The Liberated Voice

A beautiful voice is a free voice. When you find yourself exceptionally moved or dazzled by a singer, it's likely that one of the most significant things you're responding to is how free their voice seems: an effortless flow of sound, unfettered musicality, unrestrained emotional sincerity. When you sing, your most memorable and satisfying experiences occur when you feel completely free to express yourself. Freedom implies freedom from something. Mastering singing means liberation from anything that restricts vocal expression. Various forms of physical resistance can impede the flow of sound (e.g. jaw or tongue tension) and limit breathing, range and stamina. These are the issues I address in the voice studio and encourage my students to tackle in the practice room. However, physical resistance is only one of many things that can constrain your voice and artistry. You also must overcome:

• Performance anxiety;
• Emotional and psychological blocks;
• Craving for outside validation;
• Attachment to accuracy at the expense of passion;
• Myths and faulty concepts about vocal anatomy;
• Excessive dependence on teachers and coaches;
• Concern over whether regular practice will lead to the mastery you desire.

A free voice requires more than flawless vocal technique. If you want to sing freely, you need strategies and resources to address anything that impedes freedom of expression and limits access to your own body, feelings, and ideas. It is my aim to use this blog to provide you with these strategies and resources, as well as a forum for us to discuss them together. Freeing the voice frees the spirit. Anything you do to promote physical, emotional, mental or psychological freedom expands your expressive palate as a singer. Anything that enhances the communicative power of your voice also empowers you to communicate more effectively and joyfully in daily life.

Welcome to my blog. There are so many topics and practices for enriching vocal study that I never have the time to address in voice lessons. I am truly looking forward to sharing them with you here.   

Comments

[Invisible Oranges]

What a great idea! I'll email you soon about a collaborative post.

[Kathy Fraser]

Claudia: I'm so happy that you've opened this little window into your professional life (and your personal gifts); I've thought about you over the years as the need to sing has crept ever up on me, and always wished I had a way to find you again and consult/commiserate.

I was once so shy of singing in public that I hid behind a camera at every birthday party, lip-synching as the candle-lit cake was marched out! When I began teaching a Waldorf-inspired classroom, singing was to be my bete-noir and my pet project: the teacher's voice is of paramount importance, and nearly everything we do throughout the day has an accompanying song. I read "Toward Freedom in Singing" (put out by Rudolf Steiner Press) and got several CD/songbook sets from Mary Thiennes-Schunemann. I'm curious if you've encountered either of them?

These resources encouraged and inspired me to trust my song-spirit to speak. And that seems to be the essence of Steiner's indications about song, that it is of a spiritual nature. The author of "Toward Freedom" closes her brief treatise by calling the practice of singing "almost a holy path". I'm finding that simply TO practice takes great courage of spirit, but the willing and doing helps to strengthen that inner being. Sharing song with the children or a colleague communicates the status of our spirits so vividly, and is one of the most powerful tools we have in the classroom.

[Claudia Friedlander]

Hi Kathy! Thank you for the lovely update! I always think of you as the ultimate fearless kickboxing superhero and I had no idea singing was something you found at all daunting. I also didn't realize that singing was so integral to Steiner's work. I suppose I should have - the Stoltzmans' kids attended a Steiner school when I was working for them - but I myself was barely a singer at all back then. It's so great that your commitment to education has gotten you to start singing!

It looks like "Toward Freedom in Singing" is out of print but I will see if I can find it somewhere. Would you be interested in working on a post together about Steiner education and singing at some point?