On Stuttering

Stuttering is a brain glitch in which the right side and left side get confused. Oddly enough, it often doesn't happen when singing. I had a student who had a slight stuttering problem. So we sang his words in pitches as close to what sounded like speaking as possible. This worked!

I find in teaching that brain tricks work. When the brain associate speaking with singing, it became less intimidating and more more doable. It wasn't noticable that what was supposed to be spoken was actually being sung. We were using tones that were fractions between actual detectable notes that you would able to identify on a piano.

Speech Impediments

Most speech impediments I see are lisps. Even saying the word "lisp" or "lisps" is difficult. To reframe what seems very difficult, we place the tongue, teeth, and jaw where we want them, and slowly create a muscle memory affect. We only pick up speed when the desired correction has been made, and the brain has had time to catch up to our speech. When the two are aligned, we have more effective speech.