I hear this a lot. From students, from prospective students, from singing teachers, and all over the internet.
‘I want to find my voice’
‘We'll help you find your voice’
It's quite an emotive phrase, isn't it? Have you ever said it or felt it?
It's absolutely and totally valid.
And I as a singing coach, I 100% want to help and support people who have this aspiration.
But I sometimes ask myself, What does finding your voice really mean?
So I thought long and hard about it while walking in the woods last week.
I believe it’s essentially comprised of three elements. Some singers will resonate with all three, while others may find only one or two of those aspects hit the spot for them.
So what are these three elements and which ones are meaningful for you?
Here's what I've identified.
‘Finding Your Voice’ can mean:
- Being able to express your core self.
- Being able to connect to, and communicate your own emotions through voice and song.
- Being able to use your singing voice freely, effectively, optimally and powerfully, to channel points one and two.
So let's explore these in a bit more detail.
- Being able to express your core self.
Fundamentally, we all want to express ourselves. We want to be known, seen, heard, and valued for our unique selves.
We may have a powerful message for the world. We may have important beliefs we want to share. We may want our unique perspective to be known. We may have a great passion or energy that we want to spread with love.
And some of us feel blocked or inhibited from either finding that within ourselves, or, once found, from being free to share it through our voice.
So finding your voice is partly about being able and confident to allow that flow.
(I felt like I ‘found my voice’ in this way when I was part of the Environmental Direct Action Movement in the ‘90s. I literally ‘gave voice’ to myself.
I was free from the peer pressure of teenage life in North London. I was able to express my beliefs through taking direct action, protesting, and protecting nature with like-minded people. We sang all the time, we sang protest songs, we sang songs that expressed our vision of the world. )
- Being able to connect to and communicate your emotions through voice and song.
We all experience a range of emotions that give life its variety and humanity.
Many of us block, hide from, or suppress our emotions. But there is great value in allowing yourself to feel your emotions, whether painful or positive.
It makes us more alive.
And you know that when you listen to singers who sing with emotion, they really touch your heart. You resonate. You feel a sense of healing, as they express beautifully and powerfully emotions you have felt yourself. You get a sense of release.
And you can do that for yourself. You can reach into yourself more deeply and gently invite hidden emotions to be felt, to be experienced, to flow.
When you do that, you're able to connect with your true self, your authentic self, your full self.
Once you find this connection, and you give yourself permission to communicate those emotions through voice and song… Well that's the second way of finding your voice.
- Being able to use your singing voice freely, effectively, optimally and powerfully to channel points one and two.
I always see the singing voice as having two core parts. The self-expression, and the voice as an instrument. The spiritual and the physical.
It's important to sing from the heart. AND, if we really want all the power, passion and emotion of our heart to be fully communicated through our voice, we need to craft our instrument so it's capable of expressing that.
In other words, we need vocal skills to channel our inner voice.
It's when you take a thorough training in developing your vocal skills, that your self-expression is truly heard - through vocal strength, power, richness, flexibility, agility, freedom and fine control.
It's a very rewarding process, and the outcomes, the results, the effects, can be heard day by day.
And as you do so, you FIND more and more of your voice.
This is partly because the physical body and the spirit are so inextricably interlinked. When you try a new vocal technique, it makes you feel different. It creates a connection to a part of you that you may not have been aware of before.
I see this happening with my students all the time. This is why I consider myself a holistic singing coach. I work with the spiritual and the physical. We interweave them. We work from both sides and let them reveal each other.
(As I said, I found ‘part 1’, being able to express my core self, of finding my voice in my protest days. And part 3 I found over the years I have trained, studied, practised and performed as a singer, singing facilitator and coach.)
Does this make sense to you?
Do you relate to any or all three of the points I've described?
Let me know in the comments.
I've really enjoyed exploring, delving into this topic and sharing my findings with you. I hope you've enjoyed it.
And if you want my help to find your voice, you’re welcome to book a free consultation with me at: www.singwithstyle.com/free-consultation