In 2012, I started singing lessons, with a teacher who provided the key to unlock sound. I attended lessons for eight years, through couple counselling, IVF, Brexit, pregnancy, new parenthood, taking on a new job with huge responsibilities, and more.
The experience of learning to sing was transformational. For me, it is like carving a piece of wood and finding ever more intricate lines and shades in the grain. It is a craft that will never be finished.
We don’t have direct cognitive access to the muscles and emotions that need to be exercised in order to set a column of sound in motion. My teacher uses metaphors. It turns out that I am built to learn by metaphor.
I found that if I drew the metaphor and embodied it visually and internally, meditated on the imagery, then I made tangible progress between lessons, even if I had not practised actual singing. In metaphors of tubes, organ pipes, waterwheels of coloured sound and camelled jaws, I began to be able to sing. I began to be myself.
Click on the singing metaphors to see them in more detail. I’d like to know more about how people have visualised, notated and drawn music.
