Our current and graduated students may be found actively performing, presenting at international conferences, pursuing advanced performance and research degrees, and teaching at the community music school and college levels. We study the practice of high level music making, we seek to make the abstract real, and we learn by doing. This growth has always been driven by the interests of both conservatory faculty and students, and our current agenda and resources reflect this. Miller, Sundberg, and Titze for students enrolled in voice pedagogy classes, the VSAL has steadily grown in scope and prestige. Originally designed to bring to life the seminal acoustic research studies of D.G. Ian Howell in 2013, the NEC Voice and Sound Analysis Laboratory is one of the best equipped acoustic, perceptual, and biometric labs housed in a North American music school. Our core belief is that musicians have a unique perspective within society, perceive unique problems, and present unique solutions. We support these efforts with a variety of educational experiences including classroom lectures, guided research and instrumentation training, and public presentations of original work.

Our secondary mission is to carry out and publish research to spread these ideas beyond the NEC community. The primary mission of the NEC Voice and Sound Analysis Laboratory (VSAL) is to unlock the imaginations of music students, offer them a path to meaningfully explore measurable aspects of their art form, and to feed this work back into their applied practice.

Learn more about the NEC Vocal Pedagogy Program Vision & Mission Or sign up for an appointment in the VSAL Center (open to all students and faculty)

Support more serious research for either special projects or academic classes.

Explore real-time, low latency audio and video transmission and collaboration over the commercial internet.

Explore additional biometrics, especially of the voice (e.g., airflow, subglottal pressure, vocal fold contact patterns).

Explore vibrotactile sensation while making or experiencing music.

Prepare high quality spectrograms for use in your theoretical analysis papers, allowing for quantitative and qualitative comparisons of your performances.

Playfully explore the sound of your voice or instrument through advanced, real-time, acoustic analysis.

What can we do? The VSAL Center offers tools and technology to: We welcome all NEC musicians regardless of area of study or musical tradition. This can take the form of simply exploring the sound of your instrument with real time spectrography, or students may immerse themselves in more advanced qualitative and quantitative mentored research projects. Between these extremes lie countless applications to deepen and bring detail to your understanding of the world of sound.

The Voice and Sound Analysis Laboratory & Center offers students at NEC the chance to investigate the how and what of sound in a supportive, hands-on environment. While much of this process is ephemeral, we have the ability to explore how music and music performance is embodied and experienced. Musicians call on their bodies to create sound and meaning through performance.

How does my instrument create meaning with sound?.

How can sound travel in air, through computers, and over the internet?.

Voice and Sound Analysis Laboratory (VSAL)Ĭome and explore how you make and experience music.

Reporting a Student Concern or Incident.

Veterans Educational Benefits Information.

Vocal lab for windows