I’ve always been musically minded, I first picked up a recorder aged about 5 and played in the school recorder group. By age 9, I had spent so many years begging for piano lessons my parents gave in a bought me a cheap second-hand piano and I started lessons. Aged 11, I added the cello to my instruments I was learning and joined the school orchestra. I have sung in choirs all my life, through primary and secondary school and I have been singing in a local community choir for the last 18 years. Being part of the music scene at school and studying music to A level was my happiest time at school. So, I guess it’s not a surprise that as I have gone more deeply into my yoga practice, I have become more and more drawn to sound healing and the chanting of mantras.
For a while, I’ve been interested in learning the harmonium and it was a great experience to have a lesson with an Indian music/yoga teacher when I visited Rishikesh a few months back. The music teacher looked like Freddie Mercury (I am not kidding!) and it was definitely harder than it looks - it made me realise I will need to study for longer before I can start to use the harmonium in my yoga days. Not least as I am saving up to buy one!
I am learning a few chants at the moment and I really love listening to Deva Premal and Snatam Kaur chanting (especially when I am on my commute into London for my other job - it keeps me so calm on the tube!)
Next year, I am heading back to India to embark on an immersive sound healing course, I am not sure where this new path will take me, all I know is it feels right. It feels like all the musical experiences of my life have led me to this point. It is not without a sense of irony that I remember I considered a career in music therapy when I was deciding what to study at university. I don’t think with hindsight I would have been ready at that stage to consider music/sound as a healer but here I am 28 years later …. perhaps now the time is right.
So, watch this space and hopefully if you come to one of my retreat days/weekends later in 2020 I may be starting to integrate a little sound healing to compliment the yoga, pranayama and meditation practices.