Sing to lift your heart.

Improve your listening

The voice only contains what the ear can hear. Therefore, to improve the flexibility and richness of your voice, improve your listening.  Hearing and listening are different.  Hearing is the ability to discriminate between different frequency ranges.  Listening is the ability to listen with intention to what we can hear.  Improving your ability to listen with focused intention will improve your speaking and singing voice.

Re awakening the cilia in the inner ear

The thousands of tiny hairs (cilia) housed in the cochlea of the inner ear, are able to pick up every frequency of sound vibration and through a process of transduction, the sounds waves are turned into electrical signals which are taken to the auditory cortex of the brain via the auditory nerve.  The auditory nerve directs the electrical impulses to the auditory centres of the brain stem where they are decoded and interpreted as recognisable sound.  Throughout our life from childhood onwards, the cilia that are able to pick up the higher frequencies of sound become damaged or dumbed down . This is because of our lack of attention to the higher frequencies of sound through poor listening, noise pollution, stress, medication side effects etc.  However, these specific cilia can be re awakened.

An ability to listen attentively to the higher frequencies present in a child’s voice, the sounds of nature i.e. birdsong, the splash of water, rustle of leaves etc. Mozart’s music and sacred music will add richness and colour to the speaking and singing voice.  Research suggests that Mozart’s music and sacred music (Gregorian chant) both influence the level of arousal and reawakening of the cilia in the inner ear. Mozart’s music contains more high frequency notes than that of other composers and Gregorian chant regulates the in and out breath and corresponds with the natural rhythm of the heart beat, to reduce anxiety.  We are often too mentally focused and listening to the sounds of nature opens our heart, encouraging us to tell others what we feel rather than what we think.   It’s a helpful exercise to sit quietly outside and endeavour to discriminate between the natural sounds of the environment and man made sounds.  Seek out all high frequency sounds in the environment.

Don’t lift your chin as a bird lifts its head when it sings because you will stretch the muscles of the neck and distort vocal expression.

Toning

Vocal toning  practice enriches the voice and helps us to reach up to those higher frequencies. At this time, a free download Introduction to Toning manual and an audio to listen to are available on this website. The manual also offers a deep breathing exercise to oxygenate the blood and cushion the voice.