The magic of Improvisation - Embodying Gita

Voice Yoga = union with the self through the voice

The composer Arvo Pärt said that “The human voice is the most perfect voice of them all.”

The potential of the human voice is vast. Not only can we communicate with language - thousands of different languages - we can sing, we can create sound and rhythm, we can soothe, we can invigorate, we can release and we can shift energy in a profound way. We carry within us an immensely powerful tool for healing both ourselves and other people. Contrary to what many people in so-called westernised cultures might believe, the voice is not just reserved for the school choir auditions or the office party karaoke; it can be used every day to nourish ourselves, enhance our experience of life and deepen our practices. In many high income or industrialised societies where individualism and productivity take precedence, we have had to invent Music Therapy as a clinical practice because that is the extent to which we have become separated from our ability to recognise our voices as a means of expression, connection and healing. Meanwhile in many cultures such as those in parts of India and Africa, music remains a natural, integrated part of daily life, community and spirituality. There is no need for Music Therapy because music itself is the medicine. It is woven into the fabric of life. Through facilitating people to (re)connect with their voices and sing with themselves and with each other, the potential for remembering our true nature is revealed - that which is expressed through the perfection of the human voice.

When we sing with our authentic voices we expose ourselves. We bear our souls. We make ourselves vulnerable. It is an act of courage to say ‘yes’ to our voices and welcome whatever is there. This can be terrifying for some of us, as it opens the door to whatever we have been carrying and hiding deep inside us. But it is only when we step into that rawness that the magic can happen. 

The term Authentic Voice has become overused to the point of cliché but let's just explore why people have begun to talk about authenticity in relation to the voice. We live in a world full of distraction and it becomes increasingly easy to feel a sense of separation. The more our brains are stimulated with information through technology and travel and communication coming in from multiple channels, 24 hours a day, the further we are drawn away from presence in the perfection and fullness of each moment. Our true nature - which is to be peaceful and content - becomes veiled and we forget how to live from this place as our home. So when I refer to the authentic voice, it is about connecting with that untainted, uncontrived voice within you that isn’t trying to sound like anyone else. It isn’t using the voice to gain something from the external world, rather it is simply the sound of consciousness reflecting itself as music through you. The authentic voice is the pure sound of Shakti singing out of your mouth. Her sound ever changing as she sings though each person, each soul illuminating a different tone of her symphony. 

How do we use our voices to sing ourselves home? Vocal improvisation is arguably the most direct way to reconnect us to our true nature. In order to improvise, we have to be fully in the moment. If we are recalling lyrics or melodies, we are in the future (anticipating the next line of the song). If we are singing a song we know well, we are in the past (as the song either stimulates memories or we know the song so well that we switch off whilst singing it and begin to drift). But when we are truly improvising, we are neither in the past nor the future which means that when we improvise, we are free. Free from suffering, free from separation from our true nature.

Although improvising music should be easy - we did it all the time as children - it takes a degree of confidence and musicality to do it ‘on demand.’ It helps to have some frameworks within which to explore your voice. This is where Voice Yoga comes in! If you would like more techniques to ease you into Vocal improv, please reach out for a 1:1 or sign up for one of my donation based group sessions.

For now, I will leave you with this:

Whether you are sitting down in a peaceful place at a time that has been specifically put aside for singing, or just humming a tune on your way to work, see singing as devotion, always. You do not have to be singing mantras for singing to be a form of worship, nor do you have to be in a church or a temple. Singing can always be a devotional practice, whether you are belting out Whitney Houston songs in the car or singing a lullaby for a baby. Singing is worshipping life, worshipping the light within us. Singing has and always will be sacred as along as we see it and sing it as so. It is simply about intention and presence. To ease into vocal improvisation, set the intention that you are going to tune in to your deepest presence, your true nature - the divine and unchanging bliss within you - and then allow that energy, fuelled by the power of your breath to resonate out of you in the form of sound. Sing on a hum, or any vowel shape. Let any words come, whether they make any sense or not and simply listen with awe at the divine energy that is within you expressing itself through your voice. Allow yourself to be Gita.