The song in the ancient times
Since ancient times humans have expressed their deepest emotions through sound, music and song. Words failed to express the intensity of heartful joy, sorrow, sensuality, horror, pain, triumph, religiousness. It is a human being's intrinsic nature to respond to deeply-felt experiences through sound and song it is an authentic response imbedded deep in human consciousness. The ancients knew the effects of sound, song and rhythm on matter. They created specific energy fields to support the performance of work activities and to ease the co-ordination of movements in groups even when instruments and machinery were being used. Extraordinary achievements were thus possible. Similarly they knew how sound affects the levels of consciousness. During religious rites, they were able to create special sound patterns in chorus to generate essential states, and doors to the experience of the divine. In the healing arts, sounds and songs were used with scientific knowledge of their effects Only in recent years we are again researching the vibratory effects of sounds on the cells and applying them as healing agents.
The song today
Our so-called Western culture has gradually lost the understanding of all the possibilities for communication, healing, therapy, psychological and spiritual transformation that the voice offers. Favouring mental activity and a mechanical vision of reality, the practice of singing has been reduced to an activity of entertainment for others, and precise ideas of how this singing should sound have been developed. If we can't respond to such modalities we consider ourselves and others as not being able to sing and we believe that only few "gifted" people can. The medium of VOICING© is to help you understand that singing, like painting and dancing, is your birthright. Everybody can sing when they rediscover the song as the direct expression of their emotions and longings.
VOICING© is an approach that uses different ways to reactivate the knowing of and the sensitivity towards sounds, one's own singing capacities and how they affect our nature. The participant will rediscover the connection between the inner world and the singing voice. Through specific techniques and group situations he will be helped to move easily inside himself and to use the voice as the horse on which to ride to discover the inner territory -- no matter how it looks or sounds. Most of our problems, depressive states, dissatisfacions, pains etc. are caused by stagnant energy forms that are supported by the belief systems that, consciously or unconsiously, we have adopted. These blocks limit our spontaneity and our natural response to the stimuli of life. Through VOICING© the participant is encouraged to meet and challenge his belief system and to confront his fears by the means of singing. Singing is, in fact, the best means to remove such blocks. The space of trust and acceptance that is created allows the participant to reveal to himself and to the others his various parts, including those of this "shadow". He will discover unexpected, at times even awesome and sublime, timbres and tones of his voice which will uncover a range of communication previously unaccessible. For many years the scream has been used in therapy as a means of expression and emotional release. Through screaming you get rid of something that is burdening you inside. Sometimes this is needed to ease the pressure, but the real healing, the real therapeutic agent lies in acceptance and in deep understanding. The great treasure of the song is acceptance: you cannot sing what you don't accept. The song gives expansion and dignity to emotions like pain, anger, grief etc. Through this act of acceptance and celebration they dissolve into a deep sense of well-being -- a sense of being in touch with one's own self. With the practice of VOICING© the participant becomes more aware of how his inner world functions and he realizes that not only the emotions but also his inner dialogue is vibrational and reveals a sound structure. Exposing it through the singing he is activating a transformation that is opening from the psychological level to the domains of Essence. Singing one's own personality, one's own emotions and one's own mental forms allows you to take some distance and to disidentify from them. VOICING© can be used also as a technique of meditation - a meditation that has the quality of active meditation and the flavour of creativity at the same time. In this way song can be looked at as a bridge from personality to spirituality. The novelty is that everyone can become the healer of himself at any given moment. VOICING© is no doubt a therapeutic approach of the future.
An amazing property of sound is resonance. This resonance is the sign that a moment of truth is happening and can be therefore viewed as a guide. It doesn't matter if the song is hoarse, jarring, unusual, impressive, awesome; if the participant has the courage to stay with it and to go into it totally, the sound will acquire the quality of resonance. With practice he will learn to recognize resonance as the signal that something truthful has been activated and wants to be expressed. When sound is resonant it means that it produces a sequence of overtones. This particular sequence happens in various manifestations of life. It is apparently even present between the planets. This phenomenon shows that when the song is resonant (no matter how it sounds) theexperience is in perfect attunement with the universe and has therefore the right to be expressed.
To be able to develop and to improve the connection between one's own voice and the inner world we need to practice the art of listening. Generally we cannot express sounds that we don't hear. Real listening is not just mechanical; it is a holistic condition of awareness of the auditory scenario we are in. In the modern world the excess of visual impulses, together with increasing sound pollution, are slowly atrophying our auditory capacities. Reawakening to the art of listening enhances receptivity and centeredness and opens the door to the silences of the heart which, paradoxically, can sometimes be "heard". Several mystical traditions have spoken of the "soundless sound".
VOICING© teaches a particular use of the singing voice, enhancing, but without interfering with, the uniqueness of the voice of the single individual. In this work we explore different timbres and tones of voice from the lowest to the highest. Each tone-band will trigger different issues connected to the chakra map and to the corresponding level of consciousness. Each emotion, each state of personality and essence will have its particular sound quality of timbre, tone and place in the body, although the texture will be different in each individual. Techniques of Bio-Energetic, Centering, Breathing, Shamanism, Healing as well as Hypnosis, NLP and various meditation techniques will be also used to provoke and support the exploration of the voice. We use different types of Jibberish, also applied in the songs. Language is actually much more related to cultural conditioning than singing and for this reason is mostly avoided. Nevertheless, a certain articulation is needed to be able to express all the range of inner experiences -- vowels only cannot fullfill this possibility. It has been interesting to observe that Japanese (and other Asian people) relate to VOICING© very easily and can benefit a lot from it because their cultural conditioning is encapsulated in a very complicated language code. This explains their passion for singing and the astonishing capacity they have to encounter many dimensions inside themselves and expose them through singing without inhibitions. Another part of this work is devoted to the art of listening: - listening to other people's voices as well as one's own. - listening through different centres in the body to music and songs from various cultures. - listening to sounds in nature and from instruments in a state of hypnotic trance to discover how they are affecting the physical, emotional and subtle bodies and the various levels of consciousness.