What is your Voice.

It seems, as of late, that I have heard more often about finding your voice as a reference to how you express yourself. I know it as a common phrase around the arts. But it is also used as an expression of finding ones passion. For a lot of my life, as a musician, it has meant what instrument you have the ability to reveal those notes in your head easily. When you feel emotion and sound flowing out of you effortlessly.
      I have training in voice, piano, trombone, guitar and teaching music. But it has seemed as if it changes between those abilities as to the one that is my primary voice at different times in my life. I know graphic artists whose medium has changed from time to time in their artistic expression.
      Lately I have come to recognize that finding your voice is often meant as finding a way to express your passions in life that does not necessarily mean just in the arts. Even today on NPR they alluded to this idea in what tools do you use.
     But in the end it seems we view our voice as how we express our passion in life. Our participation in this physical realm we find ourselves in.
    Don Miguel Ruiz takes this concept of Artist to all of us as being Artist of our own life story. And so then what we reveal in our actions would be our voice. Ergo when I am playing with the currents on the Arkansas River in an oar frame raft, that would be an artistic voice. Or casting a fly rod to entice a trout could be seen as a voice. But I wander off course here.
     In this past year I have moved from playing a tenor trombone to a bass trombone. This involves some new positions on the slide and extra tubing for triggers and such. The mouthpiece is bigger and so establishing a new embouchure was also part of the transition. But this "new voice" for me has been a wonderful experience, with an ease of playing that has been a delightful surprise. I find it incredibly reassuring to have a successful transition after playing my other horn for over 40 years. I have always felt that, for me, some instruments seem to invite me to use them, while others seemed like climbing a mountain. This horn I am playing now seems as easy as letting the raft follow the current down the river. This ease makes it feel as if this is now my "voice", letting what I hear in my head find it's way to sound in this world.
     So yet another of life transitions that seem as if we are constantly reinventing ourselves. I am grateful  that here beside the Arkansas River I have so many opportunities share music that I love in groups of wonderful musicians.  The Salida Brass is preparing this week to share it's music in multiple Church services for it's 45th straight year. A remarkable achievement that I thank my fellow Salida Brass members for having the chance to play for quite a few of those years. Thanks guys, we will see you this Easter Sunday.
Will by the River