You and your voice - bff's for life.
You and your voice. A permanent relationship. Stuck for life together through thick and thin. Your voice is your calling card, your brand, the mouthpiece of your soul. Your voice verbalises thoughts for you, stands up for you, can be brave or can cower.
Can you think about a time when you lost your voice due to overuse or illness? Was that frustrating to not be able to communicate or a welcome relief to withdraw verbally from the world for a few hours or days?
When you think about it - our voice is one of the most beautiful and complex relationships we may ever have!
Through my years of teaching and singing all over the world, I have had the honour to meet and work with people of all ages and ethnicities. One of things that never ceases to amaze me, is just how many people dislike their speaking voice, singing voice or both. In a vocal lesson when I say I am going to record your lesson and you need to listen back to learn, grow and practise they are horrified! “What do you mean I have to “listen” to my voice?! I hate my listening to my voice but I do love to sing.” This is very interesting to me, almost like we are just co-existing with the very thing that brings us so much joy - as long as we don’t pay it too much attention.
Don’t get me wrong - I am super aware that how our voice “feels” inside our body and mind can be very different to listening to it back on a recording - BUT this is a necessary part of learning and growth and so I am always encouraging my students to find what they like about their voice FIRST. We can all hear what we don’t like! But what do you like? What surprises you about your voice? Is the tone/sound kind, is it commanding? Do you like how you pronounce certain words? Certain ways you sing - do you get chills (the good kind! lol)? Find what you love and THANK your voice for it. Thank it for serving you day in and day out and only then, move on to what you would like to enhance or change about your voice.
My strong desire and passion is to empower people to love their voice and feel free within it. To understand more about it’s mechanics, it’s technical abilities and then to help you set it free to help do what you need it to! You may want to speak better, to give your next public presentation with more confidence and a better voice quality that carries well and doesn’t tire. You may want to sing vocal gymnastics or go from a thin sound to a rich and full one. Whatever your goal, with work and dedication it can be reached, but it starts with you and your voice getting to know each other, becoming friends and then becoming unstoppable! What would vocal freedom look like for you?
I’d love to hear your thoughts about the relationship you have with your voice, drop a comment below.
Until next time.
Ayo x - Director Joy is in the House School of Music
