where I have a somebody coming in who has a healthy larynx and They look like a healthy person, there is nothing medically wrong. And they have a voice that is not working at all. And they none of the science will explain that.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  30:14

We’ve never walked today in anyone else’s shoes. We don’t know what has gone on with that person. We don’t know, what they’re having to deal with. And the psyche is so involved in all of that. And this is where sometimes

Dr Jenevora Williams  30:32

I feel that when people are dealing with

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  30:39

a particular idea, and they’re promoting an idea, and this has been my biggest question around acoustics, is that, okay? Yes, there is something going on, in terms of what we’re seeing in a spectrogram, or whatever it is. But how do we know that by trying to fix that in the way that we fix the other person that it’s going to work for the person in front of us, for that singer in front of us? We’re all so different. And I, that’s, that’s something that I am getting better, I am more open minded about acoustics. I spent two weeks talking to Brian Gill, who was very kind in sharing his knowledge. And he’s convinced me a little bit further about going to study more about acoustics. But that was always my question was, How can something that we’re looking at a graph, show us what’s going on with a singer, surely,

Dr Jenevora Williams  31:51

it can just help.

Dr Jenevora Williams  31:53

It can help it’s another, another kind of biofeedback, it’s like looking in

Dr Jenevora Williams  31:58

a mirror.

Dr Jenevora Williams  32:00

It’s like, listening to a recording of yourself. Anything that can give you another insight into the relationship with between what you’re feeling and something external. So you know, looking in a mirror, will give you a relate your thing, oh, goodness, I was holding my shoulders up, I didn’t realize I was doing that. You know, or you’re looking at a mirror and think, you know, oh, my by Jaws lopsided, I didn’t even notice that, you know, there, there are those of things. And when you know what you’re looking at with a spectrogram, you you will look at it a new, you may notice irregularities in vibrato, you may notice that certain areas of pitch range in your voice just don’t match other areas of pitch range in terms of projection in terms of upper frequencies, or in terms of it, but there are so many things to look at, as well as pitch accuracy. You know, I mean, I had a technical problem for years, because I was pulling my tongue back too much. And on every eval, I went flat. And I couldn’t hear it, you know, if I could have heard it, I wouldn’t have some flat samples, you know, conductors who say, why can’t you hear that’s flat when you say, Well, if I could hear is flat, I wouldn’t be doing it. All right. I can’t hear it flat, because I’m getting a mismatched acoustic signal internally. In those situations. I mean, yes, I learned to read form my whole sense of what my tongue was doing. But I also could have learned that by looking at a pitch by a feedback, and realized that I could make adjustments that would make that pitch in tune. What do those adjustments feel like? They feel like I might be letting go of something in the back of my mouth? Oh, what’s that? You know, so there is just different ways in. And I’m always using lots of different ways in I have to admit a very rarely use spectrograms.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  34:09

Yes, well, the interesting thing that Brian said to me, was, I think, like, my ears are my best friend. And I’m always listening out and everything that you said, I thought, well, I hear that. And he his response was, you already have acoustics in your ear. You already know acoustics because you’re listening for all those things without realizing that is acoustics. But then it’s looking at it. I mean, it’s that’s acoustics on steroids when you can work out all the equipment.

Dr Jenevora Williams  34:53

Yeah, but there’s very little that you see on a spectrogram that you can’t hear with your ears. But as Saying you may not hear it yourself.

Dr Jenevora Williams  35:04

Yeah, fair enough that that’s true.

Dr Jenevora Williams  35:06

So this is all new stuff that we’ve learned that has taken us forward with our teaching and to new ideas, new ways of of working new ways of communicating. Tino, I still come back to the things I was doing 35 years ago, really such as, such as moving, moving, if something is not how you want it to be, if there’s a sound that is that is stuck or held or, or grating or raspy or any of those descriptors. What does that

Dr Jenevora Williams  35:46

sound?

Dr Jenevora Williams  35:48

Feel like? When you move your body around? What does it feel like if you lie on the ground, if you hang upside down? If you walk around? What does it feel like if you use your hands while you’re doing it, or wiggle your hips while you’re doing it? Those are things I was doing with my students in the mid 1980s.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  36:09

Things have come a long way. But some things just don’t change. We can we can continue to research and research. But some of the fundamentals are still the same, aren’t they?

Dr Jenevora Williams  36:23

And I had stories to explain what was working, then I have stories to explain what is working now. There are only stories, there are only theories.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  36:35

I know it’s such a difficult instrument, it’s we can’t see it, we can’t touch it. We can’t really we can’t feel it. Unless there’s effort involved, really. So it’s it’s so difficult to work with.

Dr Jenevora Williams  36:49

So this is why I think so I’m going to give back now to the teachers who may be insecure about but teaching and defensive and, you know, set up camps and gurus and the worst. It’s comes partly from the fact that it’s very difficult to evaluate somebody else’s teaching. How can you judge that they are an effective teacher that they’re doing the right things, because listening to their students is one way, but then you don’t know what the students were like when they came in? When they started with them?

Dr Jenevora Williams  37:27

Do it? Yeah, some teaching

Dr Jenevora Williams  37:31

students who are doing doing alright, the moment thank you very much, especially in conservatoires where they have such a rigorous audition process, that they are very lucky, they can just take the singers who are doing fine and just need a little bit of coaching, a little bit of polishing a little bit of tweaking here and there. And off they go. And then those teachers get massive credit and kudos. Give them somebody who is really stuck, may or may not do so. Well.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  38:04

Exactly, exactly. If you’re in a position where you work in academia, and people go through that audition process, you do have the luxury of working with some very talented students. And yes, and it’s easy for us to judge other people’s work.

Dr Jenevora Williams  38:26

Do you feel that some of that

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  38:31

those people that are setting up camps and planting flags, do you think this whole thing has been exacerbated because of social media? Do you feel that people feel that they have more to prove because there’s a platform for them to plant that flag?

Dr Jenevora Williams  38:50

I think that appeals to just certain people some people have the energy to do that they will make their reels they will make their their sort of social media posts they will put it all out there takes a lot of work to put all that stuff together to promote yourself in that way and produce all those YouTube films and everything is a huge amount of work and some people have that and want to do that and then they reap the benefits other people don’t don’t do it that way. And and I just think well is good luck to you if you’re if you prefer to do all that work. That’s fine, great. Well,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  39:34

I do some of that work. But for me that comes easy to be fair, all that doing a real not when I first started but it’s very easy for me now I just start talking and whatever comes out of my mouth is what comes out and that’s what what stays. I actually don’t edit anything. But people that sit there and type have hundreds of words, that a lot of the time I don’t even understand what they’re talking about, and probably could have said it

Dr Jenevora Williams  40:09

in about

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  40:11

a fifth of the words that they used. That’s a lot of effort. And for me, I just go, I don’t see the point of that. And I feel that when I see those kinds of posts, even with all the experience that I have, and you know, I do an okay job as a teacher,

Dr Jenevora Williams  40:35

I have my sort of my strengths

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  40:39

and my weaknesses as all teachers do. I admit mine, I have no problems doing that. And I admit what I don’t understand what styles I’m not comfortable teaching, and I’m not an expert in, I put my hand up to that. But I still, that seeing that still makes me feel like an imposter.

Dr Jenevora Williams  41:01

And I feel that I’ve, I’m not a sensitive person. And I feel like I’ve got courage.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  41:11

But I still feel when I see all of that I go, Oh, I would not dare respond to that. Or I would dare not comment

Dr Jenevora Williams  41:21

to that.

Dr Jenevora Williams  41:22

No, my response would probably be goodness, what happened in your childhood

Dr Jenevora Williams  41:34

messages were your parents giving you but you feel now the only way to, to actually be heard and, and have any kind of status in the world is to talk so much. So you drown everybody else out, which is effectively what they’re doing by writing hundreds of words.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  41:52

Sorry. I love that Jenevora, you’ve just made my evening, I feel so much better about myself.

Dr Jenevora Williams  42:08

Everybody’s got it, everybody’s got a story, everybody’s got stuff that’s happened.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  42:12

I know. You know, we

Dr Jenevora Williams  42:14

can explain a lot, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we were not hurt by it. And, you know, there is a lot of hurt going on. But we can explain. We can explain why people do what they do. I want to pick up on something a tiny detail that we have mentioned before. Sure. When we were talking about evaluating a teacher, and evaluating them on their, the output of their students or whatever. I this was something I used to happen when I was teaching other people, students, I would say, what is your teacher told you about breathing? Or what is your teacher told you about tongue position I was in and they would give me some stuff. And I would think, Oh my goodness, that’s really a bit peculiar. And then, I started asking my own students at the end of the lesson, or at the beginning of the next to tell me what did you take home from last week’s lesson? And they would say things like, well, you taught me to breathe from my diaphragm. And you taught me to lift my soft palate. And I would say, goodness, I’m really surprised that that was your, your take home message, because I don’t remember using those words at all.

Dr Jenevora Williams  43:29

So people will put it,

Dr Jenevora Williams  43:31

whatever information that they’re taking, they will put their own spin on it and fitted into their own personal model of what they’re doing,

Dr Jenevora Williams  43:39

and how they’re doing it. Absolutely. And it’s only a story. Yeah, you know,

Dr Jenevora Williams  43:47

I can’t feel what my diaphragm is doing. I can’t feel what my soft palate is. I can use a story that I know from theory from structure and function that that’s probably what’s happening. But I don’t know for definite that that’s what’s happening. The story helps.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  44:06

I know and students especially they’re great at telling their own version of what they thought they heard. I have that happen. I asked my students on their way out. Okay, so what do you what did you learn today? And, and what do you have to work on for next week? And some of the things that they come back with nudo know, or when they talk amongst each other, and then I’ll have a student come to me and say, oh, so and so told me that in her lesson, she did this? And I’ll say, No, that’s not what happened at all. And that’s where too sometimes, you know, we’re talking about this idea of making judgment based on what students say. But also what about that scenario? When This is when I think teachers can be the most brutal in terms of judgment is watching master classes.

Dr Jenevora Williams  45:06

And,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  45:11

and you’ll be sitting there watching a master class and you get a nudge from the teacher next to you, and they’ll say, Oh, I would have done this, I wouldn’t know, I don’t think that’s right at all, I think that’s the problem. And, and people start throwing in all their opinions into the ring, or making decisions about what should be going on in a master class.

Dr Jenevora Williams  45:35

And I think that’s, you know, like,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  45:40

one of those playgrounds for teachers for them to kind of muscle their way around a little bit. I did a master class some weeks ago in Tasmania. And before the first singer came in, I dress the teachers. And I actually said to them, now, there’s going to be things that go on in this master class that you may or may not agree with. But I’m going to tell you my intention and my clear intention for this master class before I begin, and that is that I am here for the singer, and I’m not here for you. I’m here for this, my goal is that the singer leaves with something valuable from this masterclass, and they feel better about themselves than when they first

Dr Jenevora Williams  46:29

started singing. And it did

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  46:33

make a difference. Now, there can be many things that are wrong with the singer, or not working for the singer, because let’s not use the word wrong. There may be many things that are not working for the singer. But I’m going to pick the one that the singer can deal with in that space and in that moment, and that they can leave and feel that that’s helpful for them. So if I don’t do what you think I should do, the reason is because I’m not here to put on a show. I’m here to work with the singer, and to make them feel better about themselves and not to feed your egos.

Dr Jenevora Williams  47:16

Absolutely. I just said,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  47:20

and you know what, that changed

Dr Jenevora Williams  47:21

the whole vibe

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  47:25

of the master class, and everyone was so into it, and so engaged and so caring and so kind and supportive of the singer.

Dr Jenevora Williams  47:36

Yeah. Yeah.

Dr Jenevora Williams  47:38

And you know, that, you know, our hugely experienced teacher, you could have done 100 different things with that singer,

Dr Jenevora Williams  47:47

but you only have 20 minutes. I mean, are you going

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  47:51

to pick something that’s going to take months for them to fix? Or you’re going to find something that’s going to make a difference in the quickest, shortest amount of time possible that they feel good about? And they don’t leave feeling worse about themselves?

Dr Jenevora Williams  48:09

than when they came into the room? Yeah.

Dr Jenevora Williams  48:14

Oh, yes. Oh, yeah. And that is where I love using imagery and metaphor and emotion and, you know, using different sensory stimulations? Because if you say to a singer, you know, can you what, what kind of fabric was that? Or what kind of liquid was that, you know, taking them into a different part of their imagination, you’re not imposing anything at all, you’re just getting them to open up to other possibilities, exposure, their possibilities, from their internal sense of what they’re doing. Again, back

Dr Jenevora Williams  48:50

to person centered, yes.

Dr Jenevora Williams  48:54

Which is sort of brings I think, brings me into where I am now. In my rehab work,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  49:03

tell us about that, because you’re heavily involved. You’re the co founder and director of education for vocal health education. So tell us about that organization and and what you do within that organization.

Dr Jenevora Williams  49:23

The main reason why Stephen and I set it up was to provide a really thoroughly

Dr Jenevora Williams  49:35

researched

Dr Jenevora Williams  49:36

fully accountable way of training seen teachers to firstly be aware of vocal health and be aware of the of some really fundamental things that they can do to help singers and for other voice users. And then to train singing teachers to bring that kind of knowledge that Hello ballistic knowledge into their general teaching. So our vocal habilitation practitioners is a mouthful of a term, it was a term that we had to use those words in order to fit the the US market. Basically, it just means singing teachers with super Paris, right singing teachers who are more holistically minded, who are just thinking broader, deeper, wider about their teaching. And then at the top level, the voice rehabilitation specialist and the voice rehabilitation specialist has done a couple of years of really intense training, in clinics in settings, a lot of work in counseling skills, and manual therapy skills. So they’re all trained at a high level to do manual therapy manual release with with singers, it’s a very much able to come at any kind of work from many, many different angles. And we wanted to really provide something that was kind of be gold standard top level. So we’ve got dozens of tutors and contributors on the course. Many, many voices, it’s not just what we think it’s, it’s we got people from all over the world contributing their specialisms. We’ve got at every stage, the teachers are the singing teachers that undergoing the training are assessed. They are assessed fairly by external people by a very kind assessment method is not they don’t have a nasty exam, but there’ll be a quiz at some point. But they are there is an accountability. And there’s a lot of peer supervision, or the higher up they go, the more they are all helping each other. And so that is, again engendering this collegiality that we’ve been talking about, that there’s a community of people who trust each other, who know what each other’s specialisms are, and they know where to go. So this was our, our intention. And we’ve gone back actually, to conversations we had in 2019, when we were putting it all together, and we were thinking through what the philosophy was, would be what the structure would be, because we are currently trying to set up a charitable arm to the whole organization so that we can deliver training for free so that we can offer bursaries so that we can go into centers and

Dr Jenevora Williams  52:48

give, give one. Yeah, amazing.

Dr Jenevora Williams  52:52

So we’ve gone back to our 2019 notes. And it’s quite, it’s very interesting to see what’s still there, what the the foundations were, for this training and how we are pretty true to them now. So one of the, of course, one of the things that is essential for this is the in person training, because it can’t

Dr Jenevora Williams  53:17

all be online. You can’t teach someone

Dr Jenevora Williams  53:21

to do manual therapy very effectively online. There’s an amazing amount you can do. But you can’t feel the pressure

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  53:30

of their touch. Yes, I agree. I agree.

Dr Jenevora Williams  53:33

And, and that is crucial. Dinner, the manual therapy that we teach people to do is very gentle. And it’s very, it’s not painful. There is no benefit to that.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  53:47

So how do you deliver those do hold those sorts of programs every now and again the in in-person ones? Well, funny

Dr Jenevora Williams  53:57

you should say that Marisa because we are coming to Australia.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  54:04

Yay. I know how exciting

Dr Jenevora Williams  54:09

and we’re going to be doing in person training in well in the manual therapy that I talked about. We’re going to be doing I’m going to be doing my teaching on voices courses because they are although I have that as an online resource people can go get the films online. Actually being in a room with people and talking to a live person about it is so much more enjoyable and more meaningful.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  54:34

I learned way better in person. I must

Dr Jenevora Williams  54:38

ask questions, they can talk to each other. We can have a group feeling so I’m going to be doing teaching voices. Stephen King is going to be teaching reflux informed practice. There’s He’s done a lot of research into reflux and

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  54:55

our worst enemy as singers.

Dr Jenevora Williams  55:00

And how, how he can help how we can help people to find all sorts of different ways to manage reflux, not just by, you know, cutting out all their favorite things from their diet.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  55:14

Or taking medications.

Dr Jenevora Williams  55:16

Yeah, absolutely. Other things we can do.

Dr Jenevora Williams  55:19

Yes. And so

Dr Jenevora Williams  55:20

we’re really, really excited because we’re going to be in Adelaide. We’re going to be in Melbourne, and we’re going to be in Brisbane, we’re going to be in Sydney.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  55:29

Wow, that’s a big tour. How long will that all go for?

Dr Jenevora Williams  55:32

a month?

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  55:34

So you’re going to be in Australia for a month? The whole month of January? Yeah. So you’re going to be in Australia during the summer months. So that’s going to be interesting for you.

Dr Jenevora Williams  55:46

It’d be hot in Brisbane.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  55:47

It’s going to be hot everywhere. Will Melbourne and Adelaide often have 40 degree heats

Dr Jenevora Williams  55:55

in the middle of summer. Wow. Yes, yeah. And then

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  56:00

it can change in a second. Within minutes, I should say, to the temperature can drop 20 degrees. With a cool change. It’s very interesting to experience our summons here. Very different to the UK.

Dr Jenevora Williams  56:17

Yes, I was in Australia in January. When was it? 22,000? January, I came over December 99. No 9898 to 99. Yeah, because I was pregnant. I can I can kind of pinpoint things in in my past by whether what house I was living in and whether I was pregnant.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  56:42

Life Events. Yes.

Dr Jenevora Williams  56:45

I was pregnant. So that was an Australian summer. And I remember sitting in the cricket ground in Sydney watching the test match. And it was very, very hot. And it wasn’t that comfortable.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  57:00

No would not have been very comfortable.

Dr Jenevora Williams  57:04

In terms of

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  57:05

VHE, this program that you’ve put together? What’s the response been like? Because I know there’s a lot of competition out there. There’s so many people with so many different programs, even other programs now that are receiving accreditation. So what, or offering accreditation to the teachers who undertake the programs. So what’s the response been like for you?

Dr Jenevora Williams  57:40

Initially, there was a lot of suspicion and a lot more enthusiasm. Why suspicion?

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  57:50

Sorry, sorry to butt in there. Why were people suspicious?

Dr Jenevora Williams  57:57

The people who were suspicious were nearly all

Dr Jenevora Williams  58:02

clinicians. And

Dr Jenevora Williams  58:06

from mainly from the speech and language, therapy ik field, because what we do

Dr Jenevora Williams  58:14

is quite similar. And I’ve been

Dr Jenevora Williams  58:17

having conversations with Maurice Goodwin about this. He’s a speech and language pathologist in the US. He’s also a singer and singing teacher. But sometimes we look at each other and say, what do you do on what do I do that is actually different when we’re in a rehabilitation setting. And it can look quite similar. And so there is suspicion and fear, because what might singing teachers jumped up singing teachers who think they know about pathology, what damage might they do? So this is something which has been right at the core of our work from the outset is facing those those fears and those potential criticisms and saying, right, yeah, you’re right. It could be dangerous. It could be a difficult misunderstanding. How can we ensure that it isn’t? Can you tell me how you think we could make this work? And I have had some wonderful conversations with so many people who have come in and said, what you’re doing is really risky.

Dr Jenevora Williams  59:30

And I’ve said please say more? Wow.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  59:34

So people have said this could be risky. That’s a big call.

Dr Jenevora Williams  59:41

It is

Dr Jenevora Williams  59:42

it is and there are risks. There are risks when people Tina wouldn’t be on. This can be anybody. It doesn’t have to be a singing teacher for anybody who thinks they know what they’re doing and won’t ever ask for help or advice. Hmm, if you’ve got someone with a husky voice and you think, Oh, I can sort out a husky voice, I can help you, I know what I’m doing. And it remains husky. And it’s just gets steadily a little bit worse a little bit worse over maybe a six month period, that voice could have the beginnings of throat cancer. So there are times when you’ve really got to know what you’re listening for. And you’ve got to know the red flags. And you’ve got to know if this does not sound significantly different within three weeks of working with this person.

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:00:34

I need to ask for help.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:00:36

Yes, we have that at Queensland Conservatorium we have that help there where we can send our students we have a voice clinic at the Conservatorium. So generally, our rule of thumb is six weeks. If it’s no change within six weeks, then we refer to the voice

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:00:57

clinic. Okay. Yeah.

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:00:59

Yeah. And that’s and so that’s teamwork, isn’t it? Yes, collegiality, that’s people working together. It’s not your fault. It’s not their fault.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:01:07

Yeah, they could have been sick. And if they’re a gigging singer, they may have gone back to work too soon. For a and may have sung for a number of nights. Without any rest. The voice is not happy. I mean, there’s so many things that can go wrong, and it’s nobody’s fault. But it’s up to us to have an idea of like to be able to listen and say that sound that noise wasn’t there before. That’s new. Yeah. And to keep an eye on it. We I don’t necessarily tell the student sometimes, depending who the student is, although may ask, or have you been unwell lately? You’ve been getting enough sleep? Are you hydrated? So they don’t know that I’m doing this diagnosis? Yeah. It’s all questions that they think oh, yeah, she’s asking me about my voice and about my health. But I’ve heard something, but I’m not going to alarm them. Because that’s all I need is for them to get in their heads about that sound. Because it may be gone the following week, and we’re all fine.

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:02:16

But then some awareness from for them about the fact, you know, does that does your voice feel different day? Why do you think it might feel differently? What might have been going on? In your, in this this week? What’s been happening? When did it start feel different? What was going on? Then? Those are all, I think there’s a very empowering questions that you can ask the student. So our Vocal Health First Aid training is that it is how to help someone at the basic level. Somebody prevent presents with something that is unfamiliar, or something that’s preventing them from doing what they want to do. And how come we know how to ask the right questions in order to ascertain whether it’s something that they can just sort themselves out but of self help, maybe a little bit of vocal technique work, or who they need to go and talk to for further advice. Now that education is crucial, and how can that education possibly be dangerous or risky?

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:03:28

It’s power. It’s knowledge.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:03:30

Yes, knowledge is power.

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:03:33

It’s just going to help everybody. Yes, yes. And I have found less and less resistance to our work. As it’s become more established. I knew that would happen. I knew it was just a question of time. If, if you believe in what you’re doing, and you do it with integrity,

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:03:55

and just hold your head up high. Eventually, it’ll speak.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:04:04

Yes. And what about teachers who come to say, who are early in their careers or private studio teachers who haven’t had a lot of education? Maybe they’re singers, who have just decided to start doing some teaching?

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:04:22

How do you work

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:04:24

with those teachers? Are they able to manage the knowledge that you’re teaching them within that program? Or is it too much like is it inclusive and it’s for everybody? Or do we need to have a certain amount of prior knowledge before doing the program?

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:04:43

The vocal health first aid requires no prior knowledge. So we’ve had 16 year olds doing it. We’ve had people we had one lovely, older lady doing it because her husband had been diagnosed with throat cancer and she wants To help guide him on his journey through voice use, no expertise, no knowledge at all. Prior to doing the course, we’ve had a lot of school teachers, choir directors, people who have a little bit of, of knowledge and they work alongside with singers. So you don’t need any prior knowledge at all for that course. For them, the further levels we do, like people who’ve had a little bit more experience, so the habitation professional, we asked for people who’ve got about 1000 hours of teaching experience, right? This, you know, a couple of years. People who haven’t had that will just say, Okay, what have you done instead? And they may have other really valuable experience that is transferable. So it’s not an absolute, it’s a guide. Yes. And there are some people who we, I didn’t have final assessment for somebody a couple of weeks ago, a very young woman, she’s only just 23 As young, but my goodness, she was so fascinating. She had really thought about what she was doing. She had such energy, she had such an open heart to all of this. And I just thought, you know what, that is so valuable. And I kept thinking about my younger self being shut down, because I was young. And because I was female, and what on earth did I know? And how could I have a voice? And so that was part of my mission is actually just to give everyone a chance? Yes, it’s

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:06:49

inclusive. It’s not creating a divide. In our community, like many other things are actually there’s a lot of programs methodologies, that are creating a divide. And I love the fact that this is for everybody. Because one of my fears is that early teachers, early career teachers and people in private studio may start to get left behind. As the science evolves, as as the information world becomes greater, the knowledge base is greater, I feel like some of these teachers are going to get left behind. And they will definitely have impostor syndrome when it comes to even joining a professional organization where they can go and receive that knowledge, like I know with an ATS when I was the president of the Queensland chapter, and I sat on the board of the National Committee there for a few years. That was one of the biggest criticisms was the fact that unless you had an academic job, that you weren’t welcomed into that environment. And it wasn’t the case. But I think just having that separation, through not having knowledge is the problem.

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:08:17

And it’s other people’s perception. It’s not that that barrier is erected, it’s that people perceive the barrier. And a lot of the teachers say to me, you know, what I really want to do is improve my knowledge of anatomy. And I want to be able to know all the names of everything, and I say, that’s great. But knowing the names won’t make you a better teacher, know, it’s a shortcut, but you know what, you can always look them up.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:08:51

I will tell you,

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:08:54

a devaluating people’s abilities, I always think about what have they got that can’t be taught, and what is missing that can be taught. And when somebody’s got an attitude or an approach or a philosophy or just a manner with themselves, which is open and honest and enthusiastic and curious and ready for might changing their mind ready for taking on information. That is fabulous.

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:09:31

Exactly.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:09:34

I say open mind and open heart. And we all need to have that especially in our community where we’re dealing with human beings at their most vulnerable. Absolutely. So what’s the greatest lesson you’ve learned over the years from that young Jenevora to now, slightly more mature, but still young Jenevora

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:09:59

still was have lots more to do in life. The lesson is

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:10:08

go the one lesson. Listen,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:10:12

where you can have a few. Yeah, listen, yes.

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:10:15

Listen, allow somebody to speak. And if they are frightened to speak, try and create a space where they feel they, they can be heard. And they can say what they want. They can be who they want to be.

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:10:34

So listening and

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:10:40

maybe counting to 10 before jumping in.

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:10:45

I can use that one, one.

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:10:49

Because you and I have no shortage of energy, and enthusiasm and opinion,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:10:58

I guess. Yeah.

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:11:02

And that will still be there after we’ve counted to 10. Yes, but haven’t counted to 10. The way it comes out of a mouth might have shaped itself into something that’s a little bit less confrontational.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:11:15

Yes. I’m actually not confrontational. I don’t hold back. But I think I’m kind in the delivery. My problem is my face. Because I do not have a poker face is I will react with my face before I even know my face is doing anything. gives everything away. Sometimes my students go, what’s wrong, and everything’s fine. Not judging by.

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:11:53

That’s something that we have to learn on audition panels. But you you have to sit. If you’re I was on an audition panel last week, for a whole day. And sitting there with this sort of, you know, gentle smile on my face for the entire day. While I was thinking all sorts of thoughts and hearing all sorts of things going on. If was that that was a challenge. That’s

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:12:18

hard. I probably would have to wear a paper bag over why that would be a good look. Oh, okay, so what can we all do

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:12:33

better?

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:12:35

Within our singing voice community, do

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:12:37

you feel

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:12:39

we can assume that people are trying to do the right thing? Rather than assuming they are stupid? We can assume give

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:12:52

people respect? Oh.

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:12:58

Yeah. So even if somebody is really has a very different message from my message, or is giving information out in a way that does not fit my idea of what what that could be? I can, if I think about it and count 10 enough times give them enough respect to say that is fascinating. Tell me more

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:13:34

of you sitting at home with a voodoo doll sticking some months.

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:13:47

Gosh, I’m not quite that bad.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:13:55

No, no, no, you’re not I’m I’m it is all in jest. I think it’s great that we’re having this this discussion. And we can kind of laugh at ourselves as well. I mean, Haven’t we all come a long way. And for me, this podcast has taught me so many lessons. I’ve had an incredible variety of guests talking about an incredible number of topics. And I tell you what, I listened to every one I give them all grace.

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:14:26

And sometimes I’m thinking I don’t know about

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:14:31

this. But I tell you, what, come the end of the podcast and that interview, I have always learned something. There’s never been anybody that I’ve not learned one thing from in all that time. By giving people that grace and listening and thinking about it. There is something to be learned from everybody. That’s so true. Yeah, that is it’s been a huge lesson. So I know you’ve got this tour coming up, which we’re going to be promoting, it’s so exciting. We’re going to share the links to all the work that you do this amazing work and well done for. But having a program that is so inclusive for a start.

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:15:21

And I love that it’s holistic.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:15:26

Because we are human beings with minds and motions, psyche, a body, I mean, we’re not this, we’re,

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:15:34

we’re a whole creation of so

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:15:38

many parts, and the sums of so many parts. So I love that and that it’s student centered. You’re you’re endorsing a student centered approach to teaching, which is so so, so important. I love all of that. So thank you for bringing that into our community. Jenevora. And Steven, of course, can’t forget Steven, I haven’t met Steven, but hopefully I will. Well, yeah, is there anything else you’d like to share before we finish up

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:16:11

our website, which is vocal health.co.uk. And everything is on there.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:16:17

And people can do your do the program at any time they pay, and they can do it at any time. So it’s not that they have to wait for an intake. It’s just whenever they wish to do it.

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:16:30

They can jump on whenever they like. I mean, there are some courses like the counseling skills for singing teachers, which have to be at a set time because they’re delivered online, but live online. Yes.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:16:44

Well, thank you so much. Jenevora. Good luck with everything that you’re doing. Keep up the brilliant work, and look forward to seeing you soon.

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:16:52

And you thank you very much for having me.

Dr Jenevora Williams  1:16:55

Thank you. Okay, bye.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  1:16:56

Bye. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of a voice and beyond. I hope you enjoyed it as now is an important time for you to invest in your own self care, personal growth, and education. Use every day as an opportunity to learn and to grow, so you can show up feeling empowered and ready to live your best life. If you know someone who will also be inspired by this episode, please be sure to copy and paste the link and share it with them. Or share it on social media and use the hashtag a voice and beyond. I promise you I am committed to bringing you more inspiration and conversations just like this one every week. And if you would like to help me please rate and review this podcast and cheer me on by clicking the subscribe button on Apple podcast right now. I would also love to know what it is that you most enjoyed about this episode and what was your biggest takeaway? Please take care and I look forward to your company next time on the next episode of a voice and beyond.