The basis of my teaching is a recognition of the vibrancy and immediacy of vocal expression in all its forms....its creative and healing, as well as its social and celebratory aspects.
Towards a Yoga of Sound workshops explore the rasa (a Sanskrit word often translated as juice or colour) of life experienced in each moment; a kind of 'human tuning'.
The surrender into and development of this tuning is accessed through the simple acts of singing and moving, encouraging a deepening receiving of ourselves and the beauty of life.
Indian music has a millenia old, still living and vibrant understanding of the power and nature of sound. Courses use core ideas found in Indian music as a way of awakening and touching our own intuitive musical nature and of accessing our own vocabulary of sound -
- a 'body map' of the Seven Shining Tones
- singing with the speaking tone as the base
- receiving the 'feeling landscape' of each tone sung against a drone
- exploration of the atmosphere ('rasa') evoked by raga (melody form)
The starting point of a simple sounding of the Indian scale of the 'Seven Shining Tones' Sa; Re; Ga; Ma; Pa; Dha; Ni (the Sanskrit equivalent of Western music's tonic solfa,) with simple attentiveness to voice, breath and body, helps develop a sense of 'body tuning', a balanced listening and dialogue with both inner and outer worlds, and a creative playfulness in sound.
We can experience singing and sound as a natural home for us.
O Mind serve and
worship
the beautiful shapes of
the seven tones which
are shining
in the navel,
in the heart,
in the throat,
in the tongue,
in the nose and in the
other centres
Those seven Shining
Tones - beautiful beings
Serve and worship
them O my mind
'SOBHILLU SAPTASWARA'
TYAGARAJA