lyrebird
sing for me
those beautiful lies
all will be forgiven
( Bear in Mind - tiny poems by Gyan)
With shows fast approaching it seems like an eternity since we’ve played live as well as seeing o/s artists finally arriving on our shores. The calendar is beginning to look exciting again. First stop is the wild west and it’s been many moons since I’ve sung in that beautiful country where I actually saw my first bunyip when traveling down to the land of ‘Ups’ (that’s another story). With gigs comes preparation and this means engaging in daily doses of ‘The Don.’( The pet name our friend James Cruickshank called these exercises). I am deeply indebted to this man i met in the early 90s when i was struggling with the sudden eruption of vocal nodes. After returning from playing the first ever concerts in Laos (before their world was made) i’d pushed myself beyond my limits with some material in the repertoire affecting me physically even though useful therapy. A specialist with delicate expertise threaded a camera on a telescope type device down my nose to the back of my throat and sat it just above my vocal chords handing me the other end of this apparatus so I could witness for myself the little white callus that was preventing the chords closing snug thus leaving air escaping so I sounded more Janis than Joni. He asked me to sing a little so I could watch their movements. It was fascinating. These two thin white threads vibrating as i laughed or whispered. All going to make much more sense with what Don was about to share with me. The Doctor prescribed surgery but me being me, was happier being steered towards this vocal coach called Don Graydon who promised he would fix them in no time. He fast tracked my first session in an almost desperate attempt to prove how and why I should avoid medical intervention and thankfully he was right.
‘TAKE YOUR PLACE ON THE PLANET’ - he bellowed as he greeted me for my first life saving lesson early 90s in his tiny studio buried in the back streets of Darlinghurst Sydney. You couldn’t be a shy around Don, every word spoken had to be warranted. He proudly told me how he’d trained with Sir Laurence Olivier and how above all to remember my speaking voice is the same as my singing voice. He casually skated over a small fact that i’d biffed his daughter on one of the Starsearch heats a few years before and now i felt way more awkward than i already was. I’d had no formal training cept for school choirs and cutting my teeth in original bands in the early 80s. Singing has always been otherworldly for me, an altered reality, a zone that could be as hypnotic as well as therapeutic in parts allowing me to exercise my demons or call on the angels. My emphasis was around the written word. I had been doing mostly original songs for sometime then added a few covers that voiced truths that I was desperate to express. John Lennon’s song MOTHER felt so close to my story giving me a chance to purge own my pain and primal scream. But it was these vocal marathons that tested me physically as I’d not really known what or how I was doing it. Don made a sweeping generalisation one day about women who develop nodules have usually been raised by alcoholic fathers and therefore have trouble speaking up for themselves. Yep, this was true of me and seemed to support many other women I’d meet that had trouble with their voice. He told me I had to read his book before coming to my first lesson and only then would I be able to understand his methods.
The Mind behind the Voice by Don Graydon wasn’t the easiest of reads but it was filled to the brim with all the technical stuff I needed. We sat together behind his little upright that took up most of the limited space in his studio and he ran me thru the basic scales, a set of melodies that sounded more like cheesy soundbites from Broadway shows gradually progressing up and down the scale. They were strangely familiar as my neighbour Anthony Ackroyd had also discovered the Don and had been practicing them relentlessly for months. He lived downstairs in our classic Bondi apartment block that had a high concentration of musicians and artists. ( Anthony Ackroyd, Wendy Matthews, Sean Kelly, Dave Faulkner & Peter Blakeley to name a few). There was an immense focus around relaxing the jaw of how to curl the tongue, making my diaphragm a trampoline, suggesting i attempt to pick up the piano to let me feel what part of the body I’d engage if I could do such an impossible feat having me truly experience where the voice came from and how it travelled. How it doesn’t have a mind or a measuring stick. How to think laterally and never put emphasis on the throat, as sound isn’t generated from there. The actual sound he wanted was your one voice, your only true voice and not to go into falsetto as i would to get over the invisible hump to the heights. We only have one voice and he encouraged us to stay with that even in the most primal way as these scales done correctly aren’t pretty. One lesson I was wrestling with an old problem of that line between chest and head. Some call it your break point. Suddenly he pulled up and told a very bad dad joke that completely took me off guard then we jumped back to the same spot and without thought I flew thru the scale without hesitation. There was no ceiling, no break point, a complete freedom. He recognised what happened in that moment. A musical orgasm of immense joy, of YES fuck it’s that easy once you LET GO. He took me over it one more time to prove it wasn’t a fluke. I still carry that spark with me ever since. I only wish he was still alive to drop in and give him the massive thanks for the Gold he shared with the lucky few who found his door.
Flying is also a requirement for touring although I would much prefer the pace of a train if Australia had only embraced the idea and with it comes another hurdle for me being a nervous passenger. With the release of my debut album we went to some far reaching regional places as well as major cities but it was boarding this very small propeller plane that I expressed my nagging fears to the steward and she must’ve told the captain as he invited me to the cockpit after takeoff. I was so happy to have the seat by the driver. If not the wheel. Now I could see where we were going and who was at the controls. Those expensive tans came from the relentless heat under curved windows with no escape from the sun. After showing me that all important lever that guides the big bird up or down he gave me the all knowing wink and tipped his cap with the feeling, all will be well and i sprang back to my seat feeling a huge sense of relief. That same steward presented me with a little badge of plastic wings as i disembarked, I think usually reserved for the kids who’d been well behaved.
So yes that helped a little but I was still prone to inward panic attacks with the pending flights scheduled and it wasn’t until a music producer suggested I make some kind of ritual around flying so I could lean into that instead of my fear. So I began kissing aeroplanes from that day. I walk down the shoot to the front hatch and before I step foot inside I reach over and kiss her cheek usually setting off a response from the steward waiting for my ticket. I have had a few say ‘Can you kiss it for me?’ which really puts me at ease. Perhaps all this fear stemmed with my first ever flight at 14 years old going to Burnie Tasmania with my best friend Carolyn with her grandmas invite for the school holidays. The weather was heaving as we tried to make our descent to the city below but the little Fokker Friendship was not able to land with it being so wild, so we circled several times only to be diverted to Hobart and in that time i managed to get my first period and write my first Will.
I hope you’re enjoying these ramblings
and we get to see you at one of the shows somewhere down the track
big love
Gyan XXX
Tix for Gyan at The Duke of George Perth
Hit the link above if you can make the only show in Perth …..so thrilled to have Lucky Oceans joining us and Cellist, Mel Robinson.
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Such a wonderfully powerful narrative of an extraordinary moment in time
LOVE LOVE LOVE!