Voice, Singing & Alexander Technique lessons/ workshops in London, East Sussex, Brighton Hove
Continued from previous post...
TIME FOR A CHANGE !
Find a place where you will not be disturbed for fifteen minutes. Tapping into the full potential of your singing voice will require a quality of self acceptance. Any sound that you make is going to be unconditionally acceptable! Here are my three golden rules for singing classes:
- Any sound that anyone else makes is unconditionally acceptable.
- Any sound that you make is unconditionally acceptable.
- Remember rule 1. and rule 2. !
Application of these three rules leads to a reduction in the fear reflexes that interfere with easy singing. And this leads to increasing playfulness, curiousity and, as anyone who looks after young children knows, a continually developing sense of discovery...
Vocalising and moving from restriction.
Take a couple of minutes to remember a time when you were feeling a bit pressured and restricted. Use all of your senses to recall and relive this memory as fully as possible... what you were seeing and hearing around you and what you were feeling.
Now look around the room. Does it look any less bright or friendly than before? Walk around the room now. Do you feel taller or shorter? Do you feel wider or narrower? Are you breathing freely or are you holding your breath? Is your walking lighter or heavier? Smoother or jerkier? Easier or tenser? Indicate with your hands how wide or narrow your "personal space" seem to be.
Vocalise an "aahh" sound. How easy or difficult was it to vocalise?
Vocalising and moving from ease.
Move around the room and stretch to dissipate the effects of the last experiment.
Use all of your senses, seeing, hearing and feeling, to remember a time when you felt on top of the world. Stay fully in this place for a while longer and allow yourself to take two or three easy deep breaths with the emphasis on the outbreath. Let this feeling spread through your entire body.
Look around the room again. Is it any brighter or friendlier now? Walk around. Do you feel shorter or taller? Narrower or wider? Are you breathing freely? How large is your "personal space" now? Is your walking heavier or lighter?
Vocalise an "aahh" sound. Notice in what way your voice feels and sounds different from the first experiment.
Which state, cramped or expanded, would you prefer to be in when singing?
Congratulations! You have just taken the first step in liberating your body and freeing your voice. "Embodying" a pleasant experience while vocalising a vowel sound, simple as it sounds, can make a real difference to your voice.
Continued in next post...
