What I am about to share with you is a process - a way of giving life to a song so that the song lives as a true reflection of who we are. The sounds a human being makes are made by the body. They are physiological. They come from within. We are not plucked, thumped, struck or blown. The noises we make are made by muscles, sinews and flesh manipulated by thought and emotion - nothing else. We cannot make a sound of any consequence without engaging these two elements. 

We need to develop the skill to be able to convert thought into action, action into emotion and emotion into sound. 

We now need to discover how to apply this skill to the singing voice and by doing so express ourselves with artistic power and inspiration. We want to tell the story inherent in a song, truthfully. We need to make sure when we sing, we sing with an honesty that overrides the reliance on “beautiful tone”. Beautiful tone is certainly the goal of a trained singer. Like a dancer there are physical and mechanical requirements that override everything else. Beautiful tone for a classical singer is generally not compromised by lyric/sense/movement. The shape of the vowel and placement of the voice is always at the forefront of these performers minds. Even emotion will get in the way and can compromise the so called "beauty of tone". We need to go beyond this and emphasis sense, and storytelling- not only in the lyric but also in the vocal tone. 

There is very often a chasm between the voice and the person singing - a disembodied sound coming from an unlikely source; a sound sometimes very impressive in tone but with no meaning, no content and no heart. 

From the tone of the voice a listener can determine the emotional state of the speaker or singer. The less connected to the voice an individual is, the more disguised and misleading he/she is, and the less free, open, and honest the sound. We must close this gap by exploring a way of connecting to a song so that the song becomes you and you become the song and by doing so serve the needs of the composer and lyricist and bring new life to their work. 

That is our aim - to bring new life. 

An Extract from A Socratic Dialogue- An artistic Deliberation for Actors (who sing)

By Peter Cousens

For more information and Masterclass enquiries- peter@petercousens.com 

[top] [back]