Since I’ve been deeply involved with Vocal Toning for over ten years, I’m always surprised when people ask me, “What is vocal toning?” I forget it’s still a relatively unknown thing for 90% of the population even though, as I always say, “We were born toning!” Defining it is never easy. Truth be told, until you actually DO it and experience it, it seems kind of perplexing. How can sitting around singing vowel sounds and making strange noises be helpful?
What is Vocal Toning?
The kind of toning we’re talking about here isn’t about lifting weights or physical exercise. It isn’t about losing fat or inches around your waist or acquiring better definition to those biceps. Neither is it about singing “prettily” and on pitch. It isn’t about performing or working through stage fright either. Vocal Toning is not a religious or New Age practice. Nor is it about “one right way.”
Vocal Toning, simply defined, is singing a vowel sound or syllable for the length of an exhalation. For example, most people are at least somewhat familiar with the idea of chanting OM. By repeating it over and over again, our whole body pulses with the vibration of OM. We breathe more deeply. We relax. Although some people have the mistaken conception that toning is all about the OM, vocal toning is really so much more.
Vocal Toning can include sounds of release like moaning or groaning. It can also include any vowel or combination of letters or sounds we’re capable of producing. It’s really about freedom of self-expression, spontaneity, and being in the flow. As such, it has the potential to become a very deep meditative practice for those wanting to take it to that level. But it can also be very entertaining.
How Can Toning Be Helpful?
When we are children, we laugh, we cry, we even scream without apologies. It comes naturally to us to give voice to our toy cars and dolls. Do we grow out of it? Yes and no. The impulse is still there; we’ve just trained it into some warped socially appropriate submission. Vocal Toning is about reclaiming our natural, playful expression. It’s also about aligning through sound…using sound to come into harmony with all the different parts of ourselves.
As a form of singing, toning has all the same proven benefits of singing. It increases our oxygen intake, uplifts our mood, enhances immunity, and enriches our blood. It can assist with pain management, tones the face and diaphragm (the other meaning of toning), fully grounds us in our bodies, and helps us think and create. It wakes us up and keeps our voice flexible and smooth.
Vocal Toning also has spiritual benefits. It teaches us how to listen more deeply, how to work with dissonance in our lives, and how to trust ourselves and others. It can help us remember who we are, opening us to experience the Mystery of Life more deeply. How does it do that? The only way to know the answer to that, dear reader, is to try it for yourself!
What’s your definition of Vocal Toning? I’d love to hear from you or answer any questions you have.
