In your world, your word is law. [long pause]
In your world, your word is law.
What you tell yourself, what you say in your mind, is so. No one can say that you do not tell yourself what you tell yourself. No one can get inside your head and make you stop saying or thinking something that you are already mentally saying or thinking. In fact, no one can make you think anything you don’t really want to accept. Yes, you could be “forced” into accepting something (we call that torture), but even if you are in prison (like Mr. Mandela) you still have the right to think the way you want to, regardless.
If you keep your word, all the time, and if you tell the truth, your word is law. This is very powerful when you understand it and how it works.
If you keep your promises to the best of your ability and honor the rare times when you break your promises by offering to make amends, people will respect you for being able to speak truthfully and back your truth up with action. If you get into the habit of not noticing what you promise or not keeping your promises, after a while, others will begin to ignore what you say. If you lie about something and know that you are lying, then you negate your own word, you weaken your ability to trust yourself and you denigrate your own integrity. That’s about as bad as it gets. The person who is responsible for that is always YOU.
What does this have to with singing you ask? How about everything? If you want to sing authentically, you have to have an authentic sense of self. Authenticity has to do with being true to yourself. Your voice and your sense of self are intertwined. Your voice is itself when you recognize it for what it is (and isn’t) and accept it for that. You might sing all kinds of styles and all kinds of sounds, but if you lose track of your “genuine voice” you are lost indeed.
The power that each person has is the power of spoken sound coupled with sung sound such that the two become one. What is truthful in your speech in your daily life will also ring true when it is expressed through your voice as vocal music. The marriage of sound, meaning, intention, and personal expression will be perceived by others as “the truth”. It leaves a lasting impression. Unfortunately, this kind of experience is still pretty rare.
Sing your truth. Sing from your own authenticity. Pay attention to what you tell yourself and what you listen to that others say. Notice the words as they come in and go out and make an effort to speak with conscious intention. After that, singing from a place of truth and uniqueness will be much easier and it will have a far greater impact, in your own life and in the mind of your audiences.
Your word (sound) is law in your universe. Remember that.