Are you communicating or just thinking about communicating?

I just had an enlightening conversation with a student during a phone lesson which helped her make a breakthrough, and thought I'd share it with you.

There are two things we can do when using our voice, and our choice makes all the difference in the way we use our anatomy:

* We can THINK the song or speech. A one way street INWARDS. Examples:

• Songwriter voice (usually lightly singing as we create the song).

• Talking or singing without completely committing, such as occurs when we are not really confident what we are voicing will or should be heard, or when we don't think we can sing the song well.

* We can DO the song or speech. A one way street OUTWARDS. Examples:

• When we are truly committed to communicating and directing a message to someone, without being too concerned whether they hear us or not.

• When we are confidently speaking or singing because we trust our technique and our message.

The problem comes when we do the wrong thing at the wrong time. For instance:

• If we try to power the communication when we are not confident, we may stress our voices and/or we will be communicating weakly or harshly and ineffectively.

• If we sing the song we are in the process of writing too hard, our bodies may not yet have learned to properly support the melody until it has a chance to "learn the dance". Again, this may cause vocal strain.

Alternately,

• If we sing in performance without commitment and confidence, we will not support the voice or open the throat, leading to all kinds of weaknesses and strain.

• If we sing in performance without directing that communication to someone, we will only be internally communicating and that will sabotage the performance. We MUST sing TO someone in such a way that they can understand the words and the meaning behind the words for optimum performance results.

The choice is yours. I find it empowering to know I can choose between these two options! Do you?

Labels: vocal_psychology