Vocal Freedom: Fall In Love With Your Unique And Brilliant Voice

Build strength and capacity with this vitalizing and expansive breathwork series. Learn how to do the 360 Expansive Diaphragmatic Breath and integrate the Kapalabhati Breath of Fire into your routine. Learn how these breathing practices support your voice and life.

Our first look at how we hold ourselves while practicing - physically (posture), mentally (attention), and holding space for ourselves (intention). We create a small signature move to remind you that this space is available to you.

What is truth? A collection of beliefs, perceptions, and stories. This is an invitation to reflect on your truth as it relates to self-expression, speaking, singing, and more generally, living. This exercise asks you to dig in and look at these parts of your being and reflect on where they come from without judgment.

In this lesson, we explore humming with our voice and making an open-mouth vowel sound. We play with the vowel of 'A' and the consonant of 'M', bringing them together to tone 'Ma.' We bring the element of curiosity in our inquiry into what it is to make a tone and a certain pitch. I also suggest mouth shape while making these sounds, and how our tone can express and be dictated by our emotions.

Time is our connection to our sensorial world. It is our observations, listening, and the silent space between the sounds. We open our exploration of time with this 10-minute meditation to connect with your senses and sip in life.

In this lesson, we add purpose to our breath practices and explore breath extension and control with the cobra breath. We also take a look at finding safety in the feeling of emptiness. This is an invigorating and vitalizing practice, enjoy!

108 Mantras of 'I Am Love' to explore the healing capacity of the voice. A focusing tool to bring you into the present moment. We compare the effect of singing aloud vs. singing silently in our heads.

In this lesson on Truth, we look at the larger influences on our beliefs, stories, and perceptions. I ask you to look into your family lineage, the influences of your local community, the sensorial inputs of the natural world, and what styles and genres you are attracted to in the creative world.

In this lesson, you will learn about the harmonics in your voice and a tool called the Bhramari Mudra to hear them. We also go over the vocal sigh and add it to our toning practice. This focal sigh is a wonderful tool you can use at any time to relieve stress and regulate your nervous system.

Learning to use our body as a percussive timekeeper is one way to connect with the rhythm of our song. We can also use tools like drums, instruments, and apps. Here, we look at making body percussion while singing, as well as dropping into improvisational singing. You don't need an accompanying instrument; you can always use your body.

Welcome back! In this class, we put all the expanding and strengthening we've been doing together to find our optimal singing breath. We invite the breath to expand our pelvic floor, belly, and thoracic diaphragm out on the inhale, using the pressure created to experience a strong, steady vocal on the exhale. We relax the neck muscles and allow this new mental and physical programming to guide us in healthier voice use.

In this lesson, we gently explore the 7 diaphragms of the vocal body, connecting our voice from the top of the head to the bottom of the feet. We then go into the essentials of vocal massage. I have a lovely 20-minute self-care vocal massage video for you to enjoy here:

This lesson asks you to review beliefs, stories, and perceptions gathered through the last few sessions and kindly reframe them into supportive statements. You’ll also be recording your voice and listening, finding the pieces you can love, and finding where you would like to grow your voice.

In this lesson, you are introduced to the 5 main vowels and 3 new consonants as tools to expand and give impact to your voice. These are the building blocks of your sound, and perhaps your first look at how they impact your ability to express yourself authentically. The Vowels: A/E/I/O/U The Consonants: B/H/M/Z We also explore the quality of our vowel expression through the lens of tone type, length of tone, and mouth shape.

Today’s lesson focuses on our skills of imagination as we go on a journey together to construct a sanctuary of sound! This is a place to use as a filter and a safe place to return to when you are singing or otherwise using your voice when you need a little extra support.

The Musical Breath Sequence begins to stack and gather our inspiration practices into a full-body breath and musical experience. Moving in static and dynamic postures with matching breathing patterns and sounding practices asks for our full concentration and presence. What each piece offers is profoundly helpful, and here we tie them together for an exceptionally helpful and supportive practice.

Yoga for Singers gives you building blocks to support your instrument. We focus on the areas of the body that directly impact your singing including the thoracic diaphragm, core (abs, psoas, hip flexors), and all around the side body, front body, and back body. Remember, staying flexible and strong is a key part of effortless singing! This is my go-to stretch routine for singing. Feel free to modify, add, or change anything that doesn’t feel right for your body.

Step into the creative potential of collaboration. Fuse what you love with your gift of music and sound. In this level, you are asked to record a song/poem/piece of art that you like and share it with another person. Choose someone who you feel is a supportive, encouraging, loving presence in your life. Remember, you can choose to ask for feedback, or simply say, “I’d like to share this, but I do not want any direct feedback, thank you!” This person can be me! Here is an opportunity for you to create new stories, new perceptions, new memories of the sacred and transformative space made possible by using your voice for personal expression.

Here you are introduced to The Scale – Indian Classical Singing Style. This is a way of organizing our sounds and is helpful for improvisation, songwriting, and harmonizing. You may have heard about Do Re Me Fa So La Ti Do (If you ever watched The Sound of Music!) The Sargam is similar, with syllables to represent different positions in the scale: Sa Re Ga Ma Pa Dha Ni Sa. This is extended to the 12-note scale when we add all the half-steps Sa (Re) Re (Ga) Ga (Ma) Ma Pa (Dha) Dha (Ni) Ni Sa. Indian classical music uses a movable octave, which means you can begin your octave at whatever pitch you like, with all other notes relative to the starting point of ‘Sa’. Each of these syllables is tied to a deeper meaning, and I encourage you to feel into where your emotions guide you when holding one note or moving from one note to another.

Sound is a healer. Just like movement and dance, your singing and voice are a tool for you to move energy, process emotions, and experience hard or challenging things. Here we explore self-expression through emotions and learn how making a sound sigil/gesture can help support our life.

Today’s lesson expands into using the voice as a healing instrument. We look through the lens of Qi Gong and learn the six healing sounds (Hee, Haw, Sss, Shh, Choey, Ooo), how they relate to the 6 Yin Organs, and how they can help us to move emotional energy.

This lesson is all about tools to support you in vocal health! My go-tos include Neti Pot, Steamer, Nebulizer, and Gua Sha. Generally, taking care of your instrument with movement (yoga, dance), eating well (food triggers include dairy/mucus-forming foods, spicy foods, dry foods). We also explore closing practices: Vuuu, Woooo (Low sounds for calming and coming into body)

In this lesson, you are introduced to a beautiful practice of writing out a prayer to your voice. Some ideas to include in your prayer are gratitude for how it has helped you in your life, the way it reminds you of where you come from, and how you intend to care for it and honor it. You can ask for support. Remember to stay in the affirmative present tense where possible.

Here, you are introduced to harmony and singing a melody with a drone. You are asked to play with holding a note and exploring different pitches together, noticing how the different intervals are felt in the body, and how to use this as a tool for improvisation.

Vibration is life! Everything around us has a song, ever-changing and strong. When we are connected to ourselves as a conduit, we can connect to and collaborate with our surroundings. This is a healing practice for loneliness, helping us to feel connected to something bigger than ourselves. Here you are asked to find a form of life, a tree, plant, crystal, or other source of energy, and drop into presence with it, asking to receive information to sing the song of this being into the form of your voice. Let your imagination guide you here and incorporate all your senses.