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Rewire the Voice : Beginnings

Entry posted by Mahesh in Rewire the Voice

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Back in 2016, when I was working on "The Union" album with Blushing Satellite, I was given a diverse set of sounds to emulate with the lead voice. My friend Rama who's the band leader (& also played guitars on my own EP "Accept") envisioned my voice being used in ways I wasn't experienced with before.

 

For example, there were times when he asked me to emulate a violin for a certain part, & a flute for some other. It took a while for me to even understand what he was really asking me to do. And when I did understand it, it didn't really help with the execution bit. This brought me to a haunting thought- "I'm good at singing what I already am used to singing. But that's not the same as being good at Singing, the art/skill. My existing knowledge doesn't necessarily help me in understanding what I CAN be capable of in the future".

 

All I relied on until then to gauge my progress were a bunch of vocal exercises and my own personal judgement of good singing. I knew it helped in some way because I did sound better over time with practice; but I wasn't exactly sure how. I just had to keep at it & sorta wait and see until the exercise does its own thing.  This hit and miss approach without enough context became the prime issue in my vocal development.

 

My ego bubble burst & my voice didn't feel as reliable anymore.

 

I went back to the drawing board. I wanted to use my voice knowing exactly what I can and cannot produce. I wanted to know how I can think of a sound in my head and reproduce that very sound with accuracy, confidence and comfort. If I couldn't do it, I wanted to know exactly what it would take for me to get there. I wanted to know HOW any of these exercises that I do affect the voice in real time as I make them.

 

I wanted to use my voice as if I'm sitting inside a car with a bunch of controls in front of me knowing exactly what they are used for. 

 

Thus began my journey to Rewire.

 

 

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Rewire is a vocal method which sets itself apart from other techniques in a fundamental manner. We learn to use the voice just like any other musical instrument, within the present moment. Before we focus on muscle memory building and repetition of vocal exercises, Rewire teaches you a mix of vocal technique, ear-training & mindfulness to sculpt your sound based on volume, pitch, tonality & expression. This offers a singer of any experience level to start using their voice in an efficient & healthy manner, while safely allowing you to expand those abilities, from the get-go. 

 

As they say, practicing perfectly makes you perfect. This is why Rewire puts focus on virtues such as intention/deliberation, control, consistency, comfort & presence of mind while you're singing.

 

Over the next few days and weeks, I will expand on some of the core ideas that make up the Rewire Vocal Method but also, there's a lot more on the way. Thanks to Songstuff Vocal Coaching Academy, I will be involved in delivering vocal coaching sessions, video courses, products etc and I'm super excited to share some of the things I know and use myself.  

 

As far as this blog is concerned, I'll try to keep things a mix of Rewire and my own personal singing journey.

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Hiya @GregB

 

I hope all is well with you brother!

 

Thank you for asking. I know it's been a long time coming, but I'm finally opening up students outside India to the Rewire Vocal Approach in the next couple weeks via Songstuff Vocal Coaching Academy! (Probably sooner than that). Dealing with the recent change in rules and policies within payment platforms, figuring Rewire as a business locally & internationally and some other aspects, it has taken a while to get here. 

 

It's the first BIG step to many more things though.

 

The intention of starting with these limited slots of 1-1 Rewire sessions with singers here at Songstuff and thru our grass roots marketing efforts across the inter-webs is deliberate. 

 

This way, I get to introduce this approach of mine to singers to see for themselves hands-on what it could do for them. There is a lot of different "vocal techniques" out there. Many have strong opinions about it too.  

 

I'd like to be able to show singers with each session how Rewire is more of a singing lifestyle than a technique. 

It is to know your voice in the moment in its abilities & disabilities; & to be able to sculpt/control the sound based on muscle memory, ear-training & mindfulness. It's more than a bunch of exercises; but a multi-fold skill with many wide applications across languages, accents & genres.

 

I've been doing Rewire for 3 years now, here in India. Working with professional singers, upcoming singer-songwriters & interestingly enough as a vocal supervisor on a few film projects. I'm also moving to Mumbai for the next couple months to teach voice conditioning in a theatre/film environment. Hopefully, these lessons that are soon going to be opened up would serve as a way for me to share that experience while introducing the brands Rewire the Voice and Songstuff Vocal Coaching Academy on good confidence, faith and trust within the singing community! 

 

 

Sorry for the long answer! lol @john, I think we switched places again. 

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Well done! It sounds like a great niche business doing something you obviously REALLY enjoy.  And it's always a great buzz when people show improvement under your tutelage.

 

👍

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He’s worked really hard at it Greg and has a pretty unique approach. Just for clarity I don’t mean naked, covered in gummie bears in the dark. :)

 

Awareness is a huge component. Much more than the typical “can you feel that sensation?” type of approach, which really only scratches the surface and plays down the importance of awareness to improvement and understanding.

 

P.S. The appearance of any unexpected gummie bears is purely coincidental.

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5 hours ago, Bridget Murphy said:

Wow. You can emulate a violin with your voice???

 

The way I addressed this requirement from me as a singer was by observing the qualities of sound played by a violin - bright tonality of the strings, very clear dynamics of how it swells up and dies down. I then used this information to choose my vocal sound deliberately to match these characteristics. I am grateful to have figured a way to control these specific elements of my voice as needed. Don't get me wrong, my voice surely doesn't sound like a violin. But I could replace the string sections quite effectively by analysing and reinterpreting the violin's playing. Pretty fun!

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