Hollyhock Presenter & Guest Blogs
Presenter's Blogs · 26th May 2008
Chloe Goodchild
Now come on tell me – what do you really love about your voice? For over 20 years I’ve asked this question of 10,000s of people across the world, from India and Africa, to Canada and the USA, in supermarkets, schools, prisons, conferences, workshops and trainings, in war zones, council chambers, hospices, health therapeutic and spiritual centres. Time and time again the first response to my question is negative, probably 8 out of 10 people say “I really don’t like my voice”
Sometimes I love to sing a simple melody to the words “How I Love You” at my local supermarket shopping mall . This simple recurring chorus slowly descends the musical scale step by step from the top of the octave to the bottom, from the crown of your head to the root of the body, and then returns to the top again “How I Love You How I Love You”. I sit at the end of the escalator serenading the shoppers as they descend. I particularly like choosing that spot because I know that I have a captive audience for the next 2 minutes or so, as they are descending the moving stairs and they cannot run away!
To my amazement the shoppers descending the escalator love being sang to. They love hearing the words “How I Love You” focused on their unsuspecting faces as they gracefully float down to earth. But then when I stop singing and I ask them “What do you love about your voice?” everything suddenly changes again, everything closes down, and they usually tell me a negative childhood story, first about when they were thrown out of the school choir or told to shut up at home or speak when spoken to, all those sad memories that we hold on to for dear life, for some strange bizarre self denying reason. Sometimes I let myself imagine and feel the sheer numbers of lonely people walking the planet, carrying their trapped voices inside the burden of memories bending low their backs. When I imagine this I begin to understand why the world is in the crisis it is in and all because we forgot to remember what we most love about our voice. “What do you love” is even closer to home and who is singing anyway, which brings us back to “Who Am I?”.
Our personality, it seems, has assumed dominion over the real voice inside us, that ancient secret memory lying dormant deep down in the marrow of your bones. So how may we once again redeem and honour the presence of this true sound inside us? The one that has been loving us all our lives.
I began to understand the far reaching possibilities for the singing voice as a vessel for an embodied resonant expression of the human spirit. Over the last 20 years I have learnt to explore and express myself through the subtle microtones and spaces between each of the seven sounds with a greater depth of awareness and listening as the musical notes begin to open up a vast unchartered spectrum of feeling inside me, energising my body, dissolving negative emotion, and freeing my spirit in ways I’ve never known. Each sound carries vibrational power that awakens a specific realm of self awareness and wisdom within us. This sound is available to everyone, you don’t have to be a singer to be able embark upon this sounding work. In fact sometimes being a “singer” can actually be an obstruction.
This sound work is sometimes described as vibrational medicine or musical homeopathy. Singing the Seven sounds is like walking into a garden of flowers, each one has a unique fragrance, expression and intensity, reflecting back to us the colours, moods and voices of our souls landscape and longing for union, the expression of our true presence. These sounds constellate musical intervals, modes and melodies that have the power to awaken our inner depths, embody and free up the human spirit. I and my core team, have created a simple method using these sounds with voice and meditative movement to overcome fear, awaken compassion and instil peace of mind.
Your naked voice and sound is probably the most essential and intimate relationship you will ever have and this can be the most challenging intimacy to engage with, especially if you have never tried before. Your real voice is the sound of your true nature. Its spoken and poetic potential, its emotional range its energy, resonance, frequency and volume impact your relationship with your voice, weather its spoken, poetic or sung and all the spaces in between can tell you everything you need to know about your naked self.
Falling in love with your own voice and learning to sound out love’s longing for itself is a power beyond all belief. Singing with our naked voice ignites a power of longing, a longing for somewhere we have never been, a something we cannot name.
This article is taken from extracts of Chloe’s Sounds True CD-Set 'Your Naked Voice.'
Chloe presents Deep Song at Hollyhock Sept. 28 - Oct. 3.
Sometimes I love to sing a simple melody to the words “How I Love You” at my local supermarket shopping mall . This simple recurring chorus slowly descends the musical scale step by step from the top of the octave to the bottom, from the crown of your head to the root of the body, and then returns to the top again “How I Love You How I Love You”. I sit at the end of the escalator serenading the shoppers as they descend. I particularly like choosing that spot because I know that I have a captive audience for the next 2 minutes or so, as they are descending the moving stairs and they cannot run away!
To my amazement the shoppers descending the escalator love being sang to. They love hearing the words “How I Love You” focused on their unsuspecting faces as they gracefully float down to earth. But then when I stop singing and I ask them “What do you love about your voice?” everything suddenly changes again, everything closes down, and they usually tell me a negative childhood story, first about when they were thrown out of the school choir or told to shut up at home or speak when spoken to, all those sad memories that we hold on to for dear life, for some strange bizarre self denying reason. Sometimes I let myself imagine and feel the sheer numbers of lonely people walking the planet, carrying their trapped voices inside the burden of memories bending low their backs. When I imagine this I begin to understand why the world is in the crisis it is in and all because we forgot to remember what we most love about our voice. “What do you love” is even closer to home and who is singing anyway, which brings us back to “Who Am I?”.
Our personality, it seems, has assumed dominion over the real voice inside us, that ancient secret memory lying dormant deep down in the marrow of your bones. So how may we once again redeem and honour the presence of this true sound inside us? The one that has been loving us all our lives.
I began to understand the far reaching possibilities for the singing voice as a vessel for an embodied resonant expression of the human spirit. Over the last 20 years I have learnt to explore and express myself through the subtle microtones and spaces between each of the seven sounds with a greater depth of awareness and listening as the musical notes begin to open up a vast unchartered spectrum of feeling inside me, energising my body, dissolving negative emotion, and freeing my spirit in ways I’ve never known. Each sound carries vibrational power that awakens a specific realm of self awareness and wisdom within us. This sound is available to everyone, you don’t have to be a singer to be able embark upon this sounding work. In fact sometimes being a “singer” can actually be an obstruction.
This sound work is sometimes described as vibrational medicine or musical homeopathy. Singing the Seven sounds is like walking into a garden of flowers, each one has a unique fragrance, expression and intensity, reflecting back to us the colours, moods and voices of our souls landscape and longing for union, the expression of our true presence. These sounds constellate musical intervals, modes and melodies that have the power to awaken our inner depths, embody and free up the human spirit. I and my core team, have created a simple method using these sounds with voice and meditative movement to overcome fear, awaken compassion and instil peace of mind.
Your naked voice and sound is probably the most essential and intimate relationship you will ever have and this can be the most challenging intimacy to engage with, especially if you have never tried before. Your real voice is the sound of your true nature. Its spoken and poetic potential, its emotional range its energy, resonance, frequency and volume impact your relationship with your voice, weather its spoken, poetic or sung and all the spaces in between can tell you everything you need to know about your naked self.
Falling in love with your own voice and learning to sound out love’s longing for itself is a power beyond all belief. Singing with our naked voice ignites a power of longing, a longing for somewhere we have never been, a something we cannot name.
This article is taken from extracts of Chloe’s Sounds True CD-Set 'Your Naked Voice.'
Chloe presents Deep Song at Hollyhock Sept. 28 - Oct. 3.
Chloe Goodchild