Your Humanity Is Your Instrument

Your humanity is your instrument

Wayne Shorter, saxophonist/composer

I love this quote by musician and composer Wayne Shorter! If you know me and or have been following me for some time you know one of my core mantras that I always share with my voice and movement students is that “you are the instrument”. Whether you’re a piano player, percussionist, vocalist, dancer, painter, trumpet player, etc, YOU are the instrument. Your breath, the way it moves you, how your voice mirrors your body and your body mirrors your voice, the cadence of your speech, your family history, personal struggles and triumphs and more enter the bloodstream of your music. Part of why I love this quote from Wayne Shorter is that it’s expanding on or perhaps refining the same idea. In essence how you live is how you art.

For years now I’ve been wanting to spearhead a new approach to training singers/sounders, healers/performers to be a more encompassing, holistic, and embodied practice. Never in music school or audio engineering school did I explicitly hear a teacher mention that the treatment of other students, plants, animals, family would be determining my artistry. I know some people might believe that this is a separate subject from arts training but from the current state of the world, I believe it’s clear that focusing on the ways we treat ourselves and one another is critical to the art and future we create.

For me becoming a mother was the real shift in my humanity and path as a musician. It took some years to settle into my consciousness but being a mother forced me to look at the values I had placed on music and that I had allowed music and the industry to place on me. There were so many things I believed couldn’t be questioned like late nights, running on fumes, accepting poor quality food and dingy working spaces, disrespectful language against women or downright misogyny and homophobia. Assumptions that I had gone along with like  if one had children, it had to be the woman who stayed home to raise them. None of these ideas really supported my health, my family, my relationship nor the world I wanted to create for artists and non artists alike. 

So teaching voice and movement was initially a means to earning a living but it became part of my practice. One that allowed me time to not only raise my daughter but also to brainstorm, experiment and envision a different type of music landscape, one where women and parents of any gender could bring their kids on the road not as an exception but as the rule, one where people could make music from home in order to tend to their health, one where healthy food and regular mealtimes would be the norm, one where artists could make time for and afford to take care of their mental and physical health. This all supports an empowering and Embodied Artist life. 

Just like art I believe these ideas are always evolving with the times. And I wonder, what about you? What have you become aware of lately that is integral to your music and art? I’d love to hear from you!