BIRD'S EYE VIEW

There is no voice without breath, no singing without breathing. The way we breathe gives rise to the way we sing. This relationship cannot be adequately addressed by technical breathing exercises, because the way we breathe is itself a reflection of our total physical and emotional condition. Our breathing and our singing reveal our inner life, or the ways in which we hide it.

The most obvious, physical way in which we hide our inner life and distort our expression of it is through patterns of tension and superfluous effort - patterns of holding back and forcing the breath. Holding back and forcing are two sides of the same web of impulses through which we interfere with the natural functioning of the body and the breath. In order to sing freely, we have to give up interfering. Singing, like any real expression, cannot be manipulated, forced, or directly controlled; it can only be allowed to happen. Only through allowing the free play of musical and expressive impulses can we attain a quality of music making which reveals the real life within the music and the singer. Through willfully manipulating and controlling our bodies, it is possible to achieve a certain kind of technical competence, but all the true musical gifts that a singer has to offer will come through in spite of such a technique, not with its help.