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Memorable voices
When I was taking voice lessons in the early 1970s, my teacher gave me an essay titled “The Voice.” It had been copied from a typed text, not one printed in a book. I’ve kept the essay all these years because it affected me profoundly when I first read it; and each time I’ve read it since, which has been as long as several years between reads, the effect has been equally deep. “The Voice” wakes me up to the sacred powers and dimensions of the human voice.
My teacher’s name was Everett Clarke. I realized long ago that he was a master, one of those sages that you come across in yogic, Taoist, and Sufi writings. He had me doing yoga postures in his studio, he suggested readings, such as books by P.D. Ouspensky, the Russian thinker whose writings interweave philosophy and psychology with a focus on consciousness, and as part of the instruction Everett had me read aloud passages from the art criticism that I’d begun to publish. I was learning, without having to contemplate the matter, that one’s voice is all of oneself and that everything a person does creates the voice that one has. Everett had one of the most mesmerizing voices I’ve ever heard, full of heart, soul, and intelligence, full-bodied and -spirited. (I write about Everett in “Mouth Piece,” which is published in my books Erotic Faculties and Clairvoyance, and in “The Primacy of Pleasure” in Monster/Beauty.)
No author’s name appeared anywhere in the 6 pages of “The Voice,” and every once in a while over these decades I’ve wanted to know who wrote it but I didn’t do any research. Well, last week I discovered the author! It’s Hazrat Inayat Khan, a Sufi whose first expert practice was Indian classical music. He lived from 1882 till 1927, and I see that he wrote much much more, about sound and music, and about beauty, happiness, and love. Fourteen volumes, all part of The Sufi Message of Hazrat Inayat Khan. You’ll find “The Voice” at http://www.sufimessage.com/music/the-voice.html.
- November 29, 2009
- Filed under: Bookshelf, art, and media
- Comments 2
This is a pearl you’ve shared with us. Many thanks!
Yes, thank you so much! I am fascinated by the voice–by the way it “touches” us, by the way it “grabs” us. I am going to read this piece as soon as I finish reading your blog.