Podcasts

In praise of the humble hobby

  (This article is adapted from the original record of my Boot Camp for the Bonus Years.) In which I consider certain peripheral amusements and reject a paradoxical call to regard them all as significant vocations.   The fifth item on the agenda of my Boot Camp for the Bonus years was “Commit to hobbies.” […]

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The aging voice: therapy and gym programme

Speech therapist Natasha Curham has a positive approach to the common voice disorder, muscular tension dysphonia (MTD). She assured me that it can be successfully treated. Why? Because muscles are involved. With practice, muscles can be strengthened, better coordinated and used more efficiently. Brain has learned to overuse these muscles: brain can learn a better way. […]

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Banish old-lady voice: a boot camp challenge

Practising Christmas carols, 1944, Granada Relocation Center, Colorado. Tom Parker, Wikimedia At first I noticed it occasionally and brushed it aside quite tolerantly: Oops, that’s my old lady voice! You know the one I mean: squeaky, creaky, wobbly, unpredictable, on-again-off-again as if a fuse was about to blow. A voice that shuffles along in slippers. If a voice […]

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