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Find Your Voice
Support and inspiration whether you’re looking to develop your unique voice, navigate the grief and find spiritual support amidst illness or looking for a heart-centered path that will guide you to building the world in which you want to live.
Starting the conversation
I meet countless people who feel they do not have a voice in matters that profoundly affect their lives, whether it is politics, finances, working conditions, family dynamics or all of the above. And an awful lot of people tell me they love singing but don’t do it because they have been shamed about their voice. There’s more than enough shame to go around when it comes to the speaking voice too.
How the voice lands
The voice communicates beyond the narrows of our conscious intention. Every cell in our skin has sound receptors. Every sound resonates in the skeletal system and vibrates in the organs and glands of the body. Vocal tones also stimulate the brain and influence its function. The voice affects the entire physical and energetic system of self and others.
Tuning into Inspiration
For many people, noticing that they are in an inspired state is something of an accident. It seems special, maybe even mystical. For the artist, however, this state is a practice and it is entered into daily.
The World needs your voice.
If we don’t use our voices to capacity, we diminish our own greatness. The ones who rise to fame to be the focal voice of our generation, or culture or religion will also be impoverished. Cultures, religions or regimes that repress their citizens’ voices are impoverished. We need people’s voices and creativity. We need their artistic expressions of curiosity and wonder, of courage and love.
Let’s hear the good, the true, and the beautiful.
Perhaps the gift that matters most in voice teachers is they don’t need weeks, months, or years to hear the beauty in a voice. They perceive it in the first sound a student makes. And perhaps the gift that matters most in human beings is the ability to perceive the radiance in others, to hear some note of goodness even when behavior is insane or inhumane.
It isn’t always technique
We can’t do everything at once, so choose one thing that seems like it might be diminishing your vocal production in a way that technique can’t get at and see if you can find someone to help you. Perhaps you’ll want to work with a personal trainer, a therapist or a coach. Or maybe you’ll just want to go to a movie or take a hike in the woods. Don’t worry about choosing the correct or best element to focus on. Everything will have a gift for you.
We are a singing species
Regardless of the level of musicianship or state of health, curiosity, playfulness, and physical sensation augment vocal quality. When we are moved to sing, it is not so much what we sing or with what degree of artistic sophistication. It is simply that we sing.