As we all know, we who are in form live in an existence of duality. From left and right, male and female, night and day, yin and yang and so forth into infinity, we seek constantly and consistently to come into balance or unification. Some of us have chosen the word “polarity” because it rings more to the tune of unification that humanity so desperately needs.

In singing, too, there are distinct and different natures between tone and sound manifestation, speech sounds and musical sound, vowels and consonants. Now, let’s attend to the opposites: speech sounds and musical sound.

Musical sound is the unconstrained free-flowing principle. On the other hand, the speech sounds are described as the conscious molding and forming principle. Here we can see a polarity at the functional level of singing. As one researches, it becomes clear that a singer’s orientation to the experience of this functional polarity must also be a polar—a dual one.

Once the singer opens the path to the musical sound stream, she must retreat from her own will and feelings to give free reign to its flow. On the other hand, the nature of the “word”, the material/form creative principle, calls for strong formative forces.

Sarah Evans has a Bachelor of Arts in Music Education and teaches at The School for Speech in Song, which uses specific spiritual/science-based exercises to separate the two sounds—speech and melody—before bringing them together in the grand marriage of song. Connect at 520-661-6666 or [email protected].