Song One:

I see blue

I am in a marsh, the light grey-blue colors of the sky…..it is misty….the wind is moving through the willows. Through the wind and the sky an expansive voice….a goddess voice over the marsh…..

A few people sit by the edge of the water….they are sitting separately, isolated from each other looking out into the mist….it is a kind of desolate and vast place, very calm….not lonely, it is just very open.

The sky is changing-it is opening up a little bit….you can see the moon through the mist……clouds….there is a sadness here, a very sad story…a sad woman’s story….she is pleading and asking, …why? Why has this befallen on me? It is like a prayer, something which she is pleading for.

Song Two:

India……majestic, the backyard of a palace…roses petals everywhere, it is a beautiful day….so serene…lots of deep and tall forest green colored trees…..the sky is beautiful and expansive…..

There is a long and narrow dirt road with trees closely next to each other on both sides of the path…..it is very romantic……intermixed in the trees are dark sculpted green bushes…..An Indian woman is walking down this road…..long strides, deep in thought…..it was at this moment while this woman was walking down this path that I realized the Indian woman……. was me.

I’m feeling a warming of the heart….the Indian woman is touching the ivy along the way….feeling the leaves within her fingers, there is a yearning, something wanting to open…

The Voices of god are in the sky harmoniously singing….souls up there singing, they want to remind me that they are there…..

Deep blues, purples, light pink colors in the sky, like the most beautiful sunset …

Colors and colors…

She continues to walk on with all of her silks wrapped around her…a glow of silk, a glow of sky……slow motion…colors and colors a whirlwind of colors…..the sunset tones of her silks connecting with those of the sky as her body becomes stretched pulling upward into the sky….uplifting into this ethereal space above while her feet are still in the earth below……

These two bodies, one of sky and one of earth become meshed in each other…they are becoming one like a bridge connecting the earth with the sky…I am a beautiful mix of silk and pastel colors swirling and swirling……

Song Three:

The sky is singing….all of the colors are singing

Small children playing together, laughter outside

A little girl is skipping freely…..with such openness, she is so innocent and has not yet had any of life’s hardships befall on her…there is such freedom in her movement….skipping through the grass, so much energy….she continues singing to herself in the middle of a large grassy field……she is saying out loud “there is so much I want to do today.” The face is no longer blurry….it is becoming more real now, it is my husband’s niece, Mia keeping herself occupied by playing…shouting out to the world, “Do you want to join in with me and play? If not, I’m fine being here and playing alone!” and she truly is fine….smiling…..carefree……

Magenta tones……………..the color I am beginning to now see when my third eye opens……..

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Carrying this beautiful weekend with me and still feeling its presence, one of my students was having difficulty singing a legato line in tune….I could sense her frustration and dismay; I asked her to look at her body as an instrument and to pick up a magical imaginary bow…….at first she gave me cheesy, comical and sarcastic looks, but I asked her to try and put that all to the side and just go along with this seemingly strange exercise………I asked her to physically strum right along her lower body and to breathe into the resonance….one stroke, two strokes…….and her voice blossomed. What a change! The color of her voice warmed, her breath dropped lower into her body, and the tuning effortlessly resolved itself! I have always looked at the human voice as an instrument, but to physically pretend that it was an instrument truly breathed new life into my student’s voice and it is a technique that I have loved using throughout the years and continue to improve upon.

Of course, I am a little biased. I think that the human voice is the most beautiful instrument in the world because it carries within it our spirit, our blood, our body, and our souls. We wake up with it each day and go to sleep with it at night. It dreams with us.   It holds onto the traditions of our families and the memories of our ancestors while at the same time being uniquely our own.

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Another student who has had to overcome some real hardships and was robbed of her childhood in many ways wrote through the subtext in one of her songs that “her soul was dead.” Bothered and saddened by her having written that I began working through a vocalization/visualization with her where she closed her eyes and extended her arms out towards her soul. I had her feel it’s weight, to sing to her soul so to speak….a very powerful exercise with many beautiful outcomes…..my student ended up singing with such feeling when she was holding her soul out in front of her……I mentioned afterwards, “how can your soul be dead if through the music you just brought in so much life and passion…perhaps it’s not dead at all, but it has just been sleeping?”…..I think it gave her a new understanding and realization about her earlier statement. It is a wonderful and awesome thing to be able to help people in this way and I feel very honored that students trust me with their deepest wishes, thoughts, fears, and joys.

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Then there were those lazy summer camp afternoons where we would all gather after lunch and sing songs with counselors from around the world humming the different melodies in languages from far off countries such as Tanzania, India, Australia, and Brazil.  At the time I knew little of this music, it was not just the songs that stuck out so keenly in my mind, it was the depth and feeling of expression that each song expressed. These were not trained performers within the vocal arts, but it didn’t matter in the least, it was the feelings that they evoked within me because their songs were true, real, and a part of who they were.  These songs carried with them far off traditions passed down from generation to generation.

I remember a counselor from Africa who once stopped me with a wide grin when I passed his cabin and asked if I could serenade him and his troupe of young boys to the song “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.” I couldn’t have been more than 11 or 12 years old. What I remember so vividly is not so much my performance of this piece, but how his face lit up with an inner happiness that seemed to brighten up my world at that moment. I gave him a gift and he reciprocated one in return, that to me is music….giving/receiving…laughing/crying….showing a piece of your soul and letting it release…. the cycle of singing and the cycle of human emotion can’t be separated because singing is life.

This is what I strive to teach to each and every one of my students. 

Marissa

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