Fear Less by Dean Sluyter

Author:Dean Sluyter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2018-03-20T04:00:00+00:00

Singing Free

The most memorable thing my most memorable college professor (Wilder Bentley of San Francisco State) said was, “In a great civilization, everyone sings.” Here’s one more suggestion for the shower, or the car: After a few minutes of melting into your low note, your warmed-up voice is now ready to romp all over the scale and just sing. Sing playfully. Sing with gusto. Sing free. Sing whatever feels the most fun in that moment, whether it’s blues or show tunes, Janis Joplin or Mister Rogers, Beethoven or Chuck Berry telling Beethoven to roll over. Open your mouth wide, way wider than you think makes any sense, and let that be the cue to open your energy that wide. Use the reverb chamber of the shower to encourage your freed-up voice, and use your freed-up voice to spark enthusiasm (from the Greek én-theos, “having a god within”). Rock and roll into your day.

Time for a story:

When I started teaching some mantra singing to my group at Northern State Prison, I discovered that most of them couldn’t carry a tune or keep a simple beat to save their lives. One day I was chatting with my supervisor, “the Rev,” a conservative Southern Baptist minister from inner-city Newark, and I mentioned that my guys were about the worst singers I’d ever dealt with. He started getting excited, which he did easily—all his sentences seemed to end with exclamation marks. “My men are the same way! It’s awful! When we sing hymns, it’s me and two others trying to sing loud enough so the rest can follow!” I told him about the studies I’d been reading on music education and brain development: how playing or singing in a group cultivates the ability to listen, pay attention, and wait your turn; how listening to symphonies may raise academic scores; how music lessons strengthen the neural connections necessary for clear thinking and decision-making.

I said, “When my guys sing, I feel like I’m hearing their disorderly brain function out loud. And those are the same brains they have to use when they try to function in society—so they wind up here.” By now the Rev’s eyes were very wide. He pointed out the window, to the inmates across the yard in their khaki uniforms. “These men . . . you realize who they are?! They’re the first generation to go through the public schools after all the music programs were cut!”

With continued practice, my guys’ singing improved. Certainly their lives improved. Many of them are back in society now and leading productive lives. I know the meditation helped, and I think the singing helped too.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.