I was mulling over what it looks like to own your voice and this comes to mind.
To own your voice is to stand in your power.
It means to feel grounded and calm. Or does it mean to feel grounded and excited? I’m not sure, but I clearly think it means feeling grounded.
To own your voice is being in whatever energetic state that you choose to be in, not being overtaken by a state or mood you don’t actively choose.
It means your voice can do whatever you want it to do.
Some people can just own their voices without training but many people will need to train their voice to be as flexible and reliable as they need it to be.
But of course you need to have the skills to be able to feel really vocally liberated.
You need to be confident in what you’re doing before you can truly own your voice.
And that’s where the work I do helps.
I work with you so that you feel you can trust your voice. Together we explore how you work within the limitations of your habits (physiological, psychological and situational etc), to make the most of your instrument.
If you’re British there’s a strong chance you have tongue or jaw tension. This is based on my experience and not formal research, but they don’t call it the “British stiff upper lip” for nothing.
The list of physiological issues a singer can have to deal with are many, and I won’t list them here.
Let me digress a little to tell you why I am rarely nervous before an audience
I say ‘rarely’ as there are, of course, audiences who I do find intimidating. But not many. It is always scary sharing something for the first time as you may not feel secure in your knowledge of the material until you’ve shared it publicly.
But if I know what I’m doing most audiences don’t phase me. The reason is that I spent years having to hold the attention of one of the most challenging groups of people out there: Teenagers.
My baptism of fire – how I learnt to own my voice in front of audiences
When I was 24ish I started running workshops in schools. We had a teacher with us for safeguarding but we were on our own with up to 30 kids (and sometimes with over a hundred kids, but that wasn’t the norm). We had to teach those kids about how to study.
I would usually get the “C/D borderline kids”. These are kids who were bright but disengaged. The kids who hated school. We would have them for the whole school day. We HAD to be engaging.
On my first day on the job I was at a tough school in Hammersmith and Fulham, London. Half of the class jumped out of the window before lunchtime. Yes, it was a ground floor classroom.
I got better at the job. Fast! I got better at grabbing and holding their attention. It was utterly exhausting. However, after nearly 7 years of running these workshops I now find that very little from an audience can throw me.
How much energy do you need to give to own your voice?
To own your voice you need to know how hard to work in any given situation. Do you lean into the audience, vocally, physically or energetically, or do you give them space? Will more energy from you repel them or draw them in? What will it do if you pull back and let them come to you?
When do you need to slow down and when do you need to speed up?
Do you want to be enigmatic or charismatic? What is your natural state? Is that really your natural state or is it nerves speaking?
This is the sort of thing we will explore together, ideally in a group.
So what does it really look like to own your voice?
It looks powerful. It looks dynamic and flexible. Your body looks free, your voice sounds free. Your voice feels free.
The person or people you’re talking to can tell that your nervous system is in a happy place. You might be excited, or you might be calm, but you’re obviously in a good place.
In my next blog I talk about what it’s like to work with singers who are owning their voices.
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