Music Soothes an Elephant's soul

For those of you who think that animals can't feel pain, are stupid, or immune to grief, please open your mind and read on!

I recently read an article about 45 year old Suma, the Elephant, in a Croatian zoo, who had lost her pacyderm partner of 10 years to cancer. Suma was inconsolable; wouldn't eat or sleep and was clearly suffering from extreme grief and depression. Who said animals can't FEEL??

The zoo had organized a concert of classical music that happened to be opposite Suma's compound. At the sight of the five musicians with instruments, Suma began to pelt the tuxedoed musicians with small pebbles fired from her trunk. Then something totally incredible happened!

"But as soon as the concert started, what we saw was fascinating. Suma leaned against the fence, closed her eyes and listened without moving the entire concert," Mr. Anic (head of the Zagreb Zoo) said.

Suma now gets a daily dose of Mozart, Bach and Vivaldi, and seems to be coming out of her depression, consoled and comforted by her musical prescription.

Don't ever think that we human beings are the superior race! Animals feel, hear, smell and taste things that we're totally oblivious to. We humans, though, have lost our connection with nature; and our senses, as well as our instincts, have become dull. Elephants, in fact, communicate (as do whales and other sea creatures, just to name a few!) in subsonic ranges that we 'superior' humans can't even hear!

Take a lesson from Suma. The next time you're angry or depressed put on some uplifting, magical music and let your soul be healed.

Open Up Your Words!

The next time you sing a song, or give a presentation, become conscious of 'opening up your words'. So many times I'll hear a singer or speaker, and can't understand most of the words they're saying or singing! What you've got to realize is that people may not have heard your song before, so all your words, your entire story, is new to them. If you're presenting, everything you'll be saying to your audience is brand new!

Do your audience a favor and let them CLEARLY UNDERSTAND YOU. No one will be focusing on your message if they're straining to hear your words.

The way to make yourself clearly understood is to open up your words. I don't mean to open your mouth in phony, exaggerated movement. All you have to do is simply make more space INSIDE your mouth. By imagining an orange (or some other small fruit!) inside your mouth, you'll lift up the soft palette and open up the words. Elongating your vowels will also make it easier to hear every word.

It's also important to slow down your speech, or slightly overemphasize your pronunciation. What is clear to you, may still be hard to understand for someone who's unfamiliar with your words and topic.

Singers, especially, need to open up vowels and make space for their words so that lyrics are clear and understandable. If you're telling an important story with your song, you want it to be understood, otherwise, your audience won't be able to relate to your music and you will have lost a very important emotional connection.

Remember that what sounds clear to you in normal speech or singing, may not be clear to an audience who has never heard your presentation or music. Open up your words to clearly communicate your message and the emotion that is the key to your success as an effective performer!

Sing. Dance. Be Happy!

In the Path of Your Happiness....
A Master's story from Illusions, by Richard Bach


....And the Master said unto the people, "If a man told God that he wanted most of all to help the suffering world, no matter the price to himself, and God answered and told him what he must do, should the man do as he is told?"

"Of course, Master!" cried the many. "It should be pleasure for him to suffer the tortures of hell itself, should God ask it!"

"No matter what those tortures, nor how difficult the task?"

"Honor to be hanged, glory to be nailed to a tree and burned, if so be that God has asked," said they.

"And what would you do" the Master said unto the multitude, "if God spoke directly to your face and said, 'I COMMAND THAT YOU BE HAPPY IN THE WORLD, AS LONG AS YOU LIVE!' What would you do then?"

And the multitude was silent, not a voice, not a sound was heard upon the hillsides, across the valleys where they stood.

And the Master said unto the silence, "In the path of our happiness shall we find the learning for which we have chosen this lifetime. So it is that I have learned this day, and choose to leave you now to walk your own path, as you please."

And he went his way through the crowds and left them, and he returned to the everyday world of men and machines....

WHAT A GREAT STORY. It exemplifies the truth that we are all responsible for our own happiness. No one else can make you happy; no one else can make you unhappy unless you choose to let them. When you are fulfilled and are feeling good about yourself; when there's harmony in your world, only then can you reflect that harmony back to others.

Is it time for you to SING, to DANCE, to COME ALIVE AGAIN? Don't waste another minute standing on the sidelines of life! Take control and do those things that make your soul sing. Do it for yourself, and your whole life will change. The joy you experience will be a joy you can SHARE with others. In being our authentic self; in singing and dancing through life, we enable and empower others to do the same. Just by living our lives fully we are a shining example to others. Implicitly, we give them permission to do their own singing!

Can you see that neon sign in the distance flashing "HAPPINESS!"? Is the path to that happiness strewn with rocks and boulders that stand in your way? Then it's time to clear away all those boulders and learn the lessons that are there for us in this lifetime! Every boulder has a valuable lesson for us. You may roll one boulder away, only to have it reappear again later. Is there a reoccurring boulder in your life? Something that stops you from living life to its fullest?

I believe that we're responsible for only one thing in life - to be happy! An astoundingly simple solution to everything that ails the world. It's not written anywhere that you have to play the victim. You have the power to choose how you react to everything that happens in your world. Is there some lemonade that needs to be made from all those lemons??

What if God; the Mighty I Am; the Universal Presence in all its glory spoke directly to your face and said 'I COMMAND THAT YOU BE HAPPY IN THE WORLD, AS LONG AS YOU LIVE!' What would you do then??

Sing. Dance. Be happy.

Pungent Lily's first CD!

After being together just a few short months, Nyle Steiner, Kristin Lish and I have finished our first CD as Pungent Lily. This compilation of songs is incredibly eclectic, and all the songs were done live. We have a great way of working, and love just improvising our music. Four of the ten tunes were created on the spot; we just turned on the recorder and started playing!

It's amazing what can come out of you when you totally trust not only your instincts, but your fellow musicians. In order to effectively improv, you've got to be fearless. You've got to be so open that you're almost unconcious. It's like you're speeding down the rapids on a raft you have no control over; YOU JUST GO WHERE THE RIVER TAKES YOU. It's so exciting. We'll play a song back after we've recorded it and won't even remember what we'd done! All true inspiration comes from a higher power, and when you're really flowing with that, IT takes over. You become the vehicle for the music to flow through.

Tomorrow night we'll be doing an event at Harvest Lane where we'll be creating music for meditation and reflection - a Solstice celebration to honor Midsummer. All of us in Pungent Lily are looking forward to creating Solstice music that will never be played again. It will be created spontaneously, then, like a sunset, will just blaze away, poof!

We're going to record the evening's music, though. Look for some sound samples on my website soon!

Stage Skills 101 Workshop - Stand Still!

Have you ever thought about the power of JUST STANDING STILL when you talk to an audience, or share your music?? Most of us feel we have to DO something when we're on stage; that we have to dazzle everyone with our great performance ability. It's just not so. I teach my students to STOP moving around on stage unless it's called for from an emotional standpoint; they need to connect with a particular section of the audience; or, they just feel that it's time to move because the speech or lyric dictate that.

This afternoon my Stage Skills 101 workshop was really exciting. I had a diverse group of speakers and singers ranging in age from 10-60! It's always neat to have a wide age range because we can learn so much from each other. One of the things everyone needed to work on was learning not to shuffle their feet around on stage. It's a common thread among performers/speakers to be in constant motion. They don't really move, though, using their stage; instead they take a small step, drag the other foot, rock back and forth; you get the picture. What that does is steal the focus from your message, and distract the audience. Subliminally, your audience is pulled off your message by all this shuffling around. They can't concentrate on what you're saying when they're distracted by your inconsequential movement.

So be brave next time you present or sing; try standing still! It will allow your audience to completely focus on your message, not your feet. A performer who stands still and only moves when it's important shows mastery and command. Focus on your message, and have the confidence to stand still when you have something important to say!

Making it YOUR song

I worked with a really talented young gal today who is getting ready for a state Pageant here in Utah. She wanted coaching on her song presentation, so we worked initially on opening up her words (so that the judges and audience can understand what her story is!); then on 'subtext' - what emotion was underlying the words she was singing; how and when to move (there's a definate art to this, and it has to be motivated by emotion, not by the pressure to 'use the stage'); finally, and most importantly, we worked on MAKING THE SONG HER OWN.

How do you make it YOUR song? Very simply, you BECOME the character who is telling the story. You aren't singing the song from someone else's view, you sing it from YOUR point of view. It has to be your life, your pain, your joy, your story! Get into the lyrics and feel the emotion; see the visuals in your mind, let the story be your story.

This particular song was from a musical and sung by a character full of hope, emotion and excitement. When we really got down to the nitty gritty of it all, I pointed out that it truly was my student's song! I helped her see how it was exactly her life, her hopes, her dreams she was singing about! The change in presentation was miraculous! She was so honest, so mesmerizing, so convincing that both her mother and I were in tears at the end of the song! It was incredibly powerful. When you tap into your true emotions even your voice is changed and enhanced. The high notes are effortless and supercharged; you use your voice in new and adventurous ways; you stop thinking about technique and start feeling the song.

I always tell my students to sing with their hearts, not their heads. It's great to be technically perfect, but I would much rather hear a singer who touches my soul with their raw emotion, rather than hear a perfect, but emotionally cold performance.

So how do you make it your song? You sing it from your personal perspective. You relate the story to something that has happened in your own life that has touched you, changed you. Do you see how important it is to choose your material carefully? If it doesn't mean anything to you, it won't mean anything to your audience. Make it matter! There are millions of great songs out there. Don't waste your time, or your audience's time with fluffy material that has no emotional mileage. The greatest gift you can give someone is a song and performance that touches someone's heart. Make each song YOUR song.