OF THE AIR STUDIOS PRESENTS....

A Singer’s Health Workshop Series:
4 dAys to Focus on Wholistic Living As a singer


The Alexander Technique FOR Singers
Finding an easy breath and an easy body for singing and for life. Through Movement awareness singers improve vocal warm ups, practicing and performing. Voice/Body Anatomy. Incorporate everyday experiences to help alleviate muscle tension.
Saturday, June 6th, 2-4pm. $30.


Self-Massage & Yoga for Singers
Two Yoga/Massage therapists share several sequences to help relieve tension in larger muscle groups in the body which can affect the voice. Information will be relevant to maintaining the body before and after gigs, while on tour, playing an instrument and for those interested in tapping into stretching as a way of quieting the mind.
Saturday, June 13th, 2-4pm. $30.


Eastern Medicine & Movement For Singers
Using Alexander concepts of a free and easy head, neck and back, acupuncture and Chi Gong help to elaborate on opening energy pathways in the body and finding inner balance for performance and practice.
Saturday, June 20th, 2-4pm. $30.



Nutrition For Singers
Take time to learn and remember how to maintain a healthy immune system and address top singer afflictions such as allergies, acid reflux and more. Light snacks and Beverages will be provided.
Saturday, June 27th, 2-4pm. $35.

**RESERVATIONS REQUIRED FOR ALL WORKSHOPS

PYENG THREADGILL
is a native Lower East Sider and professional vocalist/composer, teacher of singing and the Alexander Technique. She has recorded two albums Sweet Home: The Music of Robert Johnson and Of The Air. She is completing her third album Portholes To A Love & Other Short Stories to be released this summer. Threadgill is a 2008 recipient of the New York Foundation for The Arts Fellowship in Music Composition. Additionally Threadgill teaches at her private practice Of The Air Studios and at the Brooklyn Conservatory.

Ms Threadgill’s approach toward teaching is to find a clear an inviting way that people can experience concepts of Alexander Technique and apply them to all activities.

JEN RESNICK
Jen Resnick came to Traditional Chinese Medicine through the practice and teaching of the martial arts. Her 25 years of movement studies led her to investigate theories of the body in Chinese medicine and in meditation practice. She attended Pacific College of Oriental Medicine in NY and soon fell in love with the breadth and depth of Chinese medicine.

An international champion and nationally-renown martial arts instructor, Jen began her TCM practice in the Bay Area of San Francisco where she also was the Executive Director of a community martial arts center.

Jen is a pioneering member of the Global Alternative Healthcare Project, one of the first organizations to offer TCM-based medical aid internationally. She recently traveled to Bali, Indonesia and, together with other team members, treated over 2,000 people.

Jen Resnick is nationally certified with the NCCAOM in Chinese herbs and acupuncture, and is licensed in California and New York. As a practitioner of TCM, Jen honors the path of seeking wellness through the whole being, and the cultivation of balance in oneself.


SARAH WHITE
Sarah White-Ayón is a dancer, choreographer, video artist, Certified Massage Therapist and Alexander Technique teacher. Sarah holds a BFA in dance from UMKC, 1999; a certificate in massage therapy from the Massage Therapy Training Institute in Kansas City, 1999; and an AmSAT recognized Alexander Technique Teaching Certificate from the Balance Arts Center, New York City, 2007. She has had a private massage therapy practice in New York City since 2000. In her practice, she combines extensive knowledge from dance, yoga, meditation and the Alexander Technique to address individual needs. Her choreography and video art has been curated for shows and festivals in New York City, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles. Along with collaborative team Angel Ayón and Gerald Marks, she was the recipient of a 2008 iLAB residency from iLAND organization. In addition to making her own choreography, she has worked as a dancer/collaborator in the work of such artists as Alex Escalante, Flora Weigman, Jennifer Monson, Jessica Morgan, Levi Gonzalez, Rebecca Brooks, Meg Wolf and others. She is currently dancing with Felicia Ballos, Robbinschilds, and Nancy Garcia. She teaches Alexander Technique lessons regularly in Manhattan and is a teaching staff member of the Balance Arts Center.


EMILY HUBER
Emily Huber is a Brooklyn resident and owner of Seeing Through The Hands Studios, a women-owned business in Prospect Heights. A New York State Licensed Massage Therapist, Nationally Certified in Therapeutic Massage and Bodywork, Certified Yoga Teacher and Certified Personal Trainer built her business to respond to women with pre- and postnatal fitness goals, the LGBTQ community, Fat Positive community, mothers of young children, and working women, singers, dancers and performers. Emily loves her trade and truly feels blessed to be able to serve her community!



CAROL PATTI
Carol Patti draws upon her 17 years as a clinical nutritionist, 10 years in social work and 5 years as a leadership coach to offer an integrative mind-body-spirit approach to nutritional healing. While teaching clients about sound nutritional principles and how to make better food choices, Carol also helps them to look at how their food and eating habits relate to other aspects of their lives. She works with the individual metabolic needs of her clients and integrates alternative testing and nutritional supplementation as needed. Carol's nutritional background includes 13 years at the HIV and Family Practice outpatient clinics of Lutheran Medical Center and 3 years at Strang Cancer Clinic. She is also certified by the Hays Research Institute in the use of their Emotional Competency Inventory (ECI) which she uses in her coaching practice. She is trained in leadership coaching through Star Factor Coaching for whom she has been working since 2004. Carol currently maintains a private practice at Dr. Andrea Auerbach's Family Wellness Center in Park Slope, Brooklyn.


VEHIA WALKER
Vehia Walker is a graduate of Purchase College where she majored in dance. It was in college that Ms. Walker discovered Pilates. She began to use the method as a way to strengthen her body and mind. Ms. Walker is a certified Pilates Instructor, dancer, and is currently studying at the Natural Gourmet Institute.

OF THE AIR STUDIOS

provides private and group classes in the Alexander Technique, singing and songwriting.

ALEXANDER TECHNIQUE

The Alexander Technique is a mind and body re-education method perfectly suited for modern lifestyles. It is often a challenge

to conceive of our bodies moving in a seamless flow while negotiating daily responsibilities, compromised environmental conditions and other life stresses. The Alexander Technique addresses this by bringing awareness to ones body, thoughts and habits. With a certified Alexander teacher a student experiences a light, gentle touch and verbal directions to help build this consciousness.

The process of paying attention throughout daily movements and specific skills can help us cultivate awareness where new choices are revealed for improved movement flow and relief of pain.

Who is it for?

The Alexander Technique is for all those interested. It can benefit anyone sitting at a computer or carrying groceries just as much as a pregnant woman or cabinet maker or gardener. Additionally any caliber of athlete or artist (actors, dancers, musicians, painters, etc.) will find this approach toward learning and studying themselves particularly beneficial to their craft.

A brief history of F.M Alexander

F.M Alexander, the originator of the Alexander Technique, was a Shakespearean actor from Australia who suffered from chronic voice loss. In an effort to get to the root of his problem he began to study his own movements and habits. He discovered that his specific ailment in fact reflected the condition of his whole body. His found his recurring state of tension in all activities was shortening and tightening his neck. It was this action which lead him to uncover that all people generally lack awareness of their own habits of thought and movement which prove troublesome in the coordination of one’s entire being.



MUSIC
Of The Air Voice

Of The Air Voice classes work from the point

of view that improving your mental and physical coordination can improve the sound of your voice. Through your voice, in speech and in song, you reveal a map of your body.

W.A. Mathieu wrote in The Harmonic Experience "sung harmony is embodied intelligence". In order to know the material you are performing or practicing, your body has to know it as well as your mind. Therefore the integration of body, mind and spirit help to achieve greater musical expression. Classes foster awareness and voice exploration to create more possibilities for different moods, sonic landscapes, and the ability to communicate more clearly. In addition to Western vocal exercises combined with improvisation and wakefulness, Of The Air Voice classes help you to build your own individually tailored daily warm-up routine and repertoire.

Of The Air Song

Render your own voice and learn to craft a song. Of The Air Song classes expose students to both melodic and lyrical dimensions of songwriting. Through exposure to various writing techniques and styles, students learn to identify their own voice in music and develop their own writing process. The art of crafting lyrics, melody and harmony is taught using improvisation, listening and reading. No instrument proficiency necessary.

Of The Air Song classes are offered to beginning and intermediate level songwriters.



PYENG THREADGILL BIO
Pyeng Threadgill was first introduced

to the Alexander Technique through a

voice and wellness workshop taught by Daria Fain and multi media artist Lynn Book. Many months later Ms Threadgill decided to join a training course in the Alexander Technique with Ann Rodiger at Balance Arts. At the time Ms Threadgill was pregnant and found the technique not only improved her singing and breathing but also eased the physical demands of her pregnancy.

Pyeng Threadgill is a graduate of Oberlin College where she majored in music. While in college Pyeng maintained a strong interest in movement and music and began to delve into meditation and the healing arts. Additionally, Pyeng has trained in the ear re-training method called the Tomatis Method. Ms Threadgill is an AmSAT certified teacher of the Alexander Technique, professional vocalist, composer and recording artist.
Ms Threadgill's approach toward teaching is to find a clear and inviting way that people can experience the concepts of the Alexander Technique and apply them to all activities.


RATES

$80 for 1 hr lesson

(First two lessons for the price of one)

Group rate upon request

info@oftheairstudios.com

Hosted By:
Pyeng Threadgill

When:
Saturday, March 28, 2009

Where:
LES Girls Club
56 East 1st St (btw. 1st & 2nd Ave)
New York
10003

Description:
Pyeng Threadgill & The LES Girls Club present “Founding Mothers”, honoring Native American singer/songwriters & Womens’ History Month

Click Here To View Event

Hosted By:
Pyeng Threadgill

When:
Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Where:
ZINC BAR
82 West 3rd Street (New Location)
NEW York
10012

Description:
Pyeng Threadgill at Zinc Bar

Click Here To View Event

Part of my most recent project entitled "Portholes To A Love & Other Short Stories" is a group of songs all based on short stories of world renowned authors.

August 19th (Brooklyn, NY)

Maybe it's just me, or it has to do with the fact that I went to a private school (which my parents worked really hard to get me into and keep me in) but there was always a part of learning that felt outside of me. Like there on a a desk several feet away from me were my textbooks and I was sitting in my chair quite separated from the lesson. It was kind of as if math and science were "the other" and then there was me, my life, my one bedroom studio apartment on 6th street with my washer and dryer on Avenue "A". My mother in her typical mix of hand painted tops and Western inspired skirts with high heels and not so bashful hair. The purple streaks in the front, loose cornrows, short Afro all seemed too loud for private school...(though I was into the purple streaks). My life was riding against traffic on 2nd Avenue with my friend Cavana. Each of us wearing one roller skate so that we could both get a ride and pooling together our change to buy pizza, play video games and flirt with the employees (twice our age) at Prana Health Food Store. School was always fun to me but my life didn't appear to be in the novels we read in English or the verb conjugations in Latin. And until late high school I never thought that my life would appear legible for others to see.

Looking back maybe that's part of why I chose to to finally rebel my senior year. Though I never did a complete 360 like Sandra "Beautiful Self" who turned 5%, a smaller sect of Islam. Instead I chose to date, break up with, fall in love and spend way too much time with a heroin addict, guitarist named Matteo (lets just call him that for privacy sake). Matteo introduced me to bell hooks and James Baldwin and all those philosophies within. He was the one who really made a stand for Chaka Khan in all her glorious beauty and not so bashful hair. For all the emotional repair I had to do, somehow I am still grateful he was there. The first man of color (non family member, ) I really identified with and who I think identified with me even though he was 7 years older. Somehow it seemed he understood the varying lineages of Blackness that were my home community; mixed together with unorthodox, self identified artists usually of no religious persuasion and the white kids from my school who were mostly Jewish and wealthy and the more religious sometimes more conservative mix of Black people who were my extended family. I think he got it or at least I felt as if he did. And maybe it was because my struggles within those worlds echoed something of his own struggle being half Trinidadian and half Polish, loving Black women and white men. My life probably felt much less complicated.

The strange thing is nowadays when I have the privelege to sit down and practice or compose or just listen to a good performance I had, I get a touch of that same rush I felt when I first started reading Cornel West or Toni Morrison. Something similar and much deeper. That I am a part of the whole. Even while I was always surrounded by music, something about it or some part of it always felt separate or intangible. Music fluctuated back and forth from being the domain of someone else...some other musician, or my father's possession, or at Oberlin I felt the conservatory was working very hard to convince me that the music I called music was indeed NOT real music. The hubcaphone my father invented, the african instruments my mother used to adorn the apartment, the songs she sang (and I memorized) with The Urban Bush Women documenting the emotional tide of Black Women for hundreds of years, the improvisations of Jeanne Lee and Amina Claudine Meyers, the flute I practiced and then stopped, the Jazz choir I sang with in middle and upper school and loved, the indoor and outdoor downtown experimental theatre, the jazz concerts at The Village Vanguard and Sweet Basil which I fell asleep to night after night in my mother's lap with my head under the table, rattling glasses and cigarette smoke overhead was not real music.

Thank goodness we are not written in permanent marker. Because now everytime I listen to and play my own music, I create myself on the page. I can sketh, define, and fill myself in. It's not that the music is now mine so much as I am in it. I often fantasize about teaching music or kids to learn music in this way. If only it could be presented from day one that they are on the page. Because if you are in the book you're reading, then you want to know who all the other characters are who came before you and who are standing beside you. The world feels large and small, tangible and inspiring and the record keeps playing and playing and playing.

July 30th (Driving to Rome)

We have a running joke (in addition to Yanni – you would have to be there for me to explain – he's been following us everywhere we go) that this band is the most socially inappropriate group and that's what makes us the most musically appropriate. I'll spare you the social details but last night's show was bangin'! We performed outdoors at a small square in Umbertide, Italy. The audience was medium in size but eventually grew to maybe a couple hundred. I even hear that LIAM NEESON was in the crowd with his family. Unfortunately, I didn't get to meet him. Kevin decided to give the crowd a lesson during his solo on our encore of "Dead Shrimp". Friends of friends from New York came, I found out that Enrico and I both have daughters named Luna and they are a year apart. So sometime in the next year we've determined that they will have to meet. And at the very end of "An Orbit of Skirts" just as Evan prepared his sticks for his final rhythmic touches, an unusual white insect leapt from his cymbal and flapped it's wings fading into the night.

Ciao Italy. Hope to see you again in the fall!

July 30th (Driving to Rome)

Enrico, one of the Italian promoters, mentioned a quote last night. Someone (he never mentioned the name) said "musicians get paid to travel, not make music". On the one hand it seems like the scaffolding of the music industry is collapsing and we're mostly glad for it. Because at the same time new music is flooding the dam, laying creeks, rivers and all kinds of new irrigation. Only I wonder how will we be able to continue in this profession when we are charged to pack a suitcase and fuel prices are rising much faster than our opportunities to make a living.

July 28th (late day en route to Umbria, Italy)

I'm not homesick yet...but I am bedsick. Day after day on planes, cars, and trains one starts to crave being horizontal.

July 28th (Arbatax, Italy)

In the delirium of being on tour, it's often hard to take a step back and remember the beauty you are experiencing. Winding on a road that looks like a line a kid drew during class, we swerve from side to side staring out over the sea in Sardinia. Where in the US would I get a chance like this? To play my music on a stage reminiscent of Woodstock, facing the rippling Mediterranean with seating available for hundreds of people. I can hardly take it all in now so I have to write it down. Even if audiences and the music industry in the US never tune their listening to Indie-Jazz-Pop-World-Folk-Funk-Classical, I hope I can continue working like this abroad.