why sing?
We are, as humans, designed to sing
Many of us were given the message at an early age that we could not sing or that our singing somehow did not ‘make the grade’.
Perhaps one day somebody told you to mime, or they pulled a face when you tried to hit a challenging note in a song. Maybe you were never encouraged to sing, or, you were told by someone close to stop singing.
This is compounded even further by the society we live in now with The ‘Xfactor’ and ‘The Voice’ style of TV shows teaching us that there is only one way to sing, and the competition is tough. The music we hear is prerecorded, highly modified and manipulated which sets up highly unrealistic expectations of our own voices.
Whatever your story, at some point you’ve probably make an almost always unconscious and perhaps seemingly insignificant choice not to sing anymore.
I’ve been noticing, as I develop my own voice practice, that the decision to stop singing is a profoundly damaging one and is perhaps part of a wider story that tells to keep quiet and to hide our voice not only from others but also from ourselves.
We are, as humans, designed to sing - we are born with the apparatus for it - in the same way that if we can walk, we can to some extent run, so if we can talk so we can sing. It’s true that all us bipedal humans may not be able to run a marathon tomorrow nor can we be expected to sing an aria after a few breathing exercises, but the potential is there. We are born with a set of under-utilised muscles that contain magical powers…
“Singing can be absolutely liberating! Exercising those neglected muscles of course will give you more confidence in finding the notes that you want, but it’s about so much more than that!.”
Singing is a whole brain activity
Alfred Wolfson, a vocal practitioner working in the last century said that “if we are not given full expression of the voice then the person suffers” he worked with his own PTSD from the first world war, healing himself through voice work in a variety of ways, breathwork, vocal toning and just general sound making such as lying on the floor and growling and grunting as felt necessary… and then discovered that his techniques could be translated into useful tools to help others.
Science now backs up his findings in a more exact way. We know that Singing releases endorphins, the feel-good brain chemical that makes you feel happy and energised. It doesn’t even matter what it sounds like! Scientists have found a tiny organ in the inner ear called a sacculus. It makes people experience pleasure emotions regardless of whether the singing is any good. How cool is that?
When you’re singing your whole brain is occupied – this is true for any musician but the effect is greatest with singers. There are well-documented examples of Alzheimer’s patients and stroke patients, previously unable to communicate, that ‘come alive’ or start to talk after singing familiar songs.
When we allow our voices to soar, spiralling and cutting through the space that surrounds us they inhabit it in ways that are otherwise impossible either visually or physically.
Releasing your singing voice can connect you more fully to your authentic voice in all walks of life.
Reclaiming your voice through song has a beautiful ripple effect, the vibrations carry far and wide and can gently shift and liberate us in all areas of life.
When we find our voice, we find ourselves compelled to use it. Where we might before have suppressed or swallowed down the impulse to speak, we find ourselves free to speak our own truth. To sing out what we believe in, what we stand for and what we might want to change.
Singing is the beginning of a journey to a deeper state of authenticity, where we can even more powerfully align, what we think, what we say and what we do and that ripple reaches others in increasingly more powerful ways.
“The vibrations you create in a singing circle are felt in the body of everyone else around you, quite literally your voice and it’s vibrations physically affect other people, there is no other medium like it. My hypothesis is that by not singing, we lose that feeling of gentle power, we stop practicing using that muscle and we lose our way a little - finding it more difficult to sing and to speak with our authentic voice. By reclaiming our voice, we reclaim our power and it is transformative!”
Singing is a way to be mindful
In the western world, for the most part, we function in the part of the brain that deals with action and problem solving - we are either scanning our brain for what might come next and planning ahead OR we are thinking about the past in order to learn from it. This is a beautiful and very useful part of being human but if we spend too much of our time in this mode of analysis, criticism and judgement - it has a profoundly negative impact on our health and well being.
There is a hugely neglected aspect to being human that we have access to but exercise far less than is healthful in our society and that’s simply just BEING. Mindfulness is the practice of allowing our minds and bodies to just be… observing where we are right now in the present moment, without criticism. Many creative arts can allow access to this mindful way of being but singing for me is the most powerful way that I know.
When we sing mindfully we engage in deliberate acts of regulating attention through observing our thoughts our emotions and the way our body is feeling.
This has a wide range of benefits on our health and wellbeing including:
Reduced stress
Increased focus
Less overwhelm
Improved ability to work through conflict
Increased empathy and respect for ourselves and others
Greater resilience
Improved physical well-being
Improved emotional well-being
Improved creativity & collaboration
In short a healthier, happier and more revitalised you!