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The song in your heart
Two Yorkshire women claim singing has healing powers... but what if you're tone deaf? Sarah Freeman reports.
I don't have much in common with Stephen Fry.
But I learnt to come to terms with the fact I'm unlikely ever to beat him in a pub quiz when I discovered in his autobiography that we share the same physical or possibly psychological affliction.
The condition Fry so eloquently coined the term for was the state of being tone dumb. Like him, name a song or TV theme and in my head I can hear it note perfect. Ask me to sing it or hum it and the sound is something only dogs or rare species of marine life could find comforting.
So when Yorkshire's Giving Voice Foundation call claiming the power of song can increase self-confidence, improve the quality of one's health and in some cases help people to stop smoking, I'm more than a little sceptical.
But following the old adage what doesn't kill you makes you stronger – and as far as I'm aware out of tune singing is rarely fatal – I arrange a taster session.
The foundation, which even by the standards of alternative therapy has an unusual brief, was set up by
Jill Rakusen, after the co-author of the 1970s' feminist handbook Our Bodies Ourselves became ill with
post-viral fatigue syndrome back in 1989.
"My old life as I knew it stopped," says Jill, who lives near Holmfirth. "I had to change my whole way of operating, I had to look to my inner resources and that's how Giving Voice was born. Although I had never had a singing lesson in my life, I had actually trained as a musician, but when I was ill I began to engage with music in a very different way and in the process realised I was developing a whole new skill: how to harness the life-enhancing power of song."
As memories of school choir rejections flash before my eyes,
Jill explains that it's not about learning to sing, it's about learning to connect.
"It's the people who don't already sing who often find Giving Voice easier because they approach it more as a blank canvas than, say, someone who is musically trained or has always enjoyed singing in a particular way."
"The truth is everyone would love to sing," adds Rachel Healey, who attended one of Jill's groups and has since gone on to train with her. "And that's because it's part of our birthright, it's a fundamental part of being human.
"It's amazing how many people are told at school they can't sing, they're not good enough to be in the choir, they will never learn to play a musical instrument and that's it, no other option is offered and their musical education comes to an end.
"One thing Giving Voice does is provide that other option, it allows anyone, regardless of their musical background or perceived abilities to develop a fulfilling relationship with music."
As I have never tried to find my inner-self through song or any other route, Jill and Rachel suggest they demonstrate the technique while I sit and listen, before unnervingly passing me a box of tissues in case – as has happened before – the emotion becomes too much.
They begin and at first it feels slightly odd being an audience of just one. Still Jill and Rachel don't have any such reservations as they sing in what seems to me perfect harmony. The song is something of a combination of folk, gospel and jazz and their enjoyment, enthusiasm and utter belief in what they are doing is infectious.
I don't take the plunge and join in, but even as a cynical journalist I have to admit that it feels good. Not the kind of high which would satisfy the needs of Kate Moss and Pete Doherty, but good nonetheless.
"Getting high is another partial experience of music," says Rachel. "What we're after is much more fulfilling."
"There are as many ways it can benefit as there are people, from very subtle differences to incredibly life- changing experiences," adds Jill.
"I'll never forget one woman who told me, 'I keep hitting my head on the kitchen cupboard'. I felt slightly bemused, but it turned out she was racked with pain of osteoarthritis and since she'd learnt to harness song, she'd found relief from pain and was standing taller, hence hitting her head. I couldn't believe it, but
she's most insistent it was Giving Voice and, in fact, a particular song that did it!"
Less surreally, Rachel adds one man claimed attending sessions gave him at least temporary relief from his chronic back pain that nothing else could cure, while another woman put quitting a 40-a-day smoking habit down to Giving Voice.
"There was one woman I met who said, 'Honestly you don't want to
hear me sing, I'm tone death'," she says.
"Of course she meant tone deaf, but I thought that was really interesting because if you really connect with a song it does make you come alive."
There are regular Giving Voice groups run across the North of England and an annual residential in Cumbria. Tailor-made sessions are also offered to groups and organisations and the foundation has been discussed at a number of NHS conferences.
"We hope the foundation will ultimately have an even more far-reaching effect on attitudes to music," says Jill.
"Of course it doesn't suit everyone, even with the best will in the world you're not going to convince someone who is determined to be ambivalent about it. But a lot of people go through life as though they're swimming with one foot on the bottom of the pool. Giving Voice helps people to release themselves, to enjoy life and to enjoy being themselves."
For more details about Giving Voice's Cumbrian residential, which will be from May 26 to 29 and other sessions, ring 01484 665642, email info@ givingvoicefoundation.org.uk or visit www.givingvoicefoundation.org.uk
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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