The human voice is the oldest instrument that exists and also the most complex and expressive. It is the first instrument that primitive men used. They used their voice and percussion instruments as a means of communication before achieving elaborate language.
The sounds are produced when the vocal cords vibrate, they vibrate in the larynx, due to the air that we expel from the lungs on expiration.
In the singing there are different parts of the body involved
The vocal cords are four muscles that tighten and relax. The height of the voice depends on the tension of the vocal cords and their natural length and thickness (the cords of men are thicker than those of women). We also have a resonance box formed by all the empty parts that the air we exhale travels through, amplifying the intensity of the sound.
The voices are distinguished, above all, by their tone and height, although they can also vary in other sound elements.
The human voice is a very powerful instrument, a wonderful healing tool. Through song, dance and theater, we can practice breathing exercises that can be very useful in times of anxiety. To sing we do not need to have anything, the voice is our most precious gift, and it is important that we use it. It is not about listening to music, you have to participate actively in it and the best way is by singing! It also doesn’t matter if we do it better or worse, everyone can sing and the best thing is to dare and practice, without shame.
Each of us can try to find his own tone, his song of life.
It may cost a bit at first, but it is a great satisfaction to try and get it. It is about investigating within oneself and looking for a melody with which we feel comfortable, and from there practicing with it. We may be surprised at what we are capable to do. There are some African tribes where they sing a personal song in the important moments of an individual’s life: When the person is born the people of the tribe sing a song that will accompany him in crucial moments in his life, such as his passage to adulthood, marriage, or death. It is also sung when the person feels sorry or guilty, to remind him his essence and who he really is, a cosmic being.
There is probably a language of nature. In the beginning, all the Earth spoke the same language and man could communicate with animals.
The phrases we pronounce can be very powerful, sound is vibration, and all those sounds that come out of us emit a vibration. Thoughts translated into words can have more influence than we imagine. That is why it is so important to think and speak positively, always with a positive attitude, or at least whenever we can and if we cannot at any given moment, let us be aware that it is a specific moment. We will change it next time.
An interesting exercise is to emit sounds without apparent meaning, in order to empty the mind, we can use all the possible onomatopoeias, and let ourselves go.
Something curious is the use of “Ow!” when something hurts. This expression is said almost the same in all languages. If we suffer any physical or mental pain, we will obtain to a certain extent a transmutation of suffering by the repetition of the mantra “ow”.
A mantra is a mystical energy contained in a sound structure. Its vibrations affect the chakras (or energy centers) directly, calm the mind and lead to the stillness of meditation. The pain seems less because the sound acquires greater intensity. The nervous energy of moral or physical suffering is consumed and causes a greater energy of rhythmic thought. And this gives certain powers to thought.
A Zen Buddhist, according to John Cage, said that if something is boring after two minutes, try it for four. If it still bores you, try it for eight, sixteen, thirty-two, and so on. In the end you discover that it is not boring at all but very interesting. For it is possible that boredom leads to a state of meditation. And perhaps it would be the case of King Philip V of Spain, who, as a treatment for his depression, listened to four same arias sung by Farinelli around 3,600 times, which means that they could reach a point where the daily ritual was nothing else. which is a kind of sound yoga.
The effects of music, therefore, are incredible. The most pessimistic music, with melancholic words, can lead to a state of catharsis, from which one comes out pure and edified.
