Even though I’ve sung a lot in my life including singing duets and rounds with my brother, Howdy, who, although currently is the President of a popular men’s choral group in Jacksonville, FL called “Big Orange chorus” has been singing pretty much all his life, it’s only been in the last few weeks that I had the realization of just how sensitive I am to the sound of people’s voices.

My brother Howdy is on the left and his son, my nephew, Howdy III is on the far right

Two recent incidents come to mind.  I won’t link you to either one for sake of anonymity for  the people involved so perhaps you can take my realization and apply it to your own interactions and see what you hear in the voices in your daily life.  The first example is a female DJ who I would guess is in her 30’s. Her voice grates on my nerves and she has never done anything in her DJ duties that has ever indicated that she is anything but the nicest of humans.  But I hear in her voice an ego and almost a self-assured mocking  that incites me to want to knock her off her block.  I have no idea if my judgement from listening to her voice is correct; however, I do realize that just her voice sets my nerves on edge.

The second example is a person who I dearly love who has only recently found the inner strength to stand up on their own two feet and declare their place in the world.  When this person talks, their voice sounds as if there might be polyps on their vocal chords. And there might be, I don’t know, but what I’m basing the sound of their voice on is that when this person speaks their voice flows for just the first sentence or two and then their voice sounds as if their words are being funneled through a cheese grater. The voice seems to stop flowing the minute this person realizes they feel insecure and are being heard!

I’ve written before about “toning” with your voice for healing.  I am by no means a professional “toner”, but I have found toning to really help me. Especially if I am stuck and/or can’t quite put my finger on what I am feeling.  When I first began, I used to sit crossed legged in our guest room and let out sounds from low notes to high notes moving my voice/sound from my root chakra and on upwards to the highest note I could sound out.  I could actually feel when my voice/sound would catch where the feeling was stuck and then I’d focus on those notes until the notes became unstuck. Be careful when doing this around a cat or dog friend who is well-connected to you.  My cat Data used to run across the room when I began toning, run up my lap and touch my lips with her paw (sheathed of course!).

We humans are such animals!! I believe the more we accept this about ourselves, the more we can recognize and learn about the natural gifts we have inside.  I mean, it makes sense to me that our hearing can work for us well beyond just hearing the sound.  I remember when I began working in the fast-paced publishing environment “hearing” the shhh-shhh sound of some of the words that the Texan Ad execs (specifically the men) would pepper throughout their conversation with others, especially when they were trying to make a sale.  There was a sound in their voices that would often conjure up images of fine leather plush seats, smooth whiskey poured neat and potent cigar or pipe smoke wafting up and around a bent cowboy hat.

Maybe my sensitivity to voice is one of the reasons that I don’t like to listen to myself in interviews because I can “hear” what I was feeling and more times than not, I really prefer not to be that obvious!

And of course what is my favorite DJ on KUTX.org, John Aillee playing right now as I am blogging about voice and toning?? None other than the wonderful Craig Hella Johnson’s Conspirare singing Joby Talbot’s “Path of Miracles” which starts off with what sounds like Toning and/or Trance Singing!  Love it when everything moves in sync!  Makes me believe I’m right on target writing about the voice.

So…..why don’t you play with this?  If not with your own voice then wake up to the sounds in the voices all around you.  What are the sounds of life telling you?