How Singers Sing: Effort is Not Your Enemy

He wanted to sing high. And loud. Really loud.

But it was destroying his throat and vocal cords.

It's the same with all kinds of performers – they must accomplish great feats of effort without causing themselves damage. This singer was no different.

His request to me was to help him find a way to sing high and loud without damaging his voice. But it could have been a wind player needing more air, or back-bending Yogini with profound discomfort.

"So sing," I said.

WOW.

It was a big sound, no question. 

And the effort was tremendous. He couldn't finish.

A lot of the effort was being used - to pull his head back and push his neck forward. This action puts a lot of pressure on his vocal cords while also confusing his airflow. In most activities requiring extra effort, trouble always begins when the head/spinal relationship is being compressed during any activity.

Usually, an Alexscovery teacher might ask the person to resist head and the whole spine pushing down, but this was a long-term student of the work for whom that instruction did not work.

What to do?

The first thing is to validate the effort.

A mistake a lot of teachers – of anything - make is setting up a war inside their student's mind. They do this by pointing out the mistakes, the things that are wrong. This approach – on the whole – is profoundly unhelpful to a student.

Instead – with this singing student – I let him know that what he needed to do did take a tremendous effort. He was right about that. In this way, I aligned my Self with his effort. 

So far, no war.

Next.

His effort needs to be directed towards the areas of his anatomical Self where it can be effective. To go on this journey – you need reliable knowledge about the structure and design of human movement, especially breathing. In the case of the singer, I took him on a discovery tour of his breathing mechanism. We aimed to discover where energy and work are necessary to generate the volume of air needed to produce the volume he desired.

It took a few minutes, but soon he had a much clearer idea of where to direct his effort. And he sang – to his surprise – in a loud, clear voice with no strain. Everyone in the room listening spontaneously clapped.

"I didn't think I could get that result so quickly," he remarked.

Your work and well-being thrive on a sound knowledge of both Alexander's Discovery and how humans are designed to move. BodyThinking Online is the course I devised to impart this knowledge.

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I will be writing lots of stuff about it the next month. 

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