This past Sun. Oct. 24, I attended an absolutely wonderful and inspiring workshop "About Face". It was a day of exploring (through creative writing, sharing stories, mask making etc.) the "face" that we show to the world and the "deeper face" that we may show only to ourselves. The facilitators were two very creative women: writer Teri Degler (http://www.teridegler.com/) and visual artist Shelley Yampolsky. This is one of Teri's books "The Divine Feminine Fire"
In one of the writing exercises, a very important story emerged for me and I did share it with the group. Although it was my own personal story, many of the other people did identify, in their own way, with it. And I think there is a larger message in this story. So I'm calling it
Let ALL The Children Sing!
In the workshop, Teri guided us into a visualization where we were instructed to remember a time and experience in our younger lives that forever changed us in some way.
Immediately I was back in Grade 3 with Mrs. Self (yes that really was her name!). She was our music teacher. As I remember her from a child's perspective, she was quite tall, grey hair, somewhat of an imposing and intimidating figure to a little child. I still remember her white dress with black flower designs on it. She came into the classroom this one particular day and one by one, she made each child stand up and sing Do Rey Me.....I remember being terrified as my turn came closer. I had not even been allowed to speak up at home, never mind sing!! Vocal expression just wasn't part of my growing up experience. And any minute now, this teacher was going to make me stand up and humiliate myself by trying to sing, when I couldn't.
When my turn came, I stood up and, scared as I was, I tried my best.
It wasn't good enough.
All the children who could sing the scale well were allowed to go with Mrs. Self and sing in the school choir. The few of us who could not sing had to sit back down at our desks in total humiliation. Those of us who were left behind were given some math assignments to do while the other kids got to go to the auditorium and sing. Eventually they (the singers) were given the opportunity to perform in the school concert, watched by their proud parents. The rest of us were simply left out to suffer the pain our voices being silenced: the pain of "knowing" that the sound of our voices was unaccepatable.
At that moment, I became "The Child Forever Silenced"!!
Until..........Many years later -- actually at age 58 -- I could no longer stand to have my voice trapped so deeply inside of me. Although I had been facilitating workshops and giving the occasional lecture, just the idea of standing up in front of people and allowing my voice to be heard had been difficult and traumatic. And I never attempted to sing, unless I was certain that I was alone and no one would hear me.
Finally, a series of events pushed me to find a vocal coach/singing teacher. Just about a year and a half ago, I started searching for a technique and a teacher that could help me. Man was I lucky!!! I found an excellent technique called Speech Level Singing (which you may have read about in my previous blogs) and I found a highly qualified teacher (Brandon Brophy, 3rd Voice Studio) of this technique here in Toronto.
About a month or so into my lessons with Brandon, he had me make some "bratty" "nasty" sounds, some of which were done with sticking my tongue out. These were done to help me connect with, and develop my Chest Voice. Prior to this work, my voice had been weak and disconnected so in my vocal practice I have focused a lot on developing a strong connection with my chest voice and getting really rooted in the depths of my voice. Those "nasty" sounds helped me to do that. And...they also had an added benefit! One day, during my lesson with Brandon, I was making "Na Na" sounds, as bratty as I could manage. With some of the bratty sounds I even got to stick my tongue out. As I was doing all that, Mrs. Self appeared right in front of me! The image of her felt and looked so real that I almost felt as though I could reach out and touch her. Imagine my satisfaction at being able to stick out my tongue and say "Na Na Na" to her in my brattiest voice!! In that beautiful "Na Na" scale that I was practicing, I could feel the child in me coming forward and saying to her "You will never silence me again. I'm letting this voice be heard and I don't care if you don't like it." It was a beautiful cathartic moment.
This whole idea of not allowing children to sing is nasty and cruel. I hope and pray that this is not happening at schools any longer.
I am very grateful to have found a voice teacher who, from the very beginning (when I really didn't have any singing voice, to speak of!) taught me with such enthusiasm, as though he never doubted for a minute that I could learn to sing. And now it is starting to be so much fun to let my voice out and to allow it to make all of these wonderful sounds, and yes -- I am even beginning to sing -- a little bit!!
And one day, I will get to perform in that Concert.
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Thank you Teri and Shelley for an incredible workshop and for allowing me to share my stories (with my strong, connected voice!)
Thank you Brandon for being such a skilled and patient vocal coach and for helping me feel safe and comfortable in letting my voice be heard!
Thank you to the therapist who has been so willing to listen so patiently and attentively to many, many of my stories over the past three years. Thank you for introducing me to the joy of making music and sound and thank you very much for helping me to find the courage to look for a vocal coach.
Thanks especially to that 8 year old, grade three student that I was (and still am somewhere deep inside!). Thank you for waiting so patiently all these years to finally be able to free your voice and tell your story.
I'll be back soon. "About Face" has stirred up a few stories that I want to share!
May we all sing our own special songs in our own special way.
Barbara
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