Well we finished up another great round of Joy of Singing Group classes last night. Everyone did so well! The focus of the class was on reconnecting to yourself energetically and maintaining that connection while singing. What does that mean?I hear you ask. Well, connecting to yourself energetically basically begins with remembering how to feel into your body. This becomes very easy when we apply a simple meditation designed specifically to help you feel your body and leave your thoughts behind. Through this meditation we are able to feel the body more deeply, and reconnect to ourselves. From here, we are in a good position to begin singing.

Unfortunately most us tend to spend most of our time up in our minds thinking, this can create a numbness in the body. If we sing from here we are denying ourselves the true joy that singing can be.

Over the six weeks everyone one was able to reconnect to themselves and sing from their connection. Not only this, but everyone was able to recognise the difference between how they felt when they were connected and how that changed so drastically when they lost their connection to themselves and how this affected their singing.

When we are connected to ourselves, there is no self-consciousness, or self doubt, fear, or judgment. We are free to simply enjoy the experience of singing. 

From my of  point of view, there was a major difference between the quality of singing and performance when we were able to stay with ourselves as opposed to when we left ourselves energetically. Some of the things that were very noticeable to me were – the tone was much more beautiful and easy to listen to, there was no harshness in the sound, their was no trying or reaching, the notes were more accurate, the upper range easier to achieve, there was no self consciousness, timing and phrasing were much better and the performance was believable. There was a feeling that the words were coming directly from the heart of the person singing without the interference of the head, giving it a very real quality. Really lovely! Very easy and enjoyable to listen to, feel and watch. Good on you guys!

To find out more about Singing Lessons in Melbourne follow this link.

The feed back I’m getting is that the experience of singing is a break from our hectic daily lives, a peaceful time to reconnect that is just for us. A treat. I agree, singing is a beautiful thing to do. When I sing from a connected place, I feel my body soften and open up, my mind becomes more still. I am right here in the moment and nothing else maters. How awesome would it be to feel like this all the time I wonder? Could I walk like this? Talk like this? Work from this feeling? I also feel that when I hear someone else singing from their connection to themselves, that I benefit. It inspires me to reconnect to myself if I have come away.

Once this feeling of reconnection has been achieved of course the trick is to take it with us into the rest of our lives and infuse the everyday things we do with a more gentle and self-loving approach. Easier said than done I hear you say….but it is possible.

With so much going on out there, there is an increasing need to regularly come in from the chaos and reconnect to ourselves by doing self loving things. Cooking, bathing, cleaning and preparing the home, drawing, painting, sewing, reading, and of course singing! All of these things done in a gentle self-loving way can help to reconnect us and help confirm who we are.

Making a connection to yourself is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of having singing lessons, you probably think about the diaphragm and scales. However throughout my time as a professional singer and singing teacher I have found that it is the most important factor.

When people come to see me for lessons they usually tell me a few things they would like to change about their voices. Some common ones are – my voice is weak, I want it to be stronger, I loose my voice a lot, I freak out when I go to sing in front of others, people don’t like my voice, or I don’t like my voice ect. These problems are very common and I have experienced pretty much all of them myself at different times in my career.

On my journey through life and discovering my own voice I have dug a little deeper and come to realise that my voice is an expression of me! My instrument, (my larynx) is inside my body. Therefore, it reflects out what I am inside. How I feel about myself and how I feel in my body is most important and this is what people will hear. How silly is it that we nearly all think we can avoid this?

For example, if we are holding back in our lives, not embracing our full selves, contracting and making ourselves small, concerned about what others think, this will be reflected in our voices and will result in some kind of lessening of the quality of sound we could otherwise produce. If on the other hand we are in the habit of being imposing towards others, trying to get attention, being pushy etc, this will also be reflected out in our expression. All of these things feel disharmonious in the body and will have a disharmonious affect when expressed out as the sound we make.

When we reconnect to ourselves, we experience the beautiful feeling of the body and mind being in harmony with eachother. When this happens the body organises it’s self in a way that feels wonderful. It is no longer a case of the body doing one thing and the mind thinking of something else. We are present, in real time, not anticipating or jumping ahead. We are not concerned about how we sound or what another will think of us, we are in the experience of doing one thing. Singing. When singing is done from this connection, it is virtually effortless, and the experience is truly joyful.

To find out more about Singing Lessons in Melbourne follow this link.