Alain Gerber's Interviews with Professor Alfred Tomatis
Alain Gerber's Interviews with Professor Alfred Tomatis — SON Magazine, 1972-1977
A series of fifteen interviews conducted by the journalist Alain Gerber with Professor Alfred A. Tomatis between September 1972 and December 1977, published monthly in the journal SON Magazine (Paris). This exceptional corpus — sixty-seven pages in the digitisation produced by Christophe Besson in June 2010 — covers the whole of Tomatis’s thought: the role of the ear in human development, the integration of modern languages, intra-uterine listening, the maternal voice, audio-psycho-phonological re-education, the musical ear, the singing voice (with the spectrographic analysis of Caruso), dangerous sounds, noise, the right ear, body image, the human voice, the ear as microphone, sounds and colours, and sound architecture. With his lively, precise pen, Alain Gerber gives the reader the direct experience of a dialogue with Tomatis in all his verve and clinical depth.
*Alain Gerber’s Interviews
with Professor Alfred A. Tomatis
Published in the journal “SON Magazine”, Paris
from 1972 to 1977
Digitisation and layout: Christophe Besson, June 2010*
Presentation of the series
From September 1972 to December 1977, the journalist Alain Gerber — also a writer, jazz critic and author of numerous works — held in the monthly journal SON Magazine a remarkable series of in-depth interviews with Professor Alfred A. Tomatis. Fifteen issues followed one another, each exploring a facet of Tomatis’s thought: from the founding role of the ear in human development to the re-education of language disorders, by way of the singing voice, language learning, bodily posture, and sound architecture.
The tone is that of a free dialogue, in which Gerber — an attentive listener and frequent challenger — leaves Tomatis the space necessary to develop his theses without yielding to journalistic simplification. The result is exceptional: these interviews constitute one of the finest living introductions to the Tomatis Method, complementary to the more systematic works (L’oreille et le langage 1963, Éducation et Dyslexie 1971, La libération d’Œdipe 1972, etc.).
Contents of the fifteen interviews
SON Magazine no. 30 — September 1972
The role of the ear in human development
“WE SPEAK WITH OUR EAR”
First interview of the series. Alain Gerber introduces Tomatis: “he soothes the anxious, calms the nervous, balances the unstable, helps in assimilating foreign languages. He combats overwork, stammering, ringing in the ears and spelling mistakes. He makes people sing in tune, he teaches them to read well, he restores failing wills and gives back memory to those who have lost it.” Tomatis traces the origin of his research, his double filiation as ENT physician and son of a singer, his discovery of the parallel between the deafness of singers and that of workers exposed to noise, and the formulation of his fundamental law: “the larynx emits only the harmonics that the ear can hear”.
SON Magazine no. 31 — October 1972
The integration of modern languages
“THE RICHEST BAND, THAT OF THE RUSSIANS”
Why do certain pupils, otherwise brilliant, fail in English? Tomatis explains the learning of modern languages through the acoustic geography proper to each idiom: each language has its characteristic passband. Russian occupies the widest band (from 100 to 12,000 Hz), which explains the Russians’ facility in learning any other language. Auditory preparation under the Electronic Ear makes it possible to re-shape the ear according to the ethnic profile of the target language.
SON Magazine no. 32 — November 1972
Intra-uterine listening
“HOW THE CHILD IS BORN TO SOUNDS”
Tomatis returns to foetal hearing and the pharaonic myth of the origin of language. The child hears from the fourth-and-a-half month in utero; the maternal voice filtered through the amniotic fluids constitutes the first sonic matrix of the being. This interview lays the foundations of intra-uterine therapy under the Electronic Ear.
SON Magazine no. 33 — December 1972
The maternal voice
“THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE, THE NEED TO COMMUNICATE”
Logical sequel to the previous: Tomatis sets out in detail the role of the maternal voice in the genesis of the desire to communicate, and presents the technique of filtering the maternal voice (MV) which he uses in the re-education of autistic children and those with language difficulties.
SON Magazine no. 34 — January 1973
Audio-psycho-phonological education
“How to treat language disorders”
Detailed description of the clinical protocols of Audio-Psycho-Phonology: sonic return, musical, intra-uterine memorisation, sonic birth, prelanguage, language. Why auditory education is more effective than strictly speech-therapy approaches in treating dyslexia, stammering and language delays.
SON Magazine no. 35 — February 1973
The musical ear and the psychological role of sounds
“THE MUSICAL EAR, AN UNCOMMON ASSET”
What is the musical ear? Tomatis distinguishes the receptive musical ear (the capacity to appreciate music) from the expressive musical ear (the capacity to reproduce it). The ideal audiometric curve and the high-frequency zone (2,000-4,000 Hz) determine musical aptitude and psychic tone.
SON Magazine no. 36 — March 1973
The singing voice
“CARUSO BECAME CARUSO BY CHANCE”
Tomatis recounts his spectrographic investigation of Enrico Caruso: from four thousand photographs taken from records ranging from 1898 to 1919, he reconstructs the evolution of the great tenor’s hearing — and discovers that the exceptional quality of the Carusian voice rests on a happy anatomical accident which forces the resonance of the high frequencies.
SON Magazine no. 37 — April 1973
Dangerous Sounds
“AVALANCHE OF DECIBELS: BEWARE, DANGER”
The pain threshold, sound trauma, the occupational deafness of operatic singers (who reach 100 to 120 dB at one metre), of workers exposed to aircraft engines, and of young listeners to amplified music. How the progressive loss of the high frequencies always precedes the degradation of the voice.
SON Magazine no. 38 — May 1973
Noise is necessary to us
“Noise is necessary to us”
Paradox: if certain sounds are dangerous, absolute silence is just as much so. The ear must continually recharge the cortex with electrical potential. Tomatis evokes the experiments of Stanley Jones (complete sensory deprivation leading to schizophrenia) and demonstrates that we need three billion sound informations per second, four and a half hours per day.
SON Magazine no. 39 — June 1973
The right ear: the most important
“The right ear: the most important”
Why auditory lateralisation has major importance. The right ear (in a right-hander) governs voice, language, memory and concentration through the shortest vestibulo-cochlear circuit. Stammering, certain dyslexias and several mood disorders are explained by a defect of lateralisation.
SON Magazine no. 40 — July-August 1973
Sound and body structure
“SOUND MODIFIES THE STRUCTURE OF THE BODY”
Last interview of the first series (1972-1973). Tomatis develops his notion of body image: this is neither photograph nor tactile sensation but the integrated concept of the bodily schema, shaped by neuronal use. How sport, music, driving a car re-shape the body image by integrating the tools, and how audio-vocal education re-harmonises posture, gait, breathing.
SON Magazine no. 71 — May 1976
The human voice, a marvellous instrument
“The human voice”
Resumption of the series after more than two years’ interruption. Tomatis deepens the vocal gesture as a direct extension of listening, and the intimate link between voice and body image: “vocal art engages not merely a voice, but a whole being”.
SON Magazine no. 72 — June 1976
Is the ear a natural microphone?
“Is the ear a natural microphone?”
Critique of the mechanistic conception of hearing. The ear is not a passive sensor but a psychic organ of intentional listening. Fundamental distinction between hearing (passive stimulation) and listening (conscious aim).
SON Magazine no. (?) — 1977
Of sounds and colours
“Of sounds and colours”
Synaesthesias, correspondences between sound frequencies and colours, study of children’s drawings during the course of treatment under the Electronic Ear. Tomatis draws upon the dominant colour of drawings as a psycho-acoustic test at the Language Centre. Exact issue not identified in the digitisation.
SON Magazine no. 88 — December 1977
Sounds and Architecture
“Sounds and Architecture”
Last interview of the series. Tomatis takes up sound architecture: the resonance of places (cathedrals, concert halls, dwellings) and its neurophysiological influence on the occupants. Why certain forms of architecture favour listening and others exhaust it.
Complete document
The whole of the fifteen interviews — sixty-seven pages in all — may be consulted in the digitised PDF dossier:
Note: individual articles will be progressively published on this site, each reproducing in HTML the full text of an interview. This mother-page will then be updated with internal links to each daughter article.
Sources: Alain Gerber, series of interviews with Professor Alfred A. Tomatis, published monthly in the journal “SON Magazine” (Paris), from September 1972 to December 1977 (15 issues, 67 pages in total). Digitisation and layout: Christophe Besson, 4 June 2010. Document drawn from the personal archives of Christophe Besson.