Yoga Backs Artistry

For me yoga expresses the process of the classical artist. Hours spent crafting your skill, as an Opera Soprano, singing requires extreme amounts of concentration. Masking emotions to reach the ultimate goal: fluid noise, singing, melody, notes hanging in the air.

For years Yoga is that prop to the physical and often mental stress and strain that I put my throat, neck, torso, diaphragm under. As a soprano who sings good solid notes above a top C to smooth out the passaggio I have had to learn to stretch and move areas like the hard pallet - in the mouth. You try that for a second. Now you think it's not moving, now imagine and sing maintaining that position. This is the art of classical music, a lot of faith! Because you can't hear it internally; it doesn't mean that the sound is not changing and being shaped externally.

And so Yoga, helps with this physical leap of faith. I'd love to chat with Ballet dancers to share comparisons, I'm sure there would be lots. Ballet dancers wreak their feet to attain that elegant line extending the legs with the feet. My Yoga Instructor was a professional ballet dancer and always encouraged me to do yoga, saying 'you can add an extra two inches to your height'... I've always been a shorty. So anyway back to the singing and what Yoga does.

I'm yet to discover more. For now though safe in the knowledge that B.K.S Iyengar had a great friendship with the virtuoso violinist Yehudi Menuhin for over 40 years and both friendship and practise of yoga was transformative for the both of them .

"The practise of yoga induces a primary sense of measure and proportion. Reduced to our own body our first instrument, we learn to play it, drawing from it maximum resonance and harmony." 
                                                                                                                               Yehudi Menuhin