Transcription
Hi, everyone.
I'm Veronica Start, your holistic vocal coach.
In this podcast, series, I'm exploring this seven psychological foundations that I believe should shape your singing, helping you sing with real soul.
In previous episodes, we discussed emotions, identity, mentors, and core breathing.
Since we're building layers of understanding throughout this series, I recommend checking out those episodes first to get the full picture.
Today, we're going to talk about messaging for singers, what it means to sing with authenticity and how your values shape your voice.
When we admire other singers, chances are we also admire their values and what they stand for.
Our singing mentors seem to have a strong sense of self that attracted you to them, and their songs reflect values that align with their identity, their persona.
And the story needs to be real.
So do your songs need to reflect who you really are?
Well, at the very least, your lyrics should connect to something you've truly felt or lived through.
Choosing the right songs for your voice and image is always best served by delivering the best part of who you really are, resonating with your soul.
So what if you weren't quite sure about who you really are?
Well, we find out who we really are by understanding our core values.
Now, values are a bit of a slippery subject because much of who we are is tied up with expectations and even conditioning from our environment.
To help explain this, I've created a visual model, which is based on the Jungian terms, such as our soul, our subconscious, and the collective consciousness.
At the centre of us, housed in our soul, are our core values.
This is your why, the reason you do something.
Wrapped around this are our primal values, the subconscious reactions that make us freeze, run, or engage.
Then we have the outer world, the conscious real world of lived values in action.
And there's a bigger sphere around this, the collective consciousness.
These encompass group values, the rules of the game you follow if you want to be a part of those groups.
So what are those groups?
Groups can be as general as the human species, countries, towns, or as specific as schools, workplaces, families, friends, musical genres, or even social media platforms.
The collective values that these groups uphold can be directly communicated to us in various ways, but because life can be unfair, sometimes those rules aren't very clear.
You may have noticed that these collective values can overpower us, and there's an element of social contagion that can trick our minds into following values that we haven't thought too deeply about.
If you really think about it, all the conflicts between people and groups have a lot to do with the differences and our values.
And sometimes it's about the ability to communicate what those values are.
Sometimes conflict exists to help us work these things out and to get more clarity .
And this is why conflict is sometimes a good thing.
It sounds very complicated, right?
Well, here's where the core power practice of breathing and meditation comes into play.
When we talked about core breathing in the last podcast, we touched on how breath can strengthen your core connection with what or who you believe your source of creation is.
Instead of absorbing influence from groups, the practice of breathing and centring can strengthen your sense of individuality and help you be more grounded in who you are.
The goal for singers is to have a firm anchoring in your personal values and to stay true to that while navigating and engaging with the rules of the many games, groups, and situations we find ourselves in.
In music and in musical theory, there are non-negotiable group rules.
For example, if you sing jazz, there is an understood structure to that musical conversation, or no one will know when a solo is over.
If you break some of these musical rules, you might not stand out in the most positive way, but sometimes artists can become innovators.
A good example is Miles Davis , who possesses a strong knowledge of the established rules from his studies at Juilliard, and due to his strong sense of self, he reinvented and redefined the jazz genre throughout his career.
For the majority of us mere mortals, we won't be able to control predetermined rules, or even have a desire to innovate, but we can make decisions about the style of music we want to sing and the repertoire that truly aligns with who we really are, and not just to follow a trend because it's popular.
A powerful example of this alignment is in my core power workshop, where we do a performance observation exercise, watching the movie amazing Amazing Grace.
This is a live album recording of Aretha Franklin singing with a gospel choir in Los Angeles.
Her performance at the song "Amazing Grace is the perfect example of core belief and core power.
We can watch her body as she's holding onto the pulpit, pulling the deepest feeling up from her torso, leaning her head back, and pouring out her deepest truth with unshakeable conviction.
You don't have to share in her beliefs to be moved to tears by this performance , and if you watch it, I recommend keeping a box of tissues handy.
The deep devotion Aretha transmits, rooted in her core values, is the epitome of soul singing.
Her belief in something greater, whatever you might call it, penetrates your heart because it's so real.
This is how core power works.
It's physical, it's spiritual, it's psychological.
And you simply cannot fake a commanding power like this.
And if you want to transmit your core power, your repertoire choices, your songwriting topics, are extremely important.
So again, every aspect of being a singer depends on the alignment of your messaging in the form of your values.
Group values from the collective consciousness, like musical genres, or the reputations of artists, play a big role in influencing and inspiring your repertoire .
Your conscious values, your actions, flow into your rehearsals, your gigs, your marketing, your merchandise, your endorsements, and are directly tied to the reward you receive.
In other words, the money that you earn.
Primal values from the subconscious represent how you handle trust, decisions, a sense of security, stage fright, and nervous anticipation , and your core values, your soul, at the sense centre of all this, and ultimately, what should be informing your song interpretation and your career direction.
If you know your why, the reason you do a thing, you will have the strength of psychological safety to make better business and artistic decisions that all flow into your writing, your inspiration, and the greater world around you.
Whether you're an entertainer, singing covers, or a singer-songwriter, every story in the world has already been told.
Every story is already in the collective consciousness that you are also a part of.
What makes an artist a soulful artist is the ability to literally breathe new life, your life, into an old storybook and make it new.
I hope you can take a moment this week to nurture those core values.
Maybe pick a song that really speaks to your why and let's keep singing with soul.
In my next podcast, we'll dive into the audience, exploring how neursychology can unlock the secrets of connecting deeply with your listeners.
Bye for now.
See you soon!