Vitality of Voice (2)
June 20, 2010
This is what David Hasselhoff said of singer Kevin Skinner*, a contestant of ‘America’s Got Talent’ competition.
“There’s no reason to move your lips unless you tell a story. Everybody was moved because he was telling a story, and you could tell it was coming from his heart, and it touched everybody.
I don’t know what he did at the end of that song but it went right through me.”
That’s how I feel about our use of voice.
Why waste our breath, except to summon the most brilliant and moving feelings to come from the core of our being? – and to cause this response from those who listen to us.
Why speak, unless we wish to sense golden notes dancing in the air?
Why have a voice, unless it’s to explore and express the music that we hear through every part of us?
As I scribble these thoughts, I strive to understand more of what really happens when we tell a story.
Magic happens. I slip into the moment of connection and feel strong and powerful, unaware of thoughts, but aware of movement. I listen to that which has no language for my ears to decipher but yet I am able to discern the subtleties of the energy. It waits for me and I am ready to begin.
It seems to me that I’m not trying to do something. Rather I’m growing an awareness of what’s possible. An awareness of what is in me right now. An awareness of communing with more of life, simply from the intention of communing.
People talk about coming from the heart, yet this connection (of communing with life) takes place at an undefined space that has an undetermined dimensionality. In fact, through my experiences of singing, the richness of sound that can be produced depends on how relaxed you can be about giving yourself totally to the singing experience. So the whole of you is engaged.
The first notes come … announcing a story that ripples the field of consciousness, engaging the sensitivity of those who also know how to commune. And for those who hear the musical notes directly, they will also be touched by the power of the emotion of their own stories.
* America’s Got Talent 2009 competition winner – http://www.mahalo.com/kevin-skinner
Image source: www.123RF.com
Musicality of Language
May 24, 2010
My reason and inspiration for writing the ‘Vitality of Voice‘ article came from a friend’s complaint about the poverty of (spoken) language in general – that it doesn’t give enough scope for expression – in fact, the term ‘monotonous’ was used. I replied that we can bring passion and fire into a language, but how we convey our sometimes impossibly deep feelings is what makes it zing.
Later, I realised there’s more that wants to be unfolded, and so here is this article.
First, I’ll mention what’s already known. There are many tonal languages, such as Vietnamese and Mandarin, where a change in tone changes the meaning of a word. Languages have so many rules that require us to perfect our listening and speaking skills, and cultivate a desire and passion for tuning in to what’s being pronounced. This is the side of language that we already familiar with. But from here on I’m going to write about less familiar territory.
I want to bring attention to the inherent music that’s in us and how we can shape our lives with it.
There is sound everywhere: echoing inside our bodies, thrumming in the air, resonating through the vastness of the cosmos: endless motion. As we idly listen, we can perceive structured rhythm and make sense of what we hear. How can we do that unless it’s a language that we are attuned to and already know?
Many people I have talked with say that expressing their real truth (their own music) is a difficult thing to do. It’s like asking them to connect to a part of themselves that they sense is there but to which (they will say) they have no access. Oh, that the juiciness of life is so easily leached away through all sorts of rules and conditions that diminish originality, authenticity and radiant living.
So how can we connect to our whole being?
Well the following suggestions have worked well for many people.
- Let go of all that you know and think that you know about yourself.
- Stop trying … just that … stop trying.
- Let go of all the questions that you want to ask.
- Allow yourself to expand and fill the cosmos, both energetically and in consciousness.
- Now enter into the state where time and space don’t exist.
- Breathe deep and then hum, whistle, sing, tone, or make any sound at all that feels right.
- In the play of listening to your sound, sense that you are it.
- Continue to play until it dawns in you that you are the creative force. That you are shifting your physicality into alignment with your total being.
Drop any thoughts about trying to put the power of your feelings into existing words. Words will come as you allow your mouth to form the shape of each sound that presents itself. You feel into what wants to be sounded and you let it happen without any censure.
Forget about trying to put a meaning on what you wish to convey. The sounds will carry many meanings in textured overlays. For when you speak with your whole being, it’s as if you gather many energies together then provide an outlet for them.
As my good friend Jane says,
“All languages are spoken on many levels and layers, so we listen on many levels and layers. That is, we listen with all of us – our beingness if you like.”
One of the secrets to doing this well is to be in a state of total unconcern that you have nothing prepared. This allows you to bypass any preconceived thoughts and ready-made phrases that can detract from what really wants to be said.
Now when you go to speak, you are pushing yourself to allow the miraculous to be achieved.
[ to be continued ]
Vitality of Voice
May 16, 2010
Voice, as a yardstick for personal attunement, has fascinated me for years. At age 9 I excelled in my class when it came to singing lessons. It was something that I didn’t have to work at – I just opened my mouth and out came sound, pure and vibrant, musical and in pitch. I knew how to do something with my voice that others couldn’t match. Believe me, the other boys sounded like frogs. 
A few years later, when I joined a church choir, I was elated, for it was my natural element to sing. I loved the singing experience – even though I never really mastered the technical side of reading music at sight. I just listened to the music being played and then I had the flow of it inside me. I understood how to shape my body to produce the desired sounds. And I knew that my love for singing took me to a place that nothing else could match.
It wasn’t until I reached my 40th birthday though that my life radically changed. I left my job, friends, family, hometown and everything that had defined me, to embark on a new path in which my old world no longer had a place. Something called deeply to me, reminding me of my cosmic origin.
Through a series of transformations, my voice took on greater depth, resonance, and dimensionality. I discovered that my singing gave people special experiences; sometimes awakening in them past life memories from which they could know themselves differently. The inherent power in the songs allowed people to attune to a knowing of what they needed to embody in this life. For me, it was important that my talent develop naturally, that I not determine how or what to sing, because the effect was possible only when I surrendered to the singing.
Over time I learned that -
- I could attune to and sing the frequencies that people needed for the next stages of their growth
- I could assist people to align to and embody their greater beingness
- I could express the consciousness of anything
This is a glorious on-going exploration with voice, frequencies, energies and physicality, that I am just touching the fringes of here. But I want to add to the store of our knowledge about voice and the expression of our beingness. I did some surfing and came across this interesting website – http://www.vocalfocus.com/voice.htm – where the author presents some great ideas, such as -
- a vocalist uses the entire body to sing
- the human voice is unique in that it is an instrument that is built as it is “played”
- the voice is meant to be a communicative device closely connected to our spiritual selves
- by expanding your voice, you expand yourself and the range of emotions you are able to express.
From experience I know that to sing really well, you need to be totally relaxed, to forget in fact that you are using a body. When you sense that the room in which you are singing can be an echo chamber for the sound, then your body naturally lines-up to facilitate and accommodate that, ensuring that extra dimensionality is produced. It’s not just that the whole body is used; it’s more like lining up body, air, space, and all other elements to a particular frequency or current of energy. Everything is assembled uniquely and appropriately for each “performance” to sound right.
The origin for a song can come from anywhere:
from the deep eternal places where the power is raw, the song unformed and open to our shaping of it;
from the air around us, where the vibrations are lyrical and almost dancing with light;
from regions of space where the wavelengths are sometimes long and heavy in vibration;
or from places where our inner ears pick up sounds that are fast and seemingly impossible to render – and yet something of the power from all these places of origin can be conveyed through the subtle tonality of voice.
Voice is a function in my world for the conveyance of energy. It stirs people into action; makes them feel present and alive; and gives a sense of connection and wholeness by virtue of what is resonated in them. It provides meaning without the need to parse each word. For voice is more than the simple expression of intention – so many things go into the mix.
The vitality of voice gives language melody and rhythm: allows something to come alive in us. It’s more than an ability to shape sound, play with its frequency, alter volume and pitch. There’s the shaping of our physicality with the sounds that we produce – for we are constantly vibrating and taking in frequencies that aid our growth and development. To get the right mix of frequencies is a little like planning meals. It’s not an unknown fact that we need sound in our lives but the quality of that sound is important. Therefore the quality of our speaking, singing and intonations must equate with our intentions for being the very best that we can be, for producing the very best that we can.
Now we see the importance of speaking true, of giving voice to what we really feel. For we literally create our reality and physicality through our use of voice.
Having said all of the above, I can now present my version of the vitality/vibrancy of voice -
- a vocalist uses the entire cosmos to sing
- a voice is a creation that draws from many experiences of possibilities in which the singer, the song, the intention, the expression, and the creative power that is embodied in the presentation … is a seamless totality
- a voice connects us to everything and we connect everything through voice
- by expanding your voice, you expand the possibilities of life.
So, the invitation is out. What are you using your voice for?