Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: ability, badhearing, beyond, brain, disability, ears, English, frequence, hearing, image, lichtenberg institute, more, research, sense, smell, taste, unique, vocal coach
About a week ago the three of us (running this blog) were having a conversation about abilities and disabilities and the opportunities this was creating for each of us.
I did study music at the conservatory in Antwerpen-Belgium and it wasn’t obvious because I am a badhearing. Bert (one of the three) was telling me that the word ’badhearing’ was giving me a negative image. He said: you are much, much more than that. But I am hearing bad so I started wondering about it.
I did my own investigation for years and at the soundorientated institute of Lichtenberg in Germany I discovered that our ears are doing much more than just hearing. Hearing is what you do when you pick up a sound in your ear and it ends up in you brain where you finally ‘hear’.
The other important role your ears do have is the possibility to sense. This sensitivity is directly communicating with your larynx and it adds a lot of colour and frequences to your sound. And this is something all of us can produce. What an ability!
So when I am coaching a voice I do smell, taste, feel, sense what is happening in a students’ mouth. Hard to explain but that’s the way it works for me. I’m reaching beyond the ‘normal’ way of hearing.
So Bert has right to say that badhearing isn’t the right word for me. But I do not find another word. It has something to do with hearing in a different way, feeling a sound, tasting and smelling frequences.
My disability became my own unique ability!!
My question to you: do you have any suggestion for a new word that suits me about the way I hear? Your suggestion or comment is more than welcome!
Bea
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: affect, chocolate, I can't sing, mouth, naked sound, overtones, smelling, sound, sweet, tasting, undertones, vocal coach
As a vocal coach people often tell me that they can’t sing. Then I ask them to produce a sound. After some hesitation they do but they also immediately claim: ‘you see, this is no singing!’ Then I say: ‘maybe but you have just produced a naked sound’.
You see, the basic of a sound is a sinus tone (you hear that quite well when you try to sing high notes: it often sounds very sharp without any colour). When you want to ‘colour’ that sound you have to allow overtones and undertones. You can compare it with an atom which has a nucleus or centre and a cloud of electrons moving around the nucleus. The cloud of electrons are the overtones and undertones. They do give your voice its personal colour. To be able to produce them you have to make use of the acoustic possibilities in your head: the mouth, the throat, …etc.
At this point I do stop giving information and let them experience:
Take a small piece of chocolate (or honey or marmelade or something you like and that melts quite quickly in your mouth).
First take a smell of the chocolate and try to situate the places in your mouth were you are smelling or tasting it already.
Then put it on the middle of your tongue. Close your mouth and keep it there about 10-15 seconds. Your salivary glands will react immediately, be aware and try not to swallow yet. Now start to rub the chocolate with your tongue against your palate. Finally swallow the chocolate. Be aware of all the places you experience the chocolate, the texture of it, the smell, the satisfaction.
After you swallowed it, keep on going observating what is happening in your mouth. Now you will be fully aware of all the acoustic places of your mouth and a bit of your throat. If you feel comfortable produce a sound being fully aware of the chocolate experience. It will affect your sound and now your are singing a sweet chocolate sound.
The more you enjoy tasting a sound, the more a public will enjoy the taste of it too. It is like drinking wine: the more you are aware of smelling and tasting it the more you will enjoy the bouquet.
this way a naked sound will be surrounded by overtones and undertones and end up in a rich and colourful result everyone is enjoying, yourself included.
Sing chocolate!
Bea
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: brainstorming, conversation, denie, discussion, English, failure, feeling, lie, statement, success
I had several conversations last week about the feeling of not being good enough. What is failure and what is success? We were also talking about pleasing people in order to make sure you were taken care of. Even if you have to lie or to denie yourself (often as a kid we do). This way it is hard to be successful and failure is the easy one to catch. Is this true? Or is it just a black and white statement?
Yesterday after some brainstorming on my own , I came up with next sentence:
THERE IS NO SUCH A THING AS FAILURE EXCEPT IN THE MIND OF PEOPLE
What do you think about it? What is your experience on this subject?
Bea
Congratulations!
We are thinking about using the Fibonacci sequence as one of our main elements for visualizing what we do.
This is the first article on our blog!
Have fun 
