Dr. Natalie Lerch, Voice Department at Cornish College of the
Arts and avid horsewoman - or as she likes to call herself - Diva
Cowgirl, talks about the correlation between singing and riding
horses.
Mocha, Natalie's horse, is a 22-year-old paint. She's had him
for 7 years and he has a fabulous sense of humor.
Like an audience, the horse wants
to have a fun, easy experience. Natalie learned to control her
nerves on Mocha, calming herself down, and she found a complete
shift in his personality. The singer’s experience can be much like
this.
Dr. Lerch has noticed in her
horseback riding lessons, her teacher often says, "Don't forget to
breathe." Just as she tells her students. Breathing in and for the
song is similar.
Singers have to prepare their
posture to move, to not be rigid or schlumpy. The kind of
posture she works on with the horse is to feel like your hips want
to stay with the horse, your waste is a slinky, and your upper
torso wants to float above that.
Energy and preparation - You can't
just yell "Go" to get a horse going. There has to be some
preparation just as in singing. Learning to physically release into
the energy of the high note is like releasing into a jump.
Horseback riding makes Natalie
more flexible as a singer and a teacher - mentally,
physically, and emotionally. And to be more forgiving of
herself.
Singers and cowgirls need to
acknowledge their emotions and deal with them in order to have a
successful experience.
"Courage is being scared to death
and saddling up anyway."
Try something new.
Make sure that your life is
balanced. Sometimes we want something so badly but get in our own
way because we don't take the time to step back and let it
percolate.
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