Our voice is a multifaceted instrument. Like other wind instruments, the voice has an intricate body. However, unlike other wind instruments, the instrument of the voice has a brain with thoughts, a being with awareness and a body that responds to both these elements. To play the instrument of the voice with freedom it takes a bit of fine- tuning on several levels. However, It is worth the work to fine tune and unlock the instrument of the voice because once that journey begins singing begins to feel like what I think flying must feel like!      
                       
To fine-tune our vocal instrument it can be helpful to understand the relationship between the body and the mind. You see the voice is the only instrument that is so intricately connected with the resistance and the contraction of our belief systems, trauma and drama.  The life stuff that we go thru and hold onto affects our body and affects the instrument of our voice. When I first started to play the flute as a preteen I had to bring my flute into get worked on because one of the pads was stuck and I couldn’t get a note out. The instrument of the voice doesn’t have flute pads to mechanically fix but it does have muscles and connective tissue to soften, posture to align and technical memory to establish.                    

By bringing our awareness to the physical sensation we are having, and the thoughts and emotions that seem to be attached to them we are able to “ oil” the instrument of the voice.  To really fine-tune the instrument of the voice we must allow the possibility that our belief systems can lock up our body. The unseen world has a profound effect on the physical world if we let it. What if we are made up of vibration and everything else in the world even our beliefs are made up of vibration? What I have seen is that vibration can affect other vibrations. For example, the opera singer who can break the glass with the vibration of her voice or the experiment of saying LOVE into a glass of water and watching under a microscope the molecules change shape or even the electric stim. machine the physical therapists use to put vibration into a tight or torn muscle to heal it.   Vibration affects our body and vibration can release our body.                                        

Our belief systems and their vibration left untouched can control our lives. They are on a loud speaker and on  a continuous loop in our minds running our lives and our experiences of singing. As we develop our awareness about what is running our lives and our ability to sing, we then can begin to change the loudspeaker contents and its frequency. Instead of singing from a default pattern or habit, we can deliberately release and create our voice.  What if this could create a profound change in our bodies and our voice?  
                                                                                           
That is just what I have experienced !

– excerpt from “Happy and Singing: an out of the box approach to freeing your Voice & your life” by Rebecca Abraxas