Monday, May 26, 2014

Sing with your WHOLE voice...

happy Memorial Day in the USA (and a regular Monday for the rest of you!)

What is the second half of that sentence?

Sing with your WHOLE voice, with your WHOLE body.

Voice is not just motor/resonance  - but it is the strength, pliability,  elasticity and ATHLETICISM of the body to support it.

If your body is not strong,  you simply cannot support and carry that instrument.  CAN NOT.

Each body - no matter the size,  can be strong.  Your voice resides there - you gotta look after it.  Do not let someone else tell you that you need to "lose weight",  "change your body" - for the sake of the business.  You need to be strong, first and foremost.  You need to be powerful physically in order for your voice to respond to you.

I often tell my singers that the voice itself is always fine.  Where she/he wants to RESIDE is not always ideal.  You know how you feel after a really busy week or 2 and you finally have a day off but your apartment looks like the Good Will has blown up in it,  and the LAST place you want to be is in it, so you leave?  That's sometimes how your voice feels.  It really really REALLY wants to be there,  but dammit if it's not aligned and strong enough,  she/he just refuses to move in.

You can work all you want on "vocal technique" but if your body isn't strong,  and integrated with your breath and your support,  then all the exercises in the world will not save you. 

Your body will save you.

The WHOLE voice, YOUR voice, wants YOUR body. All of it.  Not just a portion.  ALL.

Are you willing to get strong in order to do what you say you want to do?

Strength and integration are what singing are about on a physical level.  We are asking something rather inhuman of ourselves.  We have to train the body with the same focus as those who are the top athletes in their fields.

Forget fat,  forget critics,  focus on YOU.  If you sing,  you must be strong.  If you are not,  you will notice that when you are nervous your "technique" disappears;  your "breath" disappears.

Until you can summon your technique,  your strength,  at will,  you are hoping, wishing & praying.

When your body is strong,  you have a place to reside.  Your voice has a place to reside, to trust and to THRIVE and shape itself in the uniqueness that is YOU.

Sing EVERYTHING with your wholeness - voice, spirit AND BODY!

Your authenticity DEMANDS it.

1 comment:

  1. So grateful for this. I've neglected my body too much this year and my voice suffered greatly.