The Resonant Voice

A few weeks back, I was drawn to a workshop titled  **"The Resonant Voice -- accessing your deepest truth". The ad drew me in by its reference to three voices -- The Head Voice, The  Heart Voice and The Being Voice. Always curious about new and deeper ways of working with the Voice and connecting the Voice with the Depths of Our Being, I attended. So now I still find myself playing with the ideas presented in that workshop and feeling some remarkable and exciting effects of that work.

**This work is from the "Resonant Voice Practice" developed by Jane Lindsay and Sue Guttenstein of the ADIEWA CENTRE. They can be reached at info@adiewacentre.com.

 What I present here is my own experience and exploration of the work we did (as opposed to explaining the presentation of the facilitator) and this is likely coloured by the extensive vocal work and practice and learning that I have embarked upon in the past few years.

To briefly explain what we did, the facilitator offered us various sounds to use as we toned or sounded through the three voices. The sound emerged as expected -- head voice being a high pitched and narrow sound; heart voice (which aligns with the chest voice, which I have spoken about many times previously) was   deeper and fuller: being voice was again deeper with a feeling of more stability as we toned from the depths of our bellies. Each time, before making the vocal tone or sound, we would settle our awareness into the head, then into the heart and then into the belly. From each of those three places we would then allow the sound to emerge.

Root Chakra: Core of Our Being

Following the toning, we paired up and asked each other a question which we first answered from our head voice, then answered the same question from our heart (or chest) voice and then answered the same question from our being or belly voice. Each time, the answers came out significantly different. I was fascinated by that. Simply by settling our awareness into a different part of our body, we experienced the same question in very different ways. I observed, in myself and in my partner, that "head voice answers" tended to be constricted, perhaps fearful, anxious. As we settled into the heart, the answers were more open, the feeling more trusting and expanded. As we settled into our bellies, or "being voice" the answers came with a sense of deeper connection, more stability, more trust -- in general, more depth and power.

So as someone who is learning to sing and ultimately wants to sing from the depths and power of my being, I started thinking of the possibilities of incorporating this work into my vocal practice and into my songs. I began to explore the question of, "Instead of bringing the constriction and narrowness of my head voice down into my heart (chest) voice and into my belly or being voice, what if I could bring the stability and groundedness of my Being Voice up into my Heart and up into my Head?" One thing that struck me about that is how really difficult it is for many Human Beings to BE in their Being, as opposed to always doing and thinking and intellectualizing, which all happens in our head and gets expressed in our head voice. Imagine if we could bring the stability and power and deep knowing of our Root or Being all that way up through our Hearts and into our Head. It could revolutionize the way we think and the way we reason, to say nothing of the depth and power that we could express vocally and through our songs if our Head Voice and our Heart Voice were connected to the CORE OF OUR BEING. To me, that feels expansive and full of exciting possibilities.


That's my current vocal excitement and insight!

Until next time, I'll leave you with a lovely Vocal Affirmation:


Barbara