What if we turned our attention from how it sounds to how it feels?
Most of us have been taught to listen to our voices from the outside—to judge the sound, analyze the tone, and correct (or tense up around) the imperfections. But what if we experienced our voices from the inside instead?
Kristin Linklater’s work (which we’ll draw from in this course) invites us to shift our awareness inward—to feel the voice moving through us rather than evaluating how it sounds to others.
The Paradox of Freeing the Voice
To release the voice, we must also stay completely present.
To soften, we must remain awake.
To surrender, we must still engage.
This work is a kind of meditation—an awareness without driving. The voice is not something we push into existence. It is something we allow.
The Body as an Instrument
Years ago a voice teacher asked me, “Why do we sing?”
It thought it was a trick question. After stumbling through answers for quite some time he finally gave me the answer he wanted me to have:
“Because it feels good!”
I struggled with his answer for a long time. For all of my early years I thought singing was about sounding good and getting it right. Now, in my own way, I’ve found my own understanding of what he was pointing to.
Our voices aren’t just in our throats. They vibrate in our chest, ribs, belly, pelvis, throat, and skull. When we don’t interfere with control, we allow the voice to fill the body with resonance. When we allow ourselves to vibrate and resonate – especially in rooms full of other voices – it doesn’t just sound good.
It feels good.
