Is my voice being heard?
There is a fundamental need to have our voices heard, for our physical survival as well as our mental and emotional health. The voice is very well placed for this communication sitting nicely between the head and the heart, in the throat chakra.
From the first cries of a baby, the primal voice is expressed and develops into a variety of sounds including laughing, wailing and to a degree chanting. These sounds come from a primal human need and engage mind and body in a unified process. Through stress and toxicity of everyday life our voices start to suffer and it is all too easy to detach from the integrity of this important relationship. So it would follow that a harmonious relationship between head and heart should be acknowledged and nurtured at all times.
If there is an imbalance, the good news is that it nearly always manifest in the sound, so if you are fortunate enough to have a teacher with a good pair of ears, these issues can be dealt with effectively using specific exercises. So, the first question to ask is whether your voice is in balance, the second and perhaps most important question is how to bring the voice into balance.
In order to get a sense of what that balance feels like, we can ask some simple questions such as: Does my voice feel easy when I speak ? Does my voice tire easily when I use it ? Do I sometimes strain to put my point across ? Do I feel that nobody hears me ? Do I think that my opinion is not worth any airtime ? Does my natural rhythm of speech change when I’m in conversation? Does my pitch rise when I’m speaking?
Our sound is produced through a complex web of muscles that have significant direct and indirect attachments to other parts including the tongue root and the jaw. It’s worth noting that over 50% of our communication passes through the jaw. As everything is inter-connected, developing a simple routine of awareness through movement of these areas is the first step to a healthy and expressive sound.
The breath is the next consideration, being the fuel of our sound survival. It has its own rhythm which must be allowed to flow evenly and eventually with great control.
Adding ‘singing’ sound should now be an easier step, but here we can also get tangled up with old programmes and affectations. As soon as we switch onto the act of ‘singing’ or ‘performing’, we often dis-connect from the breath and our neutral posture. This happens in amateur and professional singers. The result is that we are no longer a conduit for the composer’s music and hence cannot communicate to our audience. An example of this is when over-articulation contorts the facial features in an attempt to be expressive, another is pushing the voice beyond its limits and ultimately creating the dreaded wobble. Both these examples are a result of the heart and head running on different tracks. In contrast, when you hear a voice that is coming from the neutral posture with awareness of mind and body, you then have a singer who can communicate from the soul.
An harmonious relationship between the head and the heart is the first step in discovering your fullest, most expressive and powerful voice. When all those elements come into play, there is a wonderful creative space waiting for you.