voice breakthrough

I can't put my finger exactly on what just changed for me in Francoise's class just now, but it was enough to make me feel rather emotional in the moment and inspired to jot down some thoughts before they fly away.

It's a layered feeling, I guess, stemming from a real inspiration from MR. FOOTE'S OTHER LEG the other night, which I found entirely lovely and inspired, from my seat in the upper dress circle. I was quite amazed and curious by how the actors' voices carried-- it's of course an aspect to the theatre which I've had much more appreciation for since I began my own real study of voice work, but for some reason that particular performance really "clicked" for me and I found myself lapping up every vocal nuance, particularly from Dervla Kirwan. Her voice was quite low in pitch, for the most part-- not a female baritone, but a lovely and rich alto that really only ever grew into a kind of mezzo at it's highest. And such wonderful amplification!!

Today I think I got as close to a similar sound in my own voice as I've ever come.

I've been looking forward to my voice classes this term with real excitement, far more than I had last term. By December I could feel myself starting to put the pieces together, and just anxious for the exercises and tools to really let it rip. We moved quickly through a lot of warm-up exercises we're familiar with and then into focusing on various lip, teeth and face resonance.

I struggled with "waking up" my nasal cavity and sinuses, in part I think because I've been focusing in singing and in voice class last term on not sending sound into the wrong places (big, low pitches resonate in the chest, middle sounds resonate in/on the mouth, without using the nose). My nose felt very lothe to engage. I did feel the resonance bouncing on my cheeks but to get to the nose, it was almost going around to the back of my head and up over to my nasal cavities, which I expect is a start. When things started to clear up and become more direct, I found the buzzing was a lot more delicate than I expected it to be, and when we released a very nasal "MMMMI MMMMI MMMMAY MMMMAY" into a more neutral "Mah!" it was like the clouds parted.

I'm finding so much FREEDOM in my voice! The "Mah!" was meant to be on the high end of a mid-range pitch and it really felt so easy and a lot lower than I expected-- not that the pitch itself was low, but that the energy it took to make the sound was so minimal.

THIS is the kind of sound Alex is after, and that Francoise and Simon have been complimentary of!

It sounds like my mother, in a lot of ways... But of course it should, because I'm coming into the age that my mother was when she had me. I've been hearing her voice all my life!

My voice is reflective of my age and experience, which is so much deeper than I've EVER given myself credit for. I've spent a lot of my life feeling rather smug about being much younger than most people think I am-- being actually 19 though thought 25 or more, etc. And while I think some amount of youth is a good thing to retain, I'm suddenly very happy to embrace my age and let it reflect in my voice, which has taken some time to catch up to the mindset. To "sound 29" does not mean to sound "old" or "mature" or even "early middle age"-- it simply means to sound like me, exactly as I am right now, with all my life experience and training and emotion and ambition and shortcomings that I have right now.

My voice can, and increasingly does, reflect the person that I am, not the person that I was or the person that I think I need to be.

And additionally, I discovered that I, as myself, a 29-year old woman, can sound "youthful" and "innocent" without sounding "young" or by resorting to a high, petulant style of voice. It's not a thing I have to put on, which ends up sounding false and shallow because it isn't latched to anything real or deep. A "youthful" voice can AND SHOULD be rooted-- not a shallow vocal trick. There's a time and place for a cartoon-y voice, but it's never been a challenge for me to find those. My challenge is in rooting the voice to successfully find color, age, range, variance, etc. AND TODAY I STARTED TO DO THAT!!!

I feel positively unstoppable and endlessly curious to see how I can apply it all in my work.

Now THERE'S a penny drop!