What are you?

Well, that’s a loaded question to begin December, isn’t it?

Instead of starting with why, today let’s start with what? What are you? What is that voice? What are you doing with it?

Yes, you are an athlete. Yes, you are a complex combination of both tangible and intangible processes. Yes, you are a being that incorporates the body, the mind, the spirit, the emotional, the intellectual, the logical, the illogical, and more into the process of being an artist and a singer.

You share this with with every other singer, yes, but the universality of it all creates individuality and uniqueness.

Perhaps this is the crucial realization: The realization that all voice is physical & neurological and begins there allows for a starting point. The what of you tends to be non-judgmental, and open to discovery. The what doesn’t feel. It doesn’t react. What tends to be more external and action-oriented. It can keep us from spiralling when we get too involved in our thoughts, in our neurosis, in our self-sabotage, in our delusion, in our frustration.

The what of voice must begin with tangibility. The universality of this tangibility allows us to see and inhabit and accept the individuality of it. A paradox perhaps, but not.

We all have a larynx, cords, soft tissue, resonators, muscle, fascia, mucosa, ligaments, membranes, bones and the list goes on. We all have those parts. That is what gives us structure as a body, in order to house the voice. Yet, we all sound so different, and SHOULD sound different. The tangible parts are different in size, in thickness, in angles, in density, in elasticity, in length, in range of motion for each of us.

Instead of trying to “sound like”, what if we started to wonder and explore what we actually are made up of? What does the size of my larynx indicate? What kind of cords do I innately have? What have I done to develop them? What do they allow me to do now? What are the possibilities?

What are my resonators shaped like? What does my bone structure indicate?

I don’t know about you, but the “what” ignites a fresh way of approach for me. And these are just the tangibles!

The magic truly happens when the tangibles meet the intangibles - breath, vibration, intention, intellect, spirit. The complexity can be overwhelming and it can take over to a point where the clarity is lost.

Stay clear. Come back to WHAT. Come back to ACTION and focus on those tangibles. You share those tangibles uniquely with other singers, and the community is vast and deep. You are connected. We are connected. And at the same time, those tangibles of what are uniquely yours, as they learn to mingle with your intangibles.

Keep exploring the what. See how it changes your responses, your gut, your focus and how that informs your action of singing, of story-telling, of simply vibrating through your day!

with fondness & fierceness,

Through Cyber Monday!!  Great for the artist/singer/performer in your sphere!