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YOUR
REAL VOICE - the vocal ezine for real people
May
16, 2006
#24
FEATURE EDITORIAL
I Have Found the Answer!, Part 3
Using body energy as a TOOL! For this Part 3 article, I will give
you a step-by-step practical outline for HOW to use what we learned
about relaxation in the last two articles. Today we are working
on the practical application of all of it, with the goal of using body
energy to do the work of our singing. This is the real way to
STAY relaxed while singing once we finally GET relaxed.
Here's a reminder from Part 2:
"We are not used to having to FEEL this energy, we just use it a lot
without noticing it. By being able to feel it through stillness
and relaxation, you are able to tap into the energy source that
actually makes your voice work. Your sound is made by air, but
it's your body energy that allows you to sing by powering the whole
thing."
If you have done all the exercises and experiments from Part 1 & 2,
you now know what your body energy is through experience, but you still
may not know exactly HOW to get it to "do" your singing for you.
Having you know, totally through experience, how to do this is the aim
of this final article. Since we are always out for more
result with less work, I consider it the ultimate "no work" result to
have my body's own energy system do the singing while I just stand
there and emote and put my focus on communicating, rather than
working. My goal for today is to leave you able to do that in
your own voice, provided that you have done the exercises up to this
point. If you haven't, be a good student and go back and DO them!
Evan, a favorite student of mine who is a wonderfully funny but tense
guy, is the sample subject for how to do this. He is one of two
singers in a somewhat-rock-ska band, so his work is very high energy,
and he has a tendency to push and over-sing to try to match the sound
of the rest of the band. YIKES! Dangerous
stuff! Evan has a gorgeous voice when he is able to
relax, so my goal for his lesson was to leave him able to fully relax
and tap into his body energy to sing, because that's when his voice is
at its best. If he could use his body energy to power his voice,
he would be able to stop over-singing and use his energy to get the
work done, leaving him free to just be present to the words and what he
wants to communicate. That's really where the high-energy needs
to be: in his communication and not forced out through a tense body and
throat.
Evan and I did a ten minute relaxation session before he sang, which
included the exercises from Parts 1 & 2 (plus a few other
techniques which will be included in the new Tune Up! upgrade
package!) After the relaxation work, I taught him to sense into
his body energy (see Part 2 article). When he first tried to sing
using it, of course, what showed up? THINKING! "How do I do
that?" He got stuck right back in his head again and started
pushing the voice, trying harder to get it to work.
Remember Katherine from Part 1? This was the mantra:
"STOP thinking and you create the space to relax.
Relaxation happens in the body first, and the mind second." This
was exactly what it took for Evan to tap into the energy and sing with
it. He had to create the space of "no thinking" in his mind
("vacuum out your brain" from Part 1 article) and get his thoughts to
calm down before he could get aware of feeling his body. When he
got stuck thinking, it was both about how to do the technique and how
to sing the song "right" while trying to do the technique, so I just
took the song away. Eliminate the source of the problem
first! Just make sound from the state of relaxation. I had
Evan hum lightly to get sound going. While humming, his only goal
was to feel his body energy. He hummed like this for a few
moments and was able to completely relax again while still making
sound.
****Good point to interject here**** You must have the experience first
of making sound using body energy as the source before you will trust
in it as a workable technique. Don't overlook the importance of
having the experience in your body first. Keep working on it
until you actually feel yourself doing it. If humming is the
fastest or easiest way to do that, hum until you totally trust that it
works before you try to sing anything with words.
Once Evan felt he could make sound using body energy (rather than work
and force) we tried again to sing the song on the words. He
gradually started working and pushing, but he was able to feel that
happen, so he knew where he was off. This is the good news!
If he could feel that he was off, and knew what to do to get it back on
track, all he had to do was keep putting the steps together to relax
again and gradually keep adding words back into the song until he could
go all the way through the song just using relaxation and body
energy. By the end of the hour lesson, he knew what to do and how
to do it, so his homework practice was to keep integrating the words
back into the song, a line at a time, until he had it.
Simple process for a complex problem! Here are the actual steps,
one by one in order from Parts 1, 2 and 3 to put it all together:
1) STOP thinking and create the space to relax (vacuum out your brain).
2) Feel yourself in your body.
3) Feel what in your body is tense and use sensory awareness or
touch to relax whatever is tense.
4) Feel your breath and focus your attention on it for a few
moments.
5) Focus your attention on feeling your heartbeat. Keep
relaxing until you can feel it.
6) Focus your attention on feeling your blood pump in your
body. Touch a pulse point in your wrist or on your throat if it
helps you to feel it.
7) Feel your energy moving throughout your body. Feel
both the energy that is being used right now, and the potential energy
that could be used if you needed to move.
8) Breathe in and begin to hum or make some other light vocal
sounds.
You want to be aware of the difference between the breath and the
energy. This part is critical! Stay on this step
until you are sure that you are aware of the difference between them
and that you are using energy to do the work.
9) Sing something with words using the breath to make the sound
and the body energy to fuel the breathing and the workload of the
singing.
Keep relaxing as often as you need to to make all of it work together
and flow. If you have done The Emotions Course, you may integrate
all the techniques of that course into this new energy
technique. Remember that you must experience and
trust this new technique before you can road-test it on a song.
Once you have, your ability to communicate the emotions will be
light-years ahead when you add the new "energy singing."
If you haven't done The Emotions Course or the "Seven Secrets" course,
master this energy technique FIRST and then use it to learn a song in
those two courses.
Visit http://www.sing-in-tune.com for links to both of those courses.
If you have any questions about the three-part series of articles on
energy singing, or need any assistance on how to make it work for you
in your voice, email me at info@sing-in-tune.com
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Contact Athena by e-mail at info@sing-in-tune.com
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