The Listening Centre - London

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Listening therapy is one of the best-kept secrets in the performing arts. Maria Callas, Beniamino Gigli and Gerard Depardieu have all been clients of Professor Tomatis. But it is not only performers who can benefit from the treatment - all those who rely on vocal skills from politicians to salespeople can add interest to their speaking voices and language students can learn to listen in to the distinct ethnic frequencies of the language they are learning. Every language has its own range of frequencies and the so-called "ear for languages" is nothing more than the receptivity of the ear to these frequencies. As we grow older our receptivity "ossifies" into our own familiar language, but by filtering in the required frequencies we can regain .

The change in listening pattern is brought about by treatment with an electronic listening device that filters selected frequencies of sounds thereby exercising muscles within the ear that have lost the ability to respond to certain sounds. Returning these muscles to condition the ear becomes more receptive and following this the production of sound alters as well. The course is intensive and the results can be permanent - unlike coaching and other discursive procedures the therapy is not geared towards learning a technique or method but works gently and without rote learning of any sort. During the active sessions clients listen to the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Gregorian chant. Mozart because of the abundance of high frequencies which charge the cortex of the brain and Gregorian chant because it has the full scale of harmonics and matches the relaxed rhythm of the human heartbeat. Later on the client will chant, sing and speak with their own voice filtered back to them so that they listen to themselves with the full spectrum of sound that they do not normally project.

The centre offers Listening Therapy as based on the published works of Professor Alfred A.Tomatis, who as long ago as 1957 was honoured by the French Academy of Science with the acknowledgement of the "Tomatis Effect", which reduced to a one line nutshell is - you can only produce sounds that you are able to hear - This means that any change in our listening patterns leads to an immediate change in our speech, singing or even instrumental production.

The ear controls everything we need to communicate effectively. The Tomatis Listening Therapy opens the ear enabling it to decipher, analyse, control and reproduce sounds accurately, controls our posture, sound production, breathing, sense of rhythm and creativity. Blockages in our listening effects our performance and keeps us from our true potential. This Tomatis course will help you to improve all the above mentioned easily and quickly. Before a course can be started an assessment of the client's listening abilities is made. This involves listening to faint sounds in all different frequencies both through headphones devised to test air conduction (air transmitted sound) and bone conduction (yes we hear with our bones too!) Two other sound tests are also done to give a complete picture in graph form of the client's listening patterns and laterality (that is which ear is dominant, this is incredibly important for voice production and learning.)

From this a tailor made listening course is devised for your listening needs. This requires you to do 4 half hour sessions at the centre everyday for 13 consecutive days (excluding Sundays) 3 of the sessions are "passive" where you listen to the music of Mozart and Gregorian chant through the Electronic Listening Device with headphones. The other session is an "active" session where you can read, chant or repeat sounds made by native speakers . During this session your voice is fed back to you with the entire frequency spectrum and you will experience your voice's full potential. After the 13 day course there is a break of 3-5 weeks during which time the ear continues to develop by itself. Then another 7 days of listening is necessary to finish the basic course. This is usually enough for most people. The effect is a permanent one and once the improvements are made the ears continue to keep themselves adjusted. Whether you are a musician, singer, actor or just interested in developing or improving your speaking voice or interested in improving a foreign language, listening re-education can really help to make things easier and release blocks that are stopping you from reaching your true potential. It will increase your self confidence and get people listening to you.