Science and Music meet on Tuesday 8 th January, 2008 , 7.00-9.00pm at Salisbury Arts Centre

with Professor David M Howard from the Department of Electronics, University of York .

David's talk will be: “Voice science and keeping your voice healthy” . Most of us take our voice for granted and only become aware of it when it goes wrong. How does the voice work? Why does it go wrong? What preventative steps can you take to look after your voice in a more healthy manner? What changes during the voice training for professional singers, cathedral choristers and actors? How are electronic voices created? These are some of the questions that will be addressed during this talk which will be supported with illustrations, healthy voice guidelines, electronic sounds and a number of hands-on experiments .

David is the presenter of a BBC 4 TV programme – Voice – due to be screened early in 2008, was the co-presenter for the BBC 4 and BBC 2 TV programme – Castrato – screened in 2006 and 2007; programme he has been involved in as part of his EPSRC Senior Media Fellowship. He was Vice President of the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) until September 2007. David's main research areas are the analysis and synthesis of singing, speech and music. Outside work he conducts from the tenor line a 12-strong a capella choral group – The Beningbrough Singers, plays the organ and sings as a Deputy Tenor Songman at York Minster.

Café Scientifique meets each month, meetings are free and open to all.