An Attempt in Vocal Singing Exercises -Developing Skills in Recognizing Resonance by Using Keyboard Harmonicas-

Teaching Japanese students to sing the Western songs requires special consideration of difference between the Japanese language, which is pitch-oriented, and the Western languages such as Italian, German, French, Russian and English, which are accent-oriented. Singing can be seen as a process of converting one's breath into voice. In emitting the breath, a Western language speaker has to make full use of his/her diaphragm, which serves as an air pump, while a Japanese speaker does not necessarily have to. Without skills of using diaphragm, which a Western language speaker would naturally acquire, a Japanese student tends to have a voice with little or no resonance and, consequently, his/her ability to hear the resonance remains undeveloped. In this study, an attempt has been made to teach these skills by having the students play the keyboard harmonicas. In such training, it is difficult to make the students understand the concept by their own voices since there are too many variables in individual techniques and physical factors such as their bone structures, vocal cords or muscles. On the other hand, the keyboard harmonica is a simple instrument which students can easily play by blowing their breath into it, yet the sound each student produces has distinctly different resonance from one another. Using the instrument as a common item makes it easier to focus on the co-relation between the diaphragm movement and the difference in resonance. In the first solfeggio lesson of the first semester, each student's voice was recorded in order to evaluate his/her ability to recognize the resonance related to the use of diaphragm. After twelve lessons using keyboard harmonicas, the voice was recorded again for analysis of any changes in the student's ability

Voice Control by Ear and the Bel-Canto Technique : An Approach based on the Tomatis Method

Changing tone colors is one of the basic skills a singer should acquire. It is particularly important in singing medleys, where a singer must switch tone colors almost instantly, during a few bars between songs, according to what the content of each song requires. Singing with clear changes of tone colors, however, is not an easy task. In seeking to attain it, I tried application of the oreille electronique used in the Tomatis Method, by matching impression of each song with the pass-band of a certain language. This has proven to be extremely helpful in producing the intended changes. I suggest that such results can also be explained in terms of the Bel-Canto technique, a term widely recognized by vocal experts as a synonym of "the ideal vocalization." One of the qualifications of the Bel-Canto is "consistency of voice texture." Once different types of texture are established, they are aggregated into various tone colors. Thus, the Bel-Canto pieces require the skills to keep and change tone colors freely. My assumption is that these skills coincide with what the Tomatis Method, with its purpose being improvement of vocalization by way of refining auditory senses, offers to accomplish. My discussion starts with reconstructing the concept of the Bel-Canto, comparing it with the Tomatis Method and illustrating their similarities. It then moves on to showing a model of tone assignment based on the Tomatis Method. A solo version of the chorus medley "Four Seasons of Japan" is used as an example. The new way of assigning tones demonstrated here, I believe, offers a promising alternative to singers striving for better command of their voices

マウス胸腺における脂肪化および脂肪細胞分化

The mouse thymus locates on a position close to the pericardial cavity and consists of two lobes. The lobes surrouded by a capsule are subdivided into many lobules by connective tissue trabeculae. Each lobule consists of lymphocytes-accumulated regions, cortex and medulla. In the previous study, since only lymphocytes in many kinds of thymus-constructing cell expressed the long type leptin receptor (OBRL), it was suggested that thymocytes were regulated with leptin produced by adipocytes differenciated and proliferated through thymic age involution. Then it is naturally interested in studying when lipogenesis and adipogenesis begin in the thymus either in embryogenesis or in postnatal growth. We extracted and measured the quantity of total lipid of the thymus and found that that began to increase at the period of 5 to 8 week-old after birth. The quantity of DNA of the thymus was little changed for this period. Then we directly observed histologically HE-stained sections under light microscope. The small number of adipocytes was observed at surrouding connective tissue, but never found in trabeculae of thymus of neonatal. In 5 week-old thymus adipocytes were first observed in small groups in the trabeculae. Secondly, we detected FGF10,PPARγ and leptin mENA expressions by the RTPCR method as the indication of adipogenesis in the thymus from embryo just before birth to 6 month-old. Both FGF10 and PPARγmRNA were detected in all specimens. The expression of PPARγ is slightly less than that of FGF10 in the embryonic thymus, but with incresing age it incresed and apparently more than that of FGF10 in the 6 moth-old thymus. These results suggest that adipogenesis in the thymus begins just before birth at the latest and that lipogenesis in the thymus does at 5 week-old after birth

マウスリンパ組織のレプチンレセプター発現細胞の検出

Leptin, the product of the ob gene expressed in adipocytes, is shown to influence energy intake and expenditure, proliferation of CD^ T cells, neovascularization and intracellular triglycerides homeostasis in non-adipocytes. Leptin acts on target cells through receptor (OB-R). There are at least five different types of OB-R in mouse due to alternative splicing from db gene transcripts.OB-Ra〜OB-Rd share identical extracellular and transmembrane domains and JAK binding consensus sequence at cytoplasmic domain. Only OB-Rb has an additional STAT binding motif and is essential for most of leptin' s physiological functions through JAK-STAT pathway. OB-Ra is also reported to transduct weakly leptin's signal through JAK-phospholyration pathway. On this paper we examined which kinds of cell express OB-Ra or OB-Rb in lymphoid and fat tissues of the mouse. Both types of OB-R were detected in thymus, spleen and gastrolienal fat tissue by RTPCR method, then the constitutive cells were separated from dissected tissues and cultured in GIT medium with 10% heat-inactivated FBS. Primary cultured lymphocytes isolated from thymus or spleen expressed both OB-Ra and OB-Rb. On the other hand, in adhesive cells dispersed with enzymatic digestion and primary cultured OB-Rb was not detected, though OB-Ra detectable.Similarly, primary cultured adhesive cells of gastrolienal fat tissue expressed only OB-Ra. It is therefore most parsimonious to conclude that only lymphocytes express OB-Rb and response effectively to leptin in thymus

A Study of Voice-Quality Change by Use of Hearing-Training Equipment

Educational materials called "hearing-training equipment" have drawn considerable interest in the recent years, with one product named best selling item on one of the major Internet shopping sites. They are usually used to improve English listening skills, and their popularity indicates that they are widely believed to be helpful, at least to some extent, in achieving that goal. In other words, customers purchase these products with wishful thoughts that they might finally be able to acquire the listening and speaking skills in English. On the other side of the coin is the fact that we, the Japanese, are still struggling to learn these longed-for skills. In fact, although the "international society" has long been our mantra, our English skills are still far below the level required in international situations. However, the field of English education does seem to have made some progress, i.e. from the conventional method of repetitive listening to a new, more systematic one that these products claim to offer. On the other hand, the field of vocal music has seen little progress in the past decades. It is true that many of music college graduates now go abroad to study in "music capitals" of the world. The overall level has risen, with increasing number of Japanese becoming world-class singers. However, when it comes to teaching, the conventional method of simply having students imitate teachers' voice is still prevalent. With such situation in the background, this paper examines the effect of the hearing-training equipment and explores possibility of applying this method to vocal music education by analyzing difference in the way the Japanese and westerners perceive sound they hear