Writing
The Mystery of the Pharynx
Our means of vocal censorship and our systems of survival are one and the same. Trying to be polite, intelligent, under control or dominant becomes etched into our breath and voice bodies.
To free my students from this tyranny I teach them to trust the relief of a sigh.
I also explain that the efficacy of a moan – whether as a result of pleasure or pain – soothes the moaner while conveying pertinent information.
Sighs, moans, grunts and sobs are part of our innate empathy processes – how we attune to one another.
The Mermaid: A Conversation with Fides Krucker – Julie Trimingham
Photo by Makoto Hirata —– I live by the salt water, and look out every day on a rock where seals sunbathe; my distance vision is impressionistic, the bodies lounging where rock meets wave might as well be mermaids….
Permission to Scream
Martha fell off her perch in the Cincinatti Zoo one hundred years ago. I wish I’d known her, known the darkening skies when 2.5 billion of her species, the passenger pigeon, flew in one large airborne colony, their beating wings deafening human ears below. Drawings by Audubon show a pretty bird, refined lines, the female
Hummingbird at dawn
Today I noticed something fresh; the sound of the human voice floating freely in the air. There is little traffic, no hum of tall buildings. I hear children’s voices and women’s voices and the men, too. Calling out to each other, singing fragments of song. Not competing with anything but the birds and the wind and the occasional
Naked Men Crying
January 2013 Steven Tyler is my boyfriend. Every time I listen to him on youtube I fall in love. There is something in the undisguised pain his voice lays bare that pulls me in – heart, head and pussy. I understand perfectly that I am needed when I hear that much pain. I know how
Documentary Singing
…A young girl…really, a toddler…is singing along with Adele in the back of the family van. She follows each curve of the melody and each curve of Adele’s emotional life within the song. Her ‘two-something’ ability to identify with thoroughly engaged temper tantrum holds her in good stead and she is really expressive within the container of this breakup song.
To yawn or not to yawn….
To yawn or not to yawn? My still unnamed women’s choir is singing ‘The Girl from Ipanema.’ The twelve of us have been practicing for about an hour; our hips sway cool and gentle and our lips are articulating the text so ambiguously that the words sound more Brazilian Portuguese than English. We are playing
Archeology of the Female Voice…or how to reclaim the female ANS
I can’t stop thinking about the young Britney Spears. I found an old clip of her on YouTube – she is hardly ten years old and a contestant on Star Search – a TV show from the last century with Ed McMahon (Johnny Carson’s old side kick) as host. Britney is in a demure little
land/body/breath
Eight dancers are moving through the intimate galleries of the Thomson Canadian Collection at the AGO…following the trail of folk songs that Ciara, my singing partner, and I are leaving behind. The acoustic is incredible and sung notes hang in the air forever, spreading and amplifying. I am looking at some very famous paintings as
Chiaroscuro: the Boddhisatva in the voice
“I am sitting at my piano teaching voice to a group of advanced students. They sound glorious; height and depth are present in the sound and each tone seems to be emanating from the space around them and not really coming from their mouths. This is the sweet spot: the human voice free of ego