Tension Relief and Taking Care of My Voice

This week we are approaching finals which unfortunately means that assignments are starting to pile up.  I also have a couple performances coming up with my a cappella group so the lack of sleep combined with the constant singing of our upcoming Christmas show has my voice feeling rough. With the big week I have ahead of me I wanted to set aside some time to evaluate and take care of my voice. Recently it's been hard to find time to give my voice the proper attention it deserves. I forget that she is a muscle and just like athletes rest and recharge after a workout, it's important that you give your voice the same treatment. I have been studying a lot of Physiology recently so I was inspired to focus my exercise on soothing and strengthening my vocal cords.

I started with some SOVT (semi-occluded vocal tract) exercises, these are exercises that: reduce strain, improve vocal fold closure, improve breath support and promotes clearness of your tone. I use to do these exercises all the time in high school before a performances. My favorite of these exercises is the straw-bubble method. I love this because you can truly do this anywhere and it is great for practicing breath support. I took a glass of water and stuck a straw in it and blew bubbles into the water. I always try to release my breath as slow as possible and see how long I can blow bubbles for. The sound of the bubbles are always so relaxing and a wonderful way to clear my mind while balancing airflow in my vocal chords. The song I am soloing on for competition this year relies heavily on maintaining good breath support. By slowly releasing air into the water I am testing just how much air I can release in one single breath without putting any tension on my vocal chords. After a couple of rounds I can start to get this warm and tingly feeling in my chest that is similar to what I feel when I am focusing on resonance. Out of curiosity I put a hand to my chest but I wasn't able to feel any resonance. The next round I attempted to blow into the straw with a hum and was able to feel the resonance in my chest. I then explored different pitches blowing into the straw. The lower I went I wasn't able to blow into the straw and hum at the same time. However the higher pitches allowed me to maintain sound while blowing the bubbles. I was surprised at first because I thought my chest voice was going to be the easiest to maintain, however my upper register ended up being much easier to sing while continuing to circulate the air through the straw.

Overall I felt so much  more relaxed and grounded after my exercise. Singing after felt so much easier and sounded less strained while being able to keep the rasp that in my opinion gives the song attitude and life. 

 

Clash and Crunch

 This week my friend Sean invited me to help him work on a song he was arranging for one of his music classes. The song is called Oscar Winning Tears by RAYE. I immediately agreed. This is a song we both fell in love with after seeing it last competition season. He gathered a group of people from our a cappella group and another on campus to practice for the recording next week in the MUB. I am a Mezzo-Soprano on this arrangement which is really fun for me because I usually sing alto, so I got to play around in my upper range. With this arrangement we got to play around with crunchy notes which was so cool. This inspired me this week to explore the nature of clashing harmonies.

I think that when we think of music and sound we tend to think of swelling orchestras and what I like to call "pretty singing".  Now it's interesting think about because what makes a sound "pretty" is really subjective and up to the listener. I find myself associating "pretty" with pure tones, higher pitches, and light vibrato. Does this make lower, raspy voices (like my own) worse? Of course not. But I feel myself associating those qualities to having a good singing voice. Our brains also like order, so we tend to gravitate toward harmonies that lock and sound correct. When we hear notes that clash our brain automatically senses that something is wrong and it can feel like it doesn't sound right. However we are still creating music, and just because it sounds different doesn't make it wrong. This is what I had to ponder on as I played around with clashing harmonies. They can end up making interesting effects in the music. It might not be aesthetically pretty but we can end up making some really cool sounds. I found that the more I played around with the sounds the more I grew to love the crunchy feeling of the cord. We talk a lot about how we express emotion through music and these cords I found to carry heavy emotions, and also more complex ones. I found that these cords provide new avenues to express feelings such as confusion, desperation and turmoil that you don't get to feel as much with pure tones. Playing around with these chords honestly gave me relief coming off a huge test week and I honestly got to channel some of that stress through these chords. 

Below is an attached clip of me and a friend playing with clashing harmonies. There was also a very heavy presence of resonance and buzz in this chord which made it fun to sing.

Music as Worship

During week seven we were required to take a look at our classmates blogs and I was able to stumble across Ana's post that described using journaling as a form of worship. It was a beautiful post and it inspired me to dedicate one of my blog posts to how I use my voice for worship. 

I went home this weekend and was able to be with my family which was so refreshing. At lunch we got to talking about a scripture that popped up on my mom's phone as a devotional, Micah 6:8. The scripture talks about walking through life as a follower of christ being just, loving, kind, and humble. My sister had mentioned that when we were younger she would wonder if what we were taught to believe in was true. My dad answered that is the point of faith, you have to believe even when you can't see it or be certain. I thought about this scripture and thought even if it what I believed in didn't up being true, would it be so horrible to walk through life being just, humble, loving and kind? I love the God I believe in not out of obligation, but because of who the bible says he is. I was raised to believe in a kind and loving god, who is merciful. I aim to embody this in how I treat and interact with others on a daily basis. It truly breaks my heart when others have not been shown this version of the lord.  Growing up religious God has always been a part of my life. I have always felt most connected to him when I sing. Worship was always my favorite part of church. My siblings would always complain if they played extra songs after service, but I loved it. I am always the person with their arms thrown in the air singing their face off. It might look crazy, but it feels right.

On Sunday I decided to play around with worship music. I started by listening to my playlist of my favorite worship songs. I started to sing along and let the music carry me away. I completely turned my brain off and sang my heart out. That's my favorite part about worship, I never have to think. It truly comes from my soul. I knew this week I wanted to try songwriting but that concept is very scary to me. I love to sing but creating music is a whole different process. I knew that starting with worship music would be the best way to approach this. Instead of writing down lyrics, I just sang from the heart. It honestly felt good to just freeform sing and worship. It grounded me and allowed me to feel connected to God. This song is very experimental and honestly is just some thoughts and feelings I have about my God. It's far from perfect so I encourage you to listen with your heart more than your ears. I will attach a cover of a worship song and then my experimental clips. I hope you enjoy :)

 

Using the Power of Singing/Music to Manage Fear

With halloween coming up I wanted to do a something fun and explore a different side of my creative practice by testing if singing could help manage my fear levels. I got this idea from class when we learned about how having patients participate in creative practice can help pain management. An example of this is when we see patients with chronic pain use dance in order to shift their brains focus from their pain while moving their bodies. I thought that this also could also be applied to fear. I could potentially use singing to distract my brain from the fear of a haunted corn maze. I hate scary things, but I love my friends. They all wanted to go to a corn maze in Ocala for halloween, and I hesitantly agreed. I figured that If I was going to do this I would also test the principles we had learned in class and make this into my experimental practice for the week. 

The first time we entered the maze I decided to do a test run. I would go in the first time without singing to get a baseline for my fear levels. Safe to say I was absolutely terrified. There were no lights in the maze so you had to rely on your listening to assess if there was a scare actor in the nearby area. This also reminded me of my experimental exercise earlier in the semester where I had to listen without my ears. When you take one sense away your other senses will overcompensate. When you removed the vision aspect in the corn-maze I noticed I was putting much more attention to my surroundings with my ears and with my body. I was hearing stuff I would not normally notice or typically label as "background noise". It ranged from harsh, louder sounds such as crickets chirping to quieter, softer sounds such as the rusting of the corn. Walking through the corn maze in silence had me feeling full of dread and anticipation waiting for someone to pop out at any second. 

I then exited the corn maze and walked around to do some other activities for 20 minutes, giving myself a break from the maze and making sure I wasn't used to being scared before I headed back in. The second time I went in the maze I gathered my friends and started singing while we made our way through the corn maze. I had a completely different experience the second time I walked through the maze. This time instead of just focusing on where the next scare actor was going to be I shifted my focus to singing. This time I found myself actually having fun. It broke up the suffocating feeling of silence combined with the darkness of my surroundings. Having my friends join in brought life to this very scary situation that we were facing. I was filled with joy reminding myself that I have the power to shift the feeling of my surroundings through my singing. The songs we were singing were empowering/fight songs like"Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor and "Just keep swimming" from finding Nemo. Singing in the maze completely changed my experience and allowed the prominent feeling of fear to subside while I focused on the fun I was having with my friends.

After we left I couldn't help but think of the parallels I found in the maze to things the experiences of many patients in a hospital. Just like the dark and scary silence of the maze, this is often an environment that many patients face in their hospital stays. I kept thinking about the CT and X-ray rooms being pitch black and silent, and how they must have been experiencing similar levels of fear. I may have been scared about a clown popping out in a brief moment of fearing for my life but they are facing life or death situations on the daily. I also kept thinking about the style of songs we were singing. Having the uplifting message of the music in the maze could be applied the same to a hospital setting. Shifting the mood of the music let me focus on the message of what I was singing rather than the reality of my situation, which I think can be applied to the type of music we have patients interact with in the hospital. It also helped to be singing with my friends, hearing all of our voices made me more powerful and less alone in the maze. Having people come sing with the patients can help them feel a sense of human connection that is often missing from the sterile environment of hospitals. 

In conclusion, I definitely think that music can be a powerful tool for fear management along with pain management. It allowed me to see the direct impact that music has on not only my mood but the mood of my surrounding in the situation I was facing. It helped me shift my focus from my fear to my singing which made me feel safe in an otherwise scary circumstance. 

    

Stairwell Singing & Gratitude

 

This week has been nothing short of chaotic, I felt like I really only came back to my apartment to sleep. It was one of those weeks where you look at your calendar and wonder how in the world am I going to get this all done (and potentially shed a tear in the process). When I realized that I was starting to get in my head, I knew I needed a perspective shift and what better way to center myself than singing.

Before I sang I took a minute to reflect. It is so easy for me to mistake my blessings for stress, and I find myself creating unnecessary anxiety all the time. Before I sang I made a list of things that I take for granted on a day to day basis and re-wrote them as blessings. One of them being research. This week I got to present in the fall research symposium. Leading up to the event I was filled with stress wondering if my poster was good enough or if I will say the right things when presenting. I started to realize I was going about this all wrong. Conducting research here at UF is a dream come true and has helped fuel my love for the world of medicine. When I realized I was more nervous than excited I knew I had to shift my perspective. As I wrote my list I was instantly filled with gratitude. I am truly so blessed to be at this university and have the opportunity to create my busy schedule (full of clubs and classes I prayed to get into).  I ended up sticking this sticky note to my computer as a reminder of what a privilege it is to call myself busy. After I wrote my note I went to my favorite place to sing, the stairwell. There is something about the way your voice echos and reverberates off the walls in a stairwell that makes me so happy. After reflecting on my blessings I was reminded of the gift that is friendship. This brought me back to the first people who welcomed me with open arms to this campus, my a cappella group. They were my first family here at UF and they have made such an impact on my life in college. I started singing one of our songs from our competition set last year as I reflected on the love I have for them. The song was Angel of my Dreams by JADE, my favorite from the set. The process of singing with a set intention of gratitude gave me a whole new meaning to the song. As I listened to the echo of my voice through the stairwell I was flooded with memories from my freshman year in the group. I was able to fully clear my head from the anxious thoughts of the week and my fear was replaced with contentment and gratitude. Having a creative outlet my freshman year allowed me to escape the stress of school and find a community here at UF.  

To be able to use my voice as a tool for wellness is such an incredible blessing. Going through this week with a much needed perspective shift allowed me to walk into the research symposium excited to present. I was able to use my voice to ground me and reflect on the opportunities I have found at this university. 

Below are a clip of me singing in the stair well, my gratitude list and a pic of me with my research poster. 

Vowel Modulation With the Kiddos

 This week I decided to combine my artistic practice with one of the best parts of my week, serving with the St. Francis House. I started serving at the St. Francis house this semester as a part of a service-learning project for my Intro to FYCS class. I was so excited to find this program through the Gators for Good platform because I had been looking for places to serve that work with kids. I volunteer there as a tutor, but the kids usually finish their homework after an hour. I told the kids that I sing in an a cappella group on campus and explained to them that the songs we sing don't have instruments. We create those sounds using our voices. I told them that I would come in and work with them on vowel modulation to give them a sense of what our rehearsals were like. 

When I first started working with one of the kids named AJ, I noticed that he had some issues with certain vowels when reading. Specifically, "oo" was difficult because when he saw the double oo he would read it if it just had one o. I thought that practicing vowel modulation would be a good way to help him get comfortable with making that sound while having fun and showing him a little bit of what I do outside of school. At first, I was worried about how I was going to teach it to them. I eventually settled on putting on a Disney playlist and then played around with vowels in the songs they were familiar with. I found that this was very effective due to the fact that they already knew the songs so they could focus on the change in vowels instead of the song. We worked on "oo", "ah", and "ee". I was nervous that I was not going to be a good teacher and that they wouldn't understand, but I didn't give them enough credit. They picked it up really fast. Seeing them sing absolutely made my entire day. I was so proud of them for going out of their comfort zones and trying something new. It was also a learning experience for me because I have never taught a workshop or class before. I started by teaching them the vowel shape and how to make that sound, then demonstrated what that would sound like if I sung the whole song on that vowel. We practiced the shape and then sang the song all together. It helped me work on my patience as a teacher while I waited for them to form the correct shape with their mouths. I have had many leadership positions, but this is the first time I have ever had one within my creative practice. Teaching someone vowel modulation is very different from performing it myself. It was interesting to see what was hard for them versus what came naturally to me and how to best fill in those knowledge gaps.  The kids learn very similarly to how I learn. When singing I am not the best at reading sheet music, so I rely heavily on the pre-recorded voice tracks. If someone sings it, I can imitate it. The kids were very similar in their learning process. If I gave an example of how to sing it, they could usually replicate it on their own. From there I would help adjust and we would sing.  

I love working with these kids; they have truly changed my entire semester. They are so incredible and are truly some of the most resilient humans I have met. They never fail to have a smile on their face no matter what their families have recently been through. Being able to share something I love with them and work on my teaching skills was such an incredible experience. I got to apply my creative practice in a teaching setting helping to expand the range of my artistic abilities. I was nervous at first but I ended up having so much fun. I didn't record them the first time we did this just so they could feel comfortable without any pressure. However, I did take a picture of them before we left, and AJ celebrated by putting stickers all over himself.  

Listening to Music Without Sound

A couple of weeks ago in class we were doing an experimental exercise where we were asked the question "how do you listen without sound?".  In the exercise we were given the challenge to communicate with our partner without talking or making any noise. We used gestures to symbolize our thoughts, but then immediately after went straight to talking about what we were attempting to convey. As humans I think we are so desperate to be understood and heard, but what about the people who physically can't communicate with their voices or are unable to listen with their ears?  This question has been stuck on my mind recently, especially as a singer where I rely on listening in order to harmonize and make sure I'm on pitch. It got me thinking about how people with hearing disabilities listen to music. This week I decided to listen to music without my ears.

For a while I was struggling with how exactly I was going to do this when I one night I was walking back from the library and could feel the vibrations coming from the music the bars were blasting on University. I then decided that instead of listening to music I was going to feel its vibrations. The next morning I pulled out my speaker and started feel the music. I turned up the volume on my speaker and cupped my hands around it. Instead of listening to the music it was playing I focused intently on how it felt in my hands. The first song played was Jigsaw by Conan Gray. This song starts out soft and mellow and then breaks into electric guitars with a very rock heavy vibe. This song is about changing yourself for another person because you love them but in the end don't even recognize the person you have become. In the beginning of the song I felt these soft and long waves of buzzing, which felt almost like a sigh. You could feel the emotional weight of the song in the vibrations and the sadness the artist was carrying with him. When the guitars and drums come in you get this strong pulse that feels angry and confused. It feels like the vibrations are almost kicking you. I get this image of someone in my having a meltdown and just screaming and crying. Without the lyrics I could very strongly feel the emotion of the artist and tell the he was in pain. I then decided to see what a more upbeat song would feel like by switching the song to It's Not Unusual by Tom Jones. This one started off with pulses but not like the last song where it felt like kicking these were lighter and faster. They fluttered and reminded me of a heart skipping a beat which perfectly reflects the giddy feelings of love the artist wrote this song about. You could feel the emotional difference in the songs through the weight and power of the vibrations. I also noticed myself closing my eyes in order to focus on what I was feeling which allowed me to create mental images of the song based of the vibrations and rhythms. 

Overall this was a really cool experience for me and has allowed me to discover a new way to listen to music. This allowed me to stop and put myself in someone else's shoes and experience something I love in a whole new way. It gave me a whole new outlook on listening to music, paying attention to how the song not only makes me feel emotionally but how it feels like physically. This brought me back to my love for music and all the ways that it can be experienced. It truly is a universal language. Not only did it give me new perspective but it allowed my brain to take a pause and focus on one specific thing. I feel like I am always running around from one thing to the next, but taking time to go through this process was a much needed mental pause from the craziness of my week. 

It's so important to have an open mind and remember that other people experience the world from a completely different point of view. By putting ourselves in others shoes we gain knowledge and empathy in order to create a more empathetic and inclusive world.