Freeing the Voice from Habit: Sound

Rachel Bagby frees our voices. Our deepest expression. Through singing. For and with each other.

Doesn’t that sound wonderful? To free our voices? Our physical voices and our voices in the world.

This week we look at overall sound and placement of the voice in the body.

SOUND or NATURAL VOICE
Sometimes we fall into the habit of either pushing our voices down into a “chest voice” or finding we stay in a high “head voice.” Both are fine and we want to have them in our repertoire of vocal variety. And, we want to notice if we are stuck in one place or the other. It’s the stuckness that is a habit that restricts expression and connection to our natural voice.

Notice, do you feel that your voice flows freely? Do you access both higher and lower registers often? If so, wonderful! If not, let’s play with freeing your voice from that habit.

• Place a hand on your abdomen by the belly button.

• Breathe through the nose into that space.

• With the mouth closed, but the jaw loose…

• Imagine the scent of something delicious.

• Sound an “MMMMMMM…”

• Now open let the jaw fall open.

• Sigh a nice, deep sigh on an “AHHH..”

• From this place, say, “Hello, Hello, Hello,” starting from a higher register to a lower register.

If you feel yourself creeping into a place of pushing your voice high or low, repeat the above any time!

Here is a video illustrating all of the above.