Energy and Direction of singing
- direction of energetic motion
we have talked about the voice in a mechanical sense,
about the activity of the pelvis giving impulse to any
motion, the diaphragm that directs the flow of the
breath and the soft palate that controls the sound and
the shape of the vowels -
and we talked about sound as vibration.
you can experience and observe functions with a simple
exercise like gargling and you can use this exercise
to find out how far back in the head sound is being
produced and balanced (on the airflow, on the water)
not only can you gargle sounds, but you can shape them
into vowels. you gargle an ‘oooo’ and an ‘oh’ or an
‘ah’ and you can observe how the soft palate changes
its shape for each vowel.
like a juggler you can juggle water in your mouth and
the diaphragm and pelvic diaphragm serve as juggling
hands - the diaphragm serves as a source of air that
blows and juggles a sound like a ball on its top. the
pelvic diaphragm is responsible for the strength of
the flow, like a motor below the stream of air.. and
the soft palate defines the colour and shape of the
‘ball that is being juggled’.
you can hum with your teeth against a cup and you can
make some observations about sound as vibration and
the resonating space. you can observe that in order to
produce a flowing sound your body needs to be
relaxed. that energy in the sound and body can only
increase from a lower level, from a relaxation.
let’s talk about energy now.
when i am thinking about energy, thinking of it
connected to any sounds we make with our voice, i begin by focussing on the newborn baby. a baby can scream for a very long time without getting hoarse. screaming is an essential
function for the baby’s survival. there is not much
more we can do when we are babies. we sleep, we suck,
we have the grabbing reflex and we scream.
we use our energy when necessary. nothing holds us
back from expressing our desires and relaxing when
necessary .
because the baby cannot communicate by going over to
someone it gets everything by sucking, by taking things into
itself.
from this perspective it is very important that a baby
puts everything it grabs into its mouth — it sucks on
things in order to experience, in order to get to know
its world better..
when i tried to figure out the vocal functions of a
baby, i made a very interesting observation: the
screaming is not much different from the sucking.
the sucking creates an ideal space from which to use
our energy within the body, to use the vocal apparatus in a perfectly balanced way.
i observed a baby crying in a restaurant for around 4
minutes. no other communication in the room was
possible. the infant was very very loud. as soon as
the mother gave the child what it wanted, a pacifier,
there was immediate calm as if the crying had never
existed. there was no sign of exhaustion in the little
one. this was remarkable and i thought that the
crying, which immitates sucking, is the most organic
way to use your (vocal?) energy.
the baby’s crying also transported all sorts of
feelings. none of its feelings was blocked. it was not
inhibited or not yet educated to suppress its
feelings.
try it out: suck on your thumb and make a sound. when
you suck it will be a motion that has its focus
inside, not outside. you will probably notice that the
diaphragms — soft palate, diaphragm and pelvic
diaphragm — go into an active mode. as you suck in
it will be a little strange to bring a sound outside,
you may feel a bit devided doing that. as you have the
thumb in your mouth an mmmh will be an adequate enough
sound to make. you may see that our communication
still contains the sucking sounds when we listen to
someone (mmh, mmh, huhmhuhm) or when we find something
very yummy (mmmmmh). we also tend to make sounds with
mm when we awake from sleep, when we don’t want to get
up, when we reject something with just a sound.
if we accept that crying imitates sucking, then
spreading the mouth into a cry, into an open vowel is
not primarily an opening to the outside space but
rather to the body inside, a pull into the body in
order to support sound from its whole.
when i gave a workshop in taegu, korea, i listened to
all the participants on the first day in order to get
an impression of how they use their voices. then i
worked with one after the other, addressing their
individual vocal problems and trying to improve them
by sharpening their awareness of the relationship
between body and voice. the other participants watched
and listened.
there was one woman who pressed her voice a lot when i
first heard her, but one day later in the course as we
began working she sounded wonderful and the voice had
turned full and relaxed. i was very surprised and
asked her what she had been doing. she said, ‘i
listened to you and at home i tried to sing behind my
back rather than in front of me. it was much more
comfortable. ‘
she had improved her vocal technique by just changing
her perspective. her main problem was gone. this is
not a wonder, but the simple fact that she allowed her
voice and energy to work organically.
the body is a spacial instrument, and it is very hard
for our linear thinking to imagine that we gain energy
as we spend it. we don’t merely give out or press
out. although the word ‘express’ may suggest that a
certain pressure to the outside is involved, we do
express everything that we say or do primarily to our
inner ear, to our own understanding.
and when we hear somebody saying something only to the
outside we can hear that he doesn’t think about what
he says, that he is not involved in what he is saying
and sounds a bit uninvolved–like from a machine. it
does not exite us and is actually very boring. someone
who excites us with his speech or voice is always
interested in what he says. he explores what he says
as he lets us explore what he says. this is the realm
of experience and discovery that he opens. it is not
only a resonant space of sound but also one of
understanding and learning, an energetic space. (a
very effective space.)