A classically trained composer in both Western
and Eastern music and the founder director of the international
Vox Mundi School of the Voice with headquarters at the Voice
Loft in Emeryville, Silvia Nakkach teaches singing as a vibrant
yoga practice and spiritual path. Her mission is to elicit the
music of the singing voice to open and free one’s heart;
she cultivates an intimate, no intimidating relationship with
the singing voice as a healing modality. In one of her many
articles and books, she describes the practice this way:
As the fabric of breath, vibration and emotion,
the singing voice can affect the body and the mind more efficiently
than any other form of sound. Vocal sounds are a primary source
of energy, both stimulating and balancing the brain. Chanting
releases harmonic energy and triggers a spontaneous identification
with the sacred, a dimension of consciousness characterized
by a higher level of appreciation and a simultaneous sense of
boundless radiance, openness, and love. Devotional chanting
is a healing art, by listen and repeating aligns auditory awareness,
and induces various “states” of attention and trance,
dissolving boundaries, and fostering a sense of spiritual liberation.
The voice is energy—“prana” (life force)—and
by the function of breath and sound, it supports the process
of transforming energy patterns, creating measurable effects
in the physical body. In the course of illness the healthy flow
of energy is constricted, and creativity is diminished. Singing
functions as a great barrier breaker. As the sound is made,
it relaxes the mind, harmonizes perceptions and thus unnecessary
tensions find a release. Even one long note, or one syllable,
is enough to bring out that “freedom” effect.
Whether the song is a prayerful call to spirit or a comforting
nonverbal melody, the slow sounding of the voice helps to restore
vitality, reduce stress, and stimulate a feeling of well-being
and happiness.
The voice also reveals the multidimensional nature of music.
Through cognition, we understand music as symbols (data) affecting
memory and the brain, while musical meaning stimulates psychological
process. When our own voice is the sound source, the power of
musical vibrations intensifies in our body. The singing voice
vibrates the skeletal structure and massages the surrounding
organs and tissues. We experience music with our skin, with
our bones, with our body temperature, with our pulse rates,
with the ultimate aim being the experience of divine remembrance
and transformation., When we embody sacred qualities by means
of invocation and prayer, we transcend the ordinary texture
of reality, and the mind is felt as naturally luminous.
Nakkach is a pioneer in the field of sound,
transformation of consciousness, and music shamanism and an
internationally renowned voice-culturist as well as a psychotherapist
and award-winning composer. In 2004 she was selected by Utne
Reader’s magazine as one of 40 cutting-edge artists who
will shake the art world during the new millennium. She is also
the creator and coordinator of the new certificate program called
Sound, Voice and Music Healing at the California
Institute of Integral Studies, which starts in the fall of 2006
with a faculty of masters in the field of sound healing and
music improvisation. This is the first program of its kind available
anywhere. Silvia Nakkach remains devoted to the Maestro Ali
Akbar Khan, her teacher of more than 24 years, and to her own
musical practice, which fills her with contagious joy.
A Temple of the Voice
Walking into the Voice Loft in Emeryville, California, home
of the Vox Mundi School of the Voice, an international project
devoted to teaching and preserving the world’s sacred
traditions of vocal music, is somewhat like going through a
dark tunnel and emerging into the light. Entering the space
through a darkened hallway hung with beautiful artwork and guarded
by a lantern-lit altar, one quickly emerges from the darkness
into a large light-filled live/work studio where the 20-foot
ceilings and concrete walls reverberate with the sounds of many
musical and ceremonial traditions that transform the former
industrial warehouse into a harmonious, multi-cultural sound
temple.
Accessibility, diversity and high-level musicianship are the
key ingredients contributing to the success and quality of the
music programs offered in this serene space. If ever there was
a place where world peace might have a chance, it is here at
the Voice Loft, where the transcendental sounds of Hindustani
chant meet easily with the energetic pulse of Afro-Brazilian
medicine melodies and shamanic rhythms. In The Voice Loft, music
illuminates diversity while revealing inner peace. Om Shanti,
Shanti!
In a typical class, there may be 15 folks sitting in a circle
on the floor. Silvia’s first instruction is to prepare
ourselves by breathing deeply from the belly. Then the body
is warmed and the throat opened with ancient yogic exercises,
which cleanse both body and mind of stagnant energies; moving
arms, hands, and facial muscles loosens us so that we can sing
better. Soon, the harmonium pumps out a drone (a sustained tone)
and a call-and-response method of eliciting sound from each
of us brings a measure of confusion as we struggle to cultivate
familiarity with exotic melodies now ringing off the walls.
Finally, we find the groove and the tone, and we are told to
sing from our hearts, “forever!” This is the finest
advice I have ever been given.
Using a system of music scales developed over three thousand
years ago known as ragas, Silvia sings out sequences of notes
in her own beautiful, precise, and light-filled voice, and we
learn to listen and respond exactly as she sings them. The notes
being sung comprise the only language common to all world healing
traditions and reach beyond boundaries, bringing divergent cultures
together in the purity of sacred sound. Silvia leads us into
a seed sound and deity invocation chant, to connect with particular
qualities, while the voice and the ear begin to come into tune
with one’s body, the whole group of students, and the
vibrational field of the universe. By conscious and slow repetition
of ascending and descending notes, we access the meditative
depths of our consciousness through carefully crafted patterns
of tone, melody, and silent space in between. This musical journey
through Indian scales is called “vocal meditation”
and repeats over and over for at least 21 minutes, hovering
so that the sense of time shifts into duration and a sense of
space. This is the beginning of transcendence from one state
of consciousness into other.
Pausing to integrate the energy after singing a slow, meditative
vocal exercise, Silvia then jumps to her feet and encourages
us to do the same as we step up the pace, singing rhythmically
and dancing to a lively Yoruban purification chant. We bond
together in a wealth of music and movement as we learn the value
of singing with One Voice—the voice that has no ownership.
We entrain the heart, engaging fully with the music, each other,
and the world of sounds, rather than just “develop”
our singing voices. This way of engagement marks the difference
in the Vox Mundi vocal philosophy: here there is no singer,
only breath and song. This is not performance. This is medicine.
We then move into devotional chants, the union of sounds with
each other, the ecstatic energy in the room, the deep listening
field that can take us to rapture, free improvisation, or meditation
and silence, building a sense of sonic community and exchanging
the leadership of chants.
By the end of this first session, the group of students has
learned and sung fluently music from Africa, Tibet, Brazil,
and India. With little more than her powerful, clear voice and
a well-loved harmonium, Silvia brings her circle of students
into a complete and perfect whole body-mind-spirit attuning
through a slow mantra using extended vowel and consonant sounds,
mostly focused on the cosmic healing breath—the powerful,
yet gentle sound of “ah”,
the seed-sound that concentrates the power of 84,000 mantras
together. This prayerful mood fills us with the content of a
dedication.
There is a plan and a method underlying Silvia’s commanding
instructional style as she helps each student free and refine
their tone and their singing skills, while they gain confidence.
Nakkach has been instrumental in developing an innovative curriculum
of vocal practices that are considered a landmark in the field
of sound and music therapy. Using an original repertoire of
breath techniques, healing sounds, slow movements, and cross-cultural
vocal techniques, her main training program, called the The
Yoga of the Voice™, integrates vocal technique,
attention-training practices, and healing strategies, as she
guides her students to explore the musical language of both
indigenous and classical music from many cultures. Participants
in Vox Mundi programs become familiar with the uses of the voice
in yoga, alternative medicine, energy healing, psychotherapy,
sound healing, music shamanism, and as spiritual practice. This
way of chanting creates an optimum coordination, and helps to
reduce stress, clear emotions, and sharpen intellectual focus.
Vox Mundi means “Voices of the World.” Silvia’s
own legacy is a rich blending of South-American roots and European
schooling, with Vedic and Tibetan Buddhist spirituality, Brazilian
and Amazonian shamanism, and a North American appreciation for
whole-world influences in film, art and music. Fluency in English,
French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish languages allow Silvia
to communicate her deep devotion through her many recordings.
In teaching this unique musical philosophy to anyone anywhere
in the world, words are seldom needed.
Silvia’s approach to teaching is systematic, confident,
and humorous. Her sound imagination and brilliant artistic nature
are evident in her worldviews, her enthusiasm for this work,
and her exquisite taste for fine musical indulgences.
“If through sound you abide in the sacred grounds of consciousness,
I don’t think it is crucial what wording or language you
use,” she says. The magic word in singing is “openness.”
And yet, Silvia insists that it is indispensable to learn, honor,
revitalize, and preserve the integrity of the music of each
tradition. She explains further that “If you understand
and use the sacred sounds linked with its ancient lineages,
the power is in the sound, and through intoning that particular
vibration you are able to embody and nurture from the universal
power that which continues through time and space feeding our
ancestral lines—and there is a spiritual journey that
is guaranteed.”
Silvia’s teaching theory integrates Eastern and Western
approaches to singing as a therapeutic art. For over 25 years
singers, music therapists, teachers, and students technical,
progressive ways have learned to apply vocal arts in their work
as a result of the devoted mentorship of this vivacious, sophisticated
human dynamo, who orchestrates weekly and monthly musical concerts
for the public, maintains a rigorous schedule of private sessions
and group classes, travels extensively to bring the work to
other regions of the world even as she unpretentiously continues
to attend weekly classes with her musical guru Maestro Ali Akbar
Khan, legendary North Indian classical music sarod virtuoso
musician, composer, and the holder of one of the most pure lineages
of classical music in the world.
The warmth and unconditional sense of international community
within the Vox Mundi organization is evident at any location
where Silvia teaches. Whether she is teaching in New York City,
Arizona, Rio de Janeiro, Spain, or Emeryville, California, all
Vox Mundi students—even the ones who have been coming
for years—sit together in the same room side by side and
there are no distinctions between beginners and advanced students.
All sing the same chants together, and each participant knows
at some level that we will be sitting in these circles together
for years to come, encouraging each other to stretch and grow
further as Silvia guides us to find the power of our voices
in the spaces between the notes—a profound and expansive
silence located in the midst of a world where the invasive noise
of mechanized life threatens to silence our personal expression
altogether. When her students assemble together in this circle
in the Voice Loft, they know they are safe to explore their
emotions through the sounds Silvia invites from timid vocal
chords. There is powerful inner healing taking place.
“Without feeling, there is no healing,” Silvia emphasizes
with a determined shake of her head
Yoga in the Voice
Silvia has developed a method of teaching students how to convey
feeling (rasa) in their musical expression as carefully as a
yoga instructor helps students to achieve the most complete
posture or vocal asanas. Her method includes a particular way
of breathing, a tone in tune with each note, and a subtle movement
of arms and hands derived from the ancient sung text of the
Sama Vedas. This process is known as The Yoga of the Voice™,
a program taught by her and other teachers during a 200-hour
certificate training program at the Vox Mundi school. Students
that complete the training become The Yoga of the Voice™
Practitioners and are qualified to use this technology in their
professional practice. But it is more than just sharing the
music and helping others find a way to healing through a sacred
software of sound and vocal expression. It is a devotional practice,
both for the student and the instructor. It takes time to develop
a sense of competence using all the vocal techniques necessary
to help someone free their voice and sing “from their
hearts, forever” as our ancestors did hundreds and thousands
of years ago.
As a result of the educational programs offered by The Vox Mundi
Project for the last 18 years, this music approach is now being
practiced by thousands of musicians and therapists internationally
through a supporting organization of multi-cultural virtuoso
musicians. Believed to be the only school in North America focusing
on the voice as the main instrument, some of the programs developed
through The Vox Mundi Project have been integrated into college
music programs world-wide.
One of the most exciting outcomes of the vast body of work done
through the Project is that Silvia has used her extensive musical
knowledge and experience to create and coordinate a new year-long
certificate program at the California Institute of Integral
Studies, a progressive graduate school based in San Francisco.
Silvia has been teaching at the Institute (originally founded
to manifest the teachings of Sri Aurobindo) for five years and
has understood the potential and shared vision of the school,
to offer an integral East-West transformative education. Don
Campbell (best-seller author of the Mozart Effect) and one of
the teachers of the new certificate program, praises the Sound,
Voice and Music Healing curriculum and faculty which includes
Pauline Oliveros, David Darling, Glen Velez, Joshua Leeds, John
Beaulieu, and Jeffrey Thompson, as “A miracle!”.
Courses will be offered mostly on weekends and will integrate
advanced sound therapy technologies with ancient and shamanic
music healing practices from indigenous and sacred traditions.
At any time in the Voice Loft in Emeryville, there is an inviting
and gracious welcome to students who seek to enrich their lives
or revitalize their work by stepping from their private world
into this One World of mesmerizing musical and artistic inspiration.
Standing there to greet you at the end of the dark hallway will
be Silvia, members of her faculty, and a world of musical expression
capable of affecting consciousness more efficiently than any
other form of healing art on the planet. I rather be singing!.
Shara Gardner is a writer
and creative muse, engaging in the healing power of sound and
the voice. She has been exploring the evolution of consciousness
and personal transformation through sound and music since the
early 1990s. Now residing in southern Oregon.
Devotion as Medicine
I wonder where Silvia gets her vast and never-ending energy,
but soon I realize it comes from the devotion to her teacher
and the music. After many years of classical music and psychology
training, she fell in-loved with Dhrupad and North Indian classical
music, and I found her teacher in San Rafael, Marin County,
Khansahib Ali Akbar Khan, probably one of most vibrant and accomplished
living musician today.
She emphasizes: “Through raga singing,
I discovered the deep emotions within my voice and sound, through
the indulgent and sublime movement of notes up and down, the
attraction among notes that seem to be guided by angels, dakinis,
saints or deities, but not just me. Nothing has been written,
there is not composer or property. Is the magic of sharing an
unspoiled oral tradition. I am devoted to music as yoga, an
infinite path towards spiritual melodicism , where musicianship
meets unconditional surrender. The teacher becomes one’s
family, one’s food, one’s states of mind and humor.
If the teacher is happy we are happy, if the teacher is sad
we are sad, and is not a dependency, it is actually very liberating.
Through daily practice, we revitalize the lineage and the lineage
revitalizes us. Nothing is more safe, nothing feels closer to
the eyes of my heart. Each class, each rendition a raga is like
diving for treasures. Driving home, I always have the same feeling,
I couldn’t possibly be more fortunate! I wish everyone
and every musician on this Earth could have the experience of
active devotion, and making music that changes you at all times,
because the transmission is alive, and the teacher is there
in front of you, you can even touch his feet. Finally, you come
to the realization that you believe that you believe, and that
is the basis of a spiritual path.”
A Vocal Release Practice
The Effortless Voice
(from The Yoga of the Voice™)
In this exercise, you will allow for sound
to follow breath, and voice to follow sound. Release a vocal
tone through a relaxed and small lip opening, similar to humming
(sounding like “Wuu”). Sustain your focus on that
specific tone, sounding this tone over the subtle drone of an
external instrument, such as a tamboura or a sound box. Chant
just one or two notes, dwelling in that tonal space. Attune
yourself to the awareness of tone, not yet exploring melody.
You don’t need to change, just enjoy duration, dwelling,
vibrating with one consistent tone. The drone is a continuous
tone or harmony, usually created with the simultaneous sound
of the tonic and dominant (Fifth), or the tonic and the Fourth.
If played on strings, it will involve many other partial harmonies
and sonorities. In chanting with a drone, we immerse ourselves
deeply into the experience of opening the voice, departing from
the root tone, diving into subtle undulations of the same tone,
and wandering through transformations of timbre and texture.
Sounding into the realm of somatic and emotional resonance,
the phrasing is simple, calm, and knowing. The tone always returns
“home,” to the infinite tonal ground offered by
the drone.
Variation: use a variety of seed-sounds such as: Ah, E, Om,
Ram, Bam, Yam, Lam, Tam. These sacred syllables are related
to the embodiment of the divine qualities and the elements of
nature. Duration: 5 to 10 min. This toning practice is recommended
for enhancing deep listening, concentration, emotional clearing,
and creativity
Silvia Nakkach, MA, MMT,
named by Utne Reader as one of forty cutting-edge artists that
will shake the art world in the new millennium, is a pioneer
in the field of sound and transformation of consciousness. Her
innovative work is integrated in the comprehensive training,
The Yoga of the Voice™. She is founder of the Vox Mundi
School and the creator and coordinator of CIIS’s Sound,
Voice, and Music Healing Certificate program.
