Why do my voice tips always sound dirty? It's not intentional I swear!

To continue with the singing theme from yesterday: Do you ever struggle to hit those high notes when you're singing? Do you ever get choked-up (literally) with emotion or nerves or just plain tension? Next time, try opening your mouth a little more. See what happens. ;)

In our bigger, better, faster, more society there's an awful lot of jaw clenching going on. You might not even know you do it, but chances are you do. And chances are you can afford to let that tension go, open that mouth just a little further and let that voice out!

In an attempt to regulate my sporadic blogging habit I have decided to start a Tip Of The Week initiative. I'm going to aim to post one every Thursday.

4 October's tip is: Go Deeper!

Now get your mind out of the gutter for a second and think about everything you've ever been told about breath.

Perhaps you know you don't want to breathe into your shoulders (I hope!), perhaps you even breathe into your side ribs, belly or back ribs. That's great! Now I challenge you to go deeper. See if you can breathe into your pelvis, your bum, hey see if you can breathe into your thighs! Try it this week and see what happens.

Of course, there's a catch: I want to hear from you! Who tried it? How did it feel? What did you realize? How did it change your life? All observations are welcome from the revolutionary to the mundane. (But nothing offensive please, this is a family friendly website.) Post your comments below and every week you'll get to see what other people thought and experienced in this little experiment.

So go now. Live life. Breathe deep. And tell me all about it! ;)

Isn't it great when your own advice comes back to bite you in the ass?

I did something very stupid 2 days ago. It really brought a lesson home for me. So of course I thought I'd share.

I'm working box office at the Vancouver International Film Festival this year. It's great fun and it's a nice short shot (2 weeks) of constant work to top up the bank account. I could feel I was getting a cold, I haven't given my body proper rest since some time in July, and I was assigned to my customary box office booth number 1. The mic in this booth doesn't work and it was a point of pride for me that when I was there that wasn't so much of a problem. I know how to use my voice! I up-pitch, I project and I get by. But that's when I'm well. I've come to realize that I allow myself some very bad habits because I know that I'm robust. What's the saying? Strong like bull, smart like lamppost.

Here's the problem. I don't speak with my true voice when I work customer service. I know this is a habit that I have and I usually just say "screw it, I'd rather feel safe thank you". For any readers who haven't done any work with authentic sound or finding your true voice, most people use what I call voice-masks most of the time instead of connecting with their true voice, in regular daily life anyway. It's like a shield, a persona we put on, a role we play. It's useful when I'm dealing with irate customers. The problem is, not using my real voice means I'm "off-voice" which means I'm creating unnecessary strain. Usually, I go home, chill out, relax, reconnect to myself and everything's dandy. A little voice strain can be weathered as long as you keep it contained and warm up (and down) appropriately. Hmph.

Combining being "off voice" with up-pitching and having a sore throat from a cold already is a very bad idea. On top of that I've been so busy and feeling so ick that I haven't done my personal practice in a while either so I really wasn't in good shape to begin with.

After much hoopla  and ado, pacing and nail biting, I am finally sitting down to write about the voice experiment sessions. They have in fact been going really well. Too well. I haven’t felt like there was much to report. Today was only session 4 and we’re nowhere near actual SONG yet! But today was so much fun that my inertia broke…  As it were.

Allie is taking to this work like a fish to water. I love teaching the inexperienced. They have no bad habits that they want to hold on to, no egos established, just a curiosity and willingness to learn. Which is of course the best way to approach any creative task, no matter where you are in your career.

To fill you in quickly, the first 2 sessions were double whammies on free, truthful sound and starting her on the support exercises.

Flashback to day one:

My subject (hehe I feel like I should be wearing a lab coat and goggles) has an interesting approach to the sigh. She’s a very active person and from what I can tell she relaxes very actively too. In our first session I was completely flummoxed. Every sigh was an explosion! The word relax was met with a very deliberate rearranging of her shoulder muscles. A re-organization of tension. Stillness? Yes. Relaxed? Not so much. But she’s learning: she’s doing spinal rolls and we’ve found a breath image that encourages her to use a lot less effort. I’m fortunate in having a student with such an open attitude, Allie is very honest and self-aware about her patterns, it makes her very easy to work with. I’m quite proud of her. :)

Back to present day:

Today’s session blew Allie’s mind. “Who knew learning to sing could be so much like doing mushrooms?” OK, she didn’t actually say that, but it was the spirit of the thing. Up until today we’ve been fairly somber (well, for me), but today we really got up into the body’s natural amplifiers and we were getting all tingly!

Session 3 and 4 have both had a focus on resonance.  Last week was a version of Stewart Pearce’s chakra resonator scale, a big favourite of mine. Very profound. But today, session 4, was the soft palette and the Linklater Resonance scale. Waaay more room for sillyness. And we had an audience! Who shall remain nameless and was a little bit of a surprise to me I won’t lie. It was my first time teaching with an observer in the room. But that’s what you get for doing free sessions as house calls. I’m sure he learned a lot. ;)

I am so excited to keep moving, I could’ve gone all night. But as I left Allie draped herself on the couch in an exhausted flop, so perhaps it was prudent to stop when we did. Stay tuned for more experimental madness!