Transcriber: Nadine Hennig Reviewer: Mile Živković
Hello.
My name is Katie Kat
and I am here today to talk to you about something
that might make you uncomfortable:
your singing voice.
But I want to assure you that it is not something to be embarrassed about.
In fact, I want to encourage you all
to sing far more often, regardless of your perceived skill
because it has been my experience
that singing is an incredible gift we all have.
It increases our self-awareness, our self-confidence
and our ability to communicate with others;
it decreases stress, comforts us and helps us to forge identity
and influence our world.
I grew up being severely bullied.
I was prank called, I had things thrown at me.
I was called "die-head"
because of a mole that I had on my forehead
that I used to call my "beauty mark,"
but I had it removed when they made me believe that I was not beautiful.
I am not sure when it started,
but somewhere along the line I started humming,
constantly,
and though it got me more unwanted attention at first,
I could not stop and eventually the humming
turned into singing that drowned out the world.
Suddenly I had a superpower.
The teasing began to stop and people began to listen.
I had a way to stand up for myself. I could fight back.
I had a voice and I could say all of the things inside of me
that I couldn't find the word to express.
Now, as a professional singer,
the most common comment that I receive is,
"Oh, I wish I could sing."
My response is always, "But you do!"
There are a great many of you out there
who have had the best nights of your life singing karaoke,
though it admittedly may have taken a dare and a couple of beers.
And I know you sing in your showers
because everyone sounds great in there
and I know you sing in your cars
because I catch you rocking out in my rearview mirror and I get it.
It is so freeing to revel unabashedly in the amazing vibration
that your body can produce.
The human voice is incredible.
Look up Jamie Vendera on YouTube.
Videos of him breaking a wine glass with just his voice,
total over a hundred now,
or look up Portuguese soprano Ana Maria Pinto,
who raised her operatic voice
at a political street protest in Lisbon last year,
and became an icon for personal strength and peaceful protest.
If you think of the times that you have been happiest,
I bet you can name the songs that you sang at top of your lungs.
And I am sure you know very well
the songs you've sung to yourself at your lowest;
the melodies you let rumble in your chest, soothing the ache.
We all sing for the things that we don't have the words to say,
but our society has very skewed views on the value of singing.
Singing has become something reserved for elite talent
with money, producers, management,
recording contracts, concert dates, autotune,
leaving the rest of us with distructive self-criticism about our voices.
And many of us believing, "Well, oh, I'm just tone-deaf."
But tone-deafness is not as widespread as you might think.
Most people who claim to be tone-deaf
are just unfamiliar with their voices.
Most of our wrong notes are really just the result of nervous tension.
And that is perfectly understandable.
Because the vocal folds are incredibly tiny.
They are only about the size of a dime.
And they are inside of us, therefore we can't see it or touch it
to understand how it works for ourselves.
Combine that with all of the self-criticism
that the music industry makes us feel,
and it's no wonder people will claim to be tone-deaf.
But real tone-deafness, or clinical amusia,
only affects about 4% of the total population.
So, if you can recognize and repeat this melody -
(Singing)
- I'm sorry, you're not tone-deaf.
And you can no longer use that excuse with me.
Like in infants' primal scream,
singing is instinctual and necessary to our existence.
The amygdala is the part of the brain that processes music
but it also processes emotion
and basic biological functions like pain and pleasure.
Joy in singing comes from endorphins released by the pleasure centers,
and from oxytocin which enhances trust and bonding.
Studies have shown that singing releases measurable levels of serotonin
and can lessen the feelings of loneliness and depression.
And the breathing required in singing makes it an aerobic activity.
It brings more oxygen into the blood and promotes relaxation.
So, it's no wonder that singers
have a noticeably lower level of cortisol, the stress hormone.
And that can relate to an increased immune response.
And you do not have to be an amazing singer to benefit.
And the benefits increase with practice.
Vocalizing helps you to become aware of your anatomy.
Like internal echo location,
you can help your brain create a map of your instrument
which you then subsequently use to build strength, endurance and flexibility.
And that exercise alone is good for your psyche.
You learn to break down internal roadblocks,
when you learn to trust something that you cannot see or initially feel.
So, let me give you an example of something
that you can do to improve your connection to your voice.
It's a warm-up but I prefer to call warm-ups "making noise"
because it implies a lot less pressure to be perfect.
So, all of you are going to make this noise with me.
(Noise with lips)
It's called "the lip drill."
Put your lips together, focus right on the center and blow. Ready?
(Audience makes noises)
Right. We're all in this together. Let's try it one more time.
Ready? Breathe in.
(Audience makes noises)
Nice. Thank you all so much for trying that with me.
Let me tell you the very cool thing you are actually doing.
This is what's refered to as a "semi-occluded vocal posture."
It basically just means that your mouth is partially closed.
By putting the breath pressure at your lips,
you are decreasing the pressure at your vocal folds
and letting more air pass.
This provides the folds with more flexibility,
so that you can move through your range more easily.
The added bonus is that the air accesses higher resonance,
or your sinus cavities,
which is essential for helping your voice to carry without becoming overtired.
So, try some lip drills and have a glass of water
the next time your voice feels tired.
Starting there, the possibilities for your voice are endless
because singing also has some incredible superpowers.
Now, I mentioned shattering glass and leading protests
but singing is also becoming widely recognized
in the medical community as well.
The act of singing is used to rehabilitate people
who have lost the ability to speak due to stroke or traumatic brain injury.
Singing and speaking are processed in different places in the brain
with the exception of the element of pitch.
So, by putting pitch to speech,
that brain-muscle connection can begin to rehabilitate.
Singing is also becoming more widely recognized
as a tool to help wake people from comas.
Recently, one mother sang her daughter out of a serious coma
with Adele's "Rolling in the deep."
And the "Baby Mozart" phenomenon that has become quite popular
has led research to determine that babies actually prefer Bach,
but also that premature babies respond better to treatment
and can go home faster when recordings of their own mothers
singing lullabies is played in their incubators.
And you all have this amazing superpower.
And I encourage you to use it
for the amazing things it can do for your brain and for your soul.
But if you are all singing, does that make my job as a performer obsolete?
Not in the slightest.
You see, if you all understand your voices,
your brains have a better connection to my performances.
Singers develop a profound empathy to any kind of verbal communication.
When a singer watches someone sing,
their brains react as if they were doing the singing.
The same thing happens when we watch someone simply lift a glass of water.
Our brains react as if we were lifting that glass of water.
It's a phenomenon called "mirror cells," and it's fascinating.
As a performer, my world is fraught with judgment and criticism,
with talk about perfectionism, and competition, and technique,
but I hope that I can encourage something more spontaneous and joyful.
Singing affords you the opportunity to say
all of the things that you cannot find the words to express.
And it is what you are expressing that is the most important.
You do not have to write your own music and lyrics to sing.
Reinterpretation offers you the opportunity
to say something deeply personal
through words and music that you identify with.
With that framework already in place,
you don't have to search blindly to express what's inside of you,
and you gain the opportunity to learn about yourself.
I want to move away from this world of hypercriticism
and to encourage a more encouraging world,
where even an untrained voice feels secure
to express their hearts without fear of judgment.
And I am making these points in memory
of a beautiful young singer named Johanna,
whose voice was taken from this world far too soon,
because Johanna's last words to me were,
"Can I talk to you?"
But she and I never got to have that conversation.
I saw a lot of myself in her.
Like me, Johanna felt that she communicated best through her singing.
And I serve her memory by encouraging you all to sing far more often,
so that none of us may ever leave those things unsaid.
We all sing for the things that we don't have the words to say.
Let singing become a part of your daily life:
sing in the shower, sing in your cars,
sing in the supermarket and see if somebody joins in,
chances are they will.
If you have ever had a song stuck in your head,
you know how catchy singing is.
Singing is a gift that we give to ourselves and to one another.
My gift to my little one will be to help turn those primal screems
into beautiful, powerful melody,
and I am honored to give this gift to all of you here today.
This gypsy lullaby was written by Anton Dvořák
and is called "Songs my mother taught me."
(Music)
(Czech) ♪ Songs my mother taught me, in the days long vanished; ♪
♪ seldom from her eyelids were the teardrops banished. ♪
(Music)
♪ Now I teach my children, each melodious measure. ♪
♪ Oft the tears are flowing, oft they flow from my memory's treasure. ♪
(Applause)