Hi folks,
This week’s video got a bit delayed by a tummy bug that spent most of the past week rampaging through our home. But fortunately everyone has recovered and I am back at my desk!
In this video…
We go a little bit deeper with how singing can inspire us to look towards the creative possibilities of our own bodies and how to express our authentic selves.
This touches on:
Singing styles as a reflection of the place where trends and personal authenticity meet
Singing is air, and the body is an instrument
The places we can choose what our voice sounds like (example: Raye’s Tiny Desk Concert just after minute 16) and experiment with different sounds
Effort vs ease in singing
Discovering our instrument as an alternative to moulding our sound
The wisdom of Chloe Goodchild’s The Naked Voice: prioritising expression over performance and looking for the silence after the sound
Ease as the thing that paves the way towards a sustainable practice
There are always opportunities for art: if you’re breathing anyway, you might as well sing!
Singing in the grocery aisle
I’ll leave you with one little story about something unexpected that happened today…
The song I mentioned in the last video - R.E.M.’s Shiny Happy People - came on this morning while I was doing my grocery shop. It brought me back to my warmest memories of my mother - and I found myself singing my way down the aisle because it made me so happy that I didn’t really care who was listening.
This was particularly welcome, because the night before I had a sad/upsetting dream about my mom. I’ve been lucky that since she died most of my dreams about her have been nice ones, but this one brought me right back to the difficult parts of her illness. It centered around her sadness about leaving this world before she was ready, a grief I found myself unable to soothe within the dream, just as I had been in life.
After I woke up, the grey cloud of sadness lingered.
Until this song started playing.
It felt somehow like she knew I needed it this morning, and she played it just for me.
Even though my mother has moved on to whatever adventure lies beyond life, the music she gave me is still with me - and through it, so is she. It’s amazing how deeply interlaced music can be with our emotional memories. What a gift.
For now,
Alli
DISCLAIMER FOR THE NEW FOLKS! If you are just joining us now: It is never too late to join in with this experiment! If you’d like to have more art in your life just jump in the river midstream. You don’t have to have completed any of the prior sessions to be able to join us now. Plus the beauty of a year is that it is cyclical so there is always the option to double back at the end to any earlier topics you’d like to revisit. :-)
Access Support: If you have access needs that I’m not currently meeting, please do drop me a line! (The best email is contact@ac-smith.com.) I’d really like to make this project available to anyone who wants to participate.
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