Dr Edward: 0:25

Okay, everybody, welcome back to Pets, people and Harmony. This is a podcast that our intention is to bring wisdom, deep, lived, practical wisdom to you that can make a difference, to help you transform your life for the better. And, of course, every time you transform your life for the better, you transform your pets' life for the better. We have speakers who speak about animal stuff. We have speakers who speak about music and voice and human development and potential. Judy Rodman, who is a very special friend and mentor of mine, is our guest today.

Dr Edward: 0:59

Judy is a vocal coach, in my humble opinion, probably one of the best vocal coaches on the planet. She's transformed my life incredibly and expanded my ability to perform and connect through the medium of music Well, more than I can imagine when I met her, probably seven or eight years ago. Now it's been a while. So, judy, welcome and just if you could quickly give an introduction for those who might not have listened to the teaser episode, to let people know who you are, and could you tell us a little bit about how you completely lost your voice due to illness and then rebuilt yourself to sing as a professional?

Judy Rodman: 1:38

You got it. Well, I've been singing professionally for about 50 years in the music industry and the voice industry in general, and after a few years like, oh, 10 years of professional singing, I lost my voice from an endotracheal tube during surgery and I was in the hospital about three months. So it was some pretty severe deal and it was down a few times and by the time I got out of the hospital I'd lost an octave and a half and I asked my surgeons why I still couldn't use my voice. I had lost so much of my voice. And he said well, it's probably scar tissue, but we saved your life. I'm thinking to myself yeah, what life? Which is what you do when you're a professional singer. You're like what life? Even though you really need to go deeper than that to find that life. But anyway, I had no idea how useful that terrible situation would be for me in my life and in my work, and so I learned how to get my voice back. Then I got most of it back myself and then I went on to Nashville.

Judy Rodman: 2:58

We moved from Memphis to Nashville because I was kind of known as a six singer in Memphis and it's hard to get work that way. So we moved to Nashville and I started doing big sessions, but I was guarding, I was still having, I still didn't have all my voice back. And I got with a professional vocal coach and realized the value of professional coaching. And Gerald Arthur saved my voice. And then some. I was able to sing more, with more range, than I'd ever had in my life. Couple of years later I had a number one record, nationally and internationally, and you know it was. You know it was on the top of the world. And so there were a lot. There's been a lot of rabbit trails, because in the music business, or in the business of the arts anyway, you're going to come up against speed bumps when certain things fail, you know. So you either die or you learn from those, and instead of becoming bitter, you become better.

Dr Edward: 3:57

That's. That's the thing you need to do. I like that. I'm going to steal that quite well. I'm going to steal it. I will attribute it to you, but that's a really good quote.

Judy Rodman: 4:04

Yeah, so I went on and became a songwriter. I mean, I had number one records in all kinds of fields, including songwriting and production and vocal coaching now and it you know. But but the reason I think human beings don't move on to another thing until the thing they're doing some reason has a brick wall in front of it, you know. So I've looked, I looked at all the brick walls that I thought were the end of my career and I, as I look back, I see they were all diversion points and you can really trust your journey that way. If you, if your intention is to do good and in the world you know, you're always going to find a way to do it, and one way is figuring out what your voice is really for. They call it a gift and it's not a gift until you give it.

Dr Edward: 5:01

Oh, that is so true, isn't it? Yeah, our voice. For me, this, this expression of sound and vibration and feeling and energy, and our heart, you know, really, our voice comes from our heart, I feel.

Judy Rodman: 5:15

Yeah, it does. And what? What people don't usually understand because culture, and the music business, for sure, and the speaking business and everything else what they'll say, or they'll the subliminal messages or overt messages that you get is, if you open your mouth, you better be good, your voice better be great. In fact, it better be better than the person next to you, or you should go die. Oh gosh, isn't it you know? And that they don't. It doesn't you know. They don't mean to be that way. It's just you know. This competitive world of ours gives us false ideas. The truth is the only thing, the only reason we have a voice, the only reason that's in our throats or puppy dog's throat is to deliver messages. So if you start focusing on that, then the logical trail starts to come clear, and that is well. If I'm supposed to deliver messages, who am I supposed to be talking to? You know what is this message I'm delivering, and Shall shall I go into the. The one heart, yeah.

Dr Edward: 6:29

We're gonna dig into three things now that, okay, judy's gonna talk about, and we can absolutely start with what the voice is for, because that's what you're talking about and and this is something that profoundly changed how I deliver messages through my songs to to audiences, which is the one heart right.

Judy Rodman: 6:48

So, first of all, the voice exists to deliver to one Entity, not to all of them. You know, all the people that are listening, or all the people that are in, you know, in the room, even if it is to a stadium of people, make it to the one heart of the room. This is what I, the way I work with singers and speakers. And if you're teaching, you know I had a professor that I that was working with college students and she was scared because they weren't listening to her and she Was kind of scared of them. She didn't know how to reach them and I told her start, stop talking to all of them because that was making her a flashlight beam, and Instead talked to the one heart of that class and when she started doing that, her, her teaching was so much more effective. She could see her students Get it, whatever it was that she was saying, because it was focused.

Judy Rodman: 7:46

And then you, you move the heart around if it's to a crowd, but you still always talk to the one. If you're talking to yourself, you know like you're doing a monologue or something and it's about it's kind of an internal thing You've got. If you're, if you're actually using your voice. That's an external exercise, not an internal one. So you put yourself a bit schizophrenically over there on the other stool and talk to yourself Okay, so there's one step farther that you have to go, and that is okay. If I was successful doing that, what would the evidence be?

Judy Rodman: 8:26

Yeah all right, the evidence. Is you ready? This is the. The absolute goal for your voice is Is the response that you get from that one heart. So when you are recording like this, or when you're not actually seeing the person you're talking to, maybe you're on the phone. What the thing is is is it use your imagination? What would it look like in the facial and body language Of the person that you're talking to if you were getting through? And that tells your voice how to operate? What sound do you need to make to get them to respond to you?

Dr Edward: 9:08

So that's gonna involve facial language too.

Dr Edward: 9:10

This intention then drives a whole lot of Activities in your body and in your vocal cords and in the energy that you're expressing. Right, because when you're wanting to connect with someone, whether you're talking to the one heart of one person in it one on one conversation, or whether you're talking to the one heart of a, a group of people that you're performing or speaking to, that sets up a whole lot of things that just then you don't have to think about right right, I call the automatic nervous system the lizard brain.

Judy Rodman: 9:40

And the thing is, the lizard brain is what really works your voice, because there are too many bells and whistles to do it manually. It's like trying to operate, you know, the shuttle or something the space shuttle on manual. So we learn cognitively vocal techniques. But what really needs to drive the vessel when we're at in performance is that lizard brain. And if you tell yourself really are the inner horse is another way to think of it. When you tell yourself what You're, you're wanting to do, then your inner horse it's like riding a horse With and your cognitive brain is the rider and it's, you know your cognitive brain is a masterful rider because it's being very clear to the horse and you know this works with any animals. I know I'm preaching the choir here, but if you confuse the animal by giving them muddy Instructions or too many instructions, or you know inappropriate instructions like Animal move, good, you know.

Dr Edward: 10:46

It's not gonna work. Yeah, sitting in the horse, and I grew up riding horses. Okay what you mean. But if You've got to have presence and you got to say right, we're going over here and the horse will go right, let's do it but exactly, I don't know where I want to go. Then the horses. You know what hell? What hell's going on here, yeah you're usually beginner.

Judy Rodman: 11:06

Riders are usually going move, don't move, move.

Dr Edward: 11:11

Well, beginner riders, often the horses go. Well, you're a child, so I'm gonna have it here, buck you off and go to the barn.

Judy Rodman: 11:18

Yeah, well, that's what happens with our voices when we're not speaking to the one heart and when we're not speaking in a way that makes sense, with the words that are coming out of our face, as if we are delivering that message To someone with objective to get a specific response on their body language. If we're not doing that, then we're saying voice, move good.

Dr Edward: 11:43

Yeah, and another thing you've taught me too is that even if you're speaking to someone without vision is really Use your face to talk you exactly all the expressions, really active and lively and and engaged, and that changes your voice too. But let's, let's move to the second thing, okay, which I Think really ties into this speaking from a one heart. That kind of leads to relaxation in a way, I think, because you suddenly you're not thinking, oh, there's all these people, it's scary.

Judy Rodman: 12:14

Oh yes.

Dr Edward: 12:15

I think with this one heart and you can relax and let go. So the next thing is Did you want to talk about? Was open throat? So right, freedom of tone and expression.

Judy Rodman: 12:25

Right, and I would say that what we just talked about is actually the most important thing for vocal value, because the value of your voice is how well you can get that response. But now we want to. We're moving into. You know you don't have to have the best sounding voice to get that response, but it helps if your voice sounds better, richer, less thin, less monotone, and that happens with a more open throat channel. It also protects your vocal health and increases your vocal health. So the you want an open throat channel because Of those two things. If you have a tight throat channel, you're gonna Compromise the tone of your voice, just like you're hearing me do right now.

Dr Edward: 13:13

Real change me. Yes, we just remind people of the posture that we did in the teaser episode and maybe See when we're on the kind of sit up into that posture, so that then they can get a sense Of feeling this, because that, yes, right.

Judy Rodman: 13:28

Well, the thing is, these are these three areas I'm gonna be talking about, and we're on the second one now, but they're synergistic. So you're so right and that that if you move your head back, it helps open your throat, and, of course, that's the posture of Confidence. Why does it open your throat? Because your throat channel let's talk about what it is first it's you go up your nose, out back in your mouth and down your throat, so that's a forked channel, right? That? That is that the throat channel and the post nasal drip zone is the place that gets tight on people and Constricted when you're slumping your or when your head's forward like that. Okay, this throat channel opens up, down and back. Most people don't know about the back part right when you blow up a balloon.

Judy Rodman: 14:22

Right it goes in all dimensions exactly and the the back, that you move your neck bone back just a little bit. So you're, which is what you do when you balance your head over your tailbone or your heel, then you're gonna open the channel from the back. It also opens up which it has to do with eye language, which is what you want to do If you're actually talking to somebody wanting to get a response Judy right now is lifting her eyebrows quite strongly.

Dr Edward: 14:50

Tell me about 50 million times during coaching lessons. It really opens your voice up when you do it does right.

Judy Rodman: 14:58

In fact, right now you can try it any. You know folks that are listening. Make your eyes really small and Count to three, loud and then wide.

Dr Edward: 15:10

For us, so we can hear the difference.

Judy Rodman: 15:12

Okay, we'll do it All right. So my eyes are small one, two, three eyes big one, two, three, and that's the only change I made, all right, and now we're gonna do the the down parts. Well, that's the. The ceiling of the open throat has to do with opening the nose up, and so when you raise your eyebrows, you'll notice your nose opens up.

Dr Edward: 15:37

Right yeah, your nostrils actually flare a little bit.

Judy Rodman: 15:40

So the ceiling of the open throat is a double ceiling. It's the upper part of the pharynx and the soft palate and you want both of them to lift a bit so that that forked channel is really open. There in that ceiling Now the floor some people talk without moving their jaw very much, like that you can hear my voice compromised by me having a tight throat channel from the floor not moving very much.

Dr Edward: 16:09

So I'm going to do the same thing, not right now. Now she's going to really drop a jaw and listen to the difference in the sound.

Judy Rodman: 16:15

So one, two, three. One, two, three Wow, that's such a difference. So if you do all three, you raise your eyebrows, you drop your jaw and you pull your head back over your tailbone. You've got a clear channel and your voice is so much more melodic and richer and more interesting instead of tight.

Dr Edward: 16:40

Because if we talk like this, people don't really want to listen to us. But if I'm now opening up my voice and I'm just so you can hear with my voice that kind of changes well right, Because they're all out there listening and you can now hear that change in both Judy and my voices.

Judy Rodman: 16:58

Let me add something before we go. Leave this, because this is a synergy too. So imagine that that heart that you're talking to is partially or selectively a bit deaf, and then you're going to wake up your articulation and you will be using your eyes and your jaw and pulling back. So that's another place where synergy happens between performance and open throat.

Dr Edward: 17:24

And if you are performing kind of over articulating and really speaking with your whole face, which I'm doing right now, leads to greater connection, I can promise you. If I forget to do that and then I suddenly do that in the middle of things, I can feel the change in the audience responding to me.

Judy Rodman: 17:42

Yeah, so that brings us to power and breath balance.

Judy Rodman: 17:49

Right. Your power is not from excessive air pressure, or shouldn't be excessive air pressure through your poor little vocal cords, because you'll blow them it literally, you'll blow them apart, you'll dehydrate them, you will create at least fatigue and strain and if you keep doing it enough with a successful voice, you're going to create situations like nodes or polyps or even hemorrhage or paralysis, all kinds of stuff. In other words, you're going to abuse your vocal cords and what you need to do about that is understand where your power should come from, and that is a compression breath, but not centered in your diaphragm. People that think they should talk or speak, or speak rather, or sing from the diaphragm is job security for me.

Dr Edward: 18:46

Oh dear. Okay, that's blunt and honest, yeah.

Judy Rodman: 18:51

Yeah, because it never, ever works. Because what happens is, even though, yes, the diaphragm is the major organ of inhalation and exhalation, of course, but when you, you know, when you center where your voice is coming from, being powered from in your rib cage, which is where your diaphragm is, you sabotage it, because the rib cage then collapses a little bit. Even just a little bit is too much, because that gives the diaphragm, which is connected like a mushroom cap to the bottom of your rib cage, it gives the diaphragm too much slack and then the diaphragm can move too much air. So what we need to do about that is open the bottom of the rib cage. How do you do that? Straighten out your upper spine. We're getting back to posture.

Dr Edward: 19:42

Right, the synergy of that being in a gentle, aligned upright posture and gently stretching your head back and up in a way that's not forceful, yeah.

Judy Rodman: 19:53

Exactly, and then you've got to power your voice from somewhere. You can't just relax and sing. Something's got to give Like. Imagine a balloon that you squeeze from the bottom up. Well, where your power should be felt or to come from is your pelvic floor. Or if you're standing your heels, which should be thought of as butt extensions for your voice Butt extensions.

Judy Rodman: 20:18

There you go, your heels are your butt extensions, everybody, yeah, yeah. And then you're going to experience compression breath, because you've got two things You've got breath support, or you're moving air up by squeezing there, and breath control, which happens because you're squeezing air up against a wide diaphragm which can hold too much breath back. So you've got compression centered in the pelvic floor, and if your head is back over your tailbone or your heel, that's kind of what you're going to do You're going to come from your thighs instead of your chest.

Dr Edward: 21:02

So it's kind of like when you're sitting you're singing from your bum or your pelvic floor.

Judy Rodman: 21:07

You're singing from your, absolutely from your bum and you're standing.

Dr Edward: 21:10

you're singing from your pelvic Bow down to your feet and heels right right in.

Judy Rodman: 21:16

Sing from your heels, not from the balls of your feet. So balance your head over your heels and you can press in right.

Dr Edward: 21:24

Yeah.

Judy Rodman: 21:25

Press into the stage floor with your heel or it's you know, you can imagine riding a horse downhill.

Dr Edward: 21:32

Now I gotta tell you, everyone who's listening, this is gold that Judy is Teaching here, and I really encourage you not just to listen, but to try this on. Try it out. It's been life-changing for me, and what we're gonna do now is we're gonna step into the next little Section of this episode, which is in the middle of these podcasts. We have a self-care interlude and self-care man. If you're not actively engaged in in high-level self-care, you you're already dying. You need to do it, it's so important. So Judy wants to talk for five minutes About excellence instead of competing for perfection.

Judy Rodman: 22:14

Yes, this is a perfectionist society and it's driven by fear of not being enough, of not being good enough or being perceived as good enough. So we go for perfection Instead, and what that is is toxic. It's absolutely toxic to life. It's also toxic to voice. We try too hard, we push too hard, we're getting or done, you know, instead of watching for the places of the windows, of opportunity for our lives, for our work. There's an old adage that our Real work should come from where our passion meets the world's needs.

Dr Edward: 22:59

And.

Judy Rodman: 22:59

I would say when we're going for perfection, we're just going for our pack. Let me get, I've got a, I've got this passion of this thing.

Dr Edward: 23:07

It's self-centered, isn't it?

Judy Rodman: 23:08

Yes, it's self-centered, it is, and it's driven honestly, driven by fear, but it's it's. It's a false narrative as far as what's important and that we've been kind of taught. So what I would say with self-care, it affects everything affects stress levels, which affects your health in all kinds of ways, which affects your relationships, which affects the way you talk to your animals. You know, and it's just, it affects everything. But if you're going for excellence, then excellence sometimes has to do with Imperfection that creates the magic. Sometimes it's the, it's the imperfection that creates the magic. When you're going for perfection, you don't allow yourself to explore, you don't allow yourself to do something that might be a little off, which might be exactly what you need to do.

Dr Edward: 24:04

Now, I was a golden child in my family matrix, so I had this really heavy perfectionism type thing and it was a very solid glass ceiling because I was afraid to actually stretch out and fail. It compromised my abilities really heavily for a long time and made you quite unhappy too, didn't?

Judy Rodman: 24:25

oh, yeah, yeah yeah, this is not fear-based. This is the opposite. This is love. It's love of yourself, love of your fellow man or woman or child, love of of the universe, of all of the things that you can then open yourself for To feed what you know, what you need, so that you can give out, not giving out as Like hostage-taking, but giving out because you are filled and so and for me, ongoing excellence is a gentle process. It's exactly.

Dr Edward: 25:10

Okay. So how can I get a little improvement? How can I just make a little change over time? That's easy, that's not, that's ecological, it doesn't put undue pressure on me, you know. So when I just want to kind of emphasize that Ongoing excellence, I always think of the story. I can't remember the name of the musician, but he was in his 90s and one of the greatest cellists on the planet, and he was interviewed and interviewed. He said, yeah, I practice five or six hours a day. And interviewers double-take and said but you're so good at what you do, why do you practice so much? And he said well, I have room for improvement.

Judy Rodman: 25:49

And I would. And you know what? I bet there was another reason.

Dr Edward: 25:53

I bet he practices because he likes it because it's enjoyable to, to Really dig into, into excellence in what you and feel those vibrations and feel, yeah, absolutely.

Judy Rodman: 26:06

You know, with a player like that, you know, I, when I was in college, I used to just I could sit in a piano room for five hours and just play, and it wasn't you know so much for the class, it was because, man, oh, let me feel these walls vibrate, you know. So that's where you know you're supposed to be, where you are, yeah absolutely so.

Dr Edward: 26:25

That's our self-care interlearn. Now we come into the, the next part of this podcast, which is taking these concepts into action, putting them into practice in your life. So these are going to be exercises for speakers that singers can use. But I just want to stress here that if if you're just Someone who's a mama, dad, or you're just working in a group of people In any kind of business or employee, as a leader or as an employee of a business, developing this kind of voice is going to change your life. Mm-hmm. I mean that the topic of this is heal your voice, empower your life, and it really does. The stronger and more beautifully make your voice, the more you empower your life in ways you can't imagine.

Judy Rodman: 27:11

Mm-hmm and it affects other people too, right.

Dr Edward: 27:14

Absolutely so. Every day voice warm-ups and exercises.

Judy Rodman: 27:19

Okay, well, first check your posture, and so park your head Over your tailbone, but don't freeze it. If you freeze it, you lose.

Dr Edward: 27:31

So you want to be flexible, just rocking her body a little bit, moving a little bit, so it's not a like stiff head back, it's a fluid, flexible, alive, dynamic posture.

Judy Rodman: 27:43

Yeah, think of a bobble-headed doll, so that your head can just float right over your spine, but back just a little bit maybe. Then you're used to and that might require some, you know lats work or core work. You know you might need to strengthen your core a bit, because your core may be flabby because you're used to slumping. So, anyway, watch your posture first, and if you need to do some stretches, that's always a good idea too. But then Just say the syllable yeah, because that can help you practice pulling. So I'm going to take you through what to focus on one thing at a time, because you know.

Dr Edward: 28:27

Sure, yeah, now Judy. As she says, yeah, as her jaw drops, her head is stretching back a little bit and her eyebrows are raising right up and it's kind of tipping off to one side back a little bit. So I just want to really describe the physical movements, because no way we're in an audio medium here and they can't see you.

Judy Rodman: 28:46

Right, you pull back just a little bit and and you and you kind of rock your head, pivot your head down a little bit, don't lift your chin, and and then it looks very kind of cocky or like you're playing with a little kid Going. I don't think so, you know. Or you did what you know. You can imagine that posture. But now focus on your eyes going up, your eye, your eyebrows going up, yeah. Then focus on your jaw going down while your eyebrows go up, yeah. So the ceiling and the floor moving away from each other. And now focus on that little pullback like little cock, your head pullback like a puppy dog going. Did you say treat or trip to the vet? Oh sorry.

Dr Edward: 29:33

That's a good one. The couple of people, when you get the feeling in their body they go oh, their little head tips to the side and they come and look back a little bit.

Judy Rodman: 29:39

Yeah, exactly, exactly, yeah, and then you can go if you know how to do a bubble or a trill or a raspberry. You know these are called semi-occluded vocal exercises and they just sound a bubble, the lip bubble is, or the tongue trill and the raspberry. I can't do, but it's something like that.

Judy Rodman: 30:24

And if you can't do either of them, you just do a siren. But let me. The bubble is the easiest for me, Some people, the trill is way easier, so do that. But if you might try sticking your fingers in your cheeks for the bubble and go again rocking, pivoting your head down and pulling back, oh, three dimensional stretch happening in the middle of that and you'll notice the back of your neck kind of stretches up, sort of like a cobra. You can imagine a cobra coming up.

Dr Edward: 30:55

Long in the back of the neck and the whole back of the body.

Judy Rodman: 30:58

Right In the whole back of the body. Right. Just go from the bottom of your range to the top of your range in back and, as you're going up again, rock your head down instead of up. Your lizard brain may want to lift your chin. Don't obey it. Make yourself pivot down instead of up, like that puppy dog pulling their ear up. No particular notes, just kind of mess around with it.

Dr Edward: 31:32

You just go up and down the range.

Judy Rodman: 31:34

Yeah, right, and or the trill, the tongue trill, or if those are hard for you, and that's just about anatomy. By the way, it's not, it's just people's anatomies are different, but you can also go like a ghost, you got first.

Dr Edward: 31:53

they say so there's a little bit of back pressure.

Judy Rodman: 31:57

And imagine it's almost creating suction, although it's not but imagine that it is.

Dr Edward: 32:06

And every time dude is going up in the note there's this whole kind of eyebrows up, jaw dropping and the whole backs stretching up and back like the cobra, literally like the cobra rising up.

Judy Rodman: 32:17

Yeah, initiated by the, the, as I'm dropping my jaw, and one. One way that you can imagine this that helps some people is imagine slurping up or a nice milkshake. I've been a while since I've done that, but you know, and that opens everything too.

Dr Edward: 32:34

So this kind of stands even even though air and sound is coming out, that you're drawing back in and up.

Judy Rodman: 32:45

It's almost like inhaling, which you're not, but you're using so much less air than you may be used to. Another thing that you can do is take a candle, and I don't know if we've done that, okay. So take a candle and light it and put it right up Don't burn your nose, but almost and then speak into it or sing into it in a way that makes the the candle flicker, but not blow it out. Oh, wow and hold it really close, because it's no fair if you hold it away.

Dr Edward: 33:23

So Judy's holding it literally, nearly touching her lips Right.

Judy Rodman: 33:27

And the other thing that you can do is actually, if you don't have a candle, put your hand right up to your face and try speaking in such a way that you don't leave a breath mark on your hand.

Dr Edward: 33:39

Try this is what you three, four, five this is what Judy calls pulling Right and you're producing vocal sound and it's it really makes a massive difference. It's amazing.

Judy Rodman: 33:52

You're pulling yourself open instead of pushing yourself tight.

Dr Edward: 33:57

Now with Judy there, you heard the difference in her voice. When she was pulling, she was doing that stretch up and back, and then she did bad things, which was crunching forward and like this, which you can now hear the change in my voice when I'm doing it too, and when I stretch back up, you can hear the change in resonance, right, right.

Judy Rodman: 34:11

Right, right, and this is a little bit more difficult, but it sounds really weird. But the weirder exercises seem to work really well and I call it the vocal cow. That's kind of appropriate for this podcast. Okay, and it goes, mmm.

Dr Edward: 34:31

So this is starting with a closed jaw. A closed jaw as the pitch goes up. The lips are staying closed, but the jaw is stretching right down, the eyebrows are going up and you've got that whole curve stretch up and back and really wanted to describe exactly what you're doing physically so people can get a sense of that in their body when they practice.

Judy Rodman: 34:50

Yes, mmm, all right. And then the other thing is that you can do is tongue tanglers yes, all right, so we can go through a few of them.

Dr Edward: 35:06

We're going to go through a few of them, for sure.

Judy Rodman: 35:08

Okay, all right, so the first one I would suggest, and what you want to do with these tongue tanglers? Here's the goal First of all, that you say them at all Correct, that's a good start. And secondly, absolutely no vocal fry, which happens a lot at the ends of the lines. All right, so no vocal fry and say red leather, yellow leather, and most people go red leather, yellow leather.

Dr Edward: 35:41

Okay, so you can take that light, stretch the voice kind of floating and not sinking into that more grindy feel. Yeah.

Judy Rodman: 35:49

Mmm Red. Again I'm pulling the words red leather, yellow leather, red leather, yellow leather, and you can kind of mess around with it like that Red leather yellow leather.

Dr Edward: 36:02

So every time Judy's voice goes up in pitch, her eyebrows are going up with the pitch right and quite a stretch of the eyebrows.

Judy Rodman: 36:10

Another thing I'm doing is moving my jaw in a bit of a chewing circle, or like the cow chewing the cut Red leather, yellow leather, and that releases the jaw.

Dr Edward: 36:21

That little kind of circular motion of the jaw while you're making bow noises, by the way was such a revelation for me as a performer. It's like oh wow, tone connection expansion immediately. It was really really obvious.

Judy Rodman: 36:37

Yeah, it sets a lot of voices free when they get that chew thing going. Yeah.

Dr Edward: 36:41

Now Judy is firehosing you with a whole lot of cool stuff here today. There's a lot of information here. You might want to come back and listen to this several times and go through it and practice it, because certainly my experience with working with Judy is whoa. I got to think about all these things. It's really weird. Nobody doesn't know what's going on. So you have to kind of consciously practice this until you can make it unconscious and relaxed. It takes an application.

Judy Rodman: 37:10

Yes, and there's something I learned from Peter Jacobsen, who is an Alexander Technique practitioner, and that is about the importance of thinking of learning as exploring, non-judgmentally exploring. So you know, let's just go with the idea that none of us are ever going to get there not perfectly, but it's not about doing that, it's about going ooh, how did that feel? Oh well, maybe I want to do that instead, but maybe I want to do this and just feel how it goes. Okay.

Dr Edward: 37:45

So that's good, does it? No? Exactly Because your eyes up and crunch down and your voice just dies.

Judy Rodman: 37:52

Yeah, but just like in animal training and with children, it's in the playing that you start to really learn some things, where you feel free, not doing something out of fear, but you're doing something with focus and it becomes interesting. So don't try to do all this perfectly, but I will tell you that just a little bit of some of the changes that we've talked about today can make huge differences yeah.

Dr Edward: 38:20

Yeah, look, you've given us so much today. Honestly, there is if you actually apply what Judy has taken you through today and you practice it a little bit maybe five or ten minutes, five days a week within a month or two you will notice that your voice is so much stronger and that this will be playing through and rippling out into your life and your interactions with others in ways you cannot imagine.

Judy Rodman: 38:48

I love it. I just I love the voice and I love voices and I love working with voices, with messages that matter, like yours.

Dr Edward: 38:56

Like yours, dr Ed, and you know your messages matter immensely too, which is why I'm so happy to have you here bringing this out in the world Now. Judy is available for you to work when I'm on with, and I can personally just give her the most glowing testimony I'll ever ever. She's been a profoundly beautiful influence on my life and made me not only a stronger performer but a better human, because Judy's got this beautiful kindness and heart-based approach that just brings the best out of me when I work with it. She's beautiful to work with and I deeply encourage you to jump on. I know she's pretty busy and you might have to wait a little while these days to get a spot with her, but what's your website, judy? It's JudyRodmancom, so super easy. Now we're going to wrap this up. Thank you so much, judy, for.

Judy Rodman: 39:53

It's been an honor and it's been an honor to work with you and through these years it has been a beautiful journey together hasn't it?

Dr Edward: 40:01

Yes, I'm sharing and growing and finding my voice again, recreating my voice from the ground up over the last seven years. So what we do with the Pets, People and Harmony podcast is that we often have an intensive workshop that follows up the episode. So we're going to have a two hour live online and then it'll be available on demand. If you can't make live because I know we talk to people all over the world and time zones don't always match up and we don't expect you to get up at three o'clock in the morning Really that's crazy but we're going to have this live intensive workshop. Heal your voice and power your life. So you've learned so much in the last less than 45 minutes. Imagine what you can get in two hours. So, Judy, what sort of things can people expect to learn and be able to put into practice in this intensive workshop?

Judy Rodman: 40:57

Well, my method of training is called power, path and performance, and that's kind of it in a nutshell. It's the power of the breath, the path through the open throat, and performance meaning communication skills, and we've talked a little bit about all of those areas during this episode of the podcast, but we can go into more depth. I can show you some anatomy so that you understand why these things are working, which helps you do it, helps you trust it and helps you actually use the new techniques with more confidence, and then also take you through some vocal exercises. I've got tons of vocal exercises and do some performance connection exercises.

Dr Edward: 41:43

And the best thing about coming along this intensive workshop is we're beyond Zoom so you'll be able to actually see what Judy's doing with her body and her face so that you can mirror it and learn from that really visceral experience of seeing, because I've got to tell you, the physicality of what Judy does is much easier if you can see what she's doing. I know I've done my level best to describe what's going on, but it's next level if you can actually see and move along with. Judy during the exercises.

Judy Rodman: 42:15

Yeah, and I can correct people that I see that are not understanding it as well, so we'll have you all on Zoom.

Dr Edward: 42:23

I encourage you to come along. We have a sliding scale of pricing starting at $47 Australian and going up from there. Please do come along. It's going to be a stack of fun. It'll be a beautiful two hours where Judy will be blast.

Dr Edward: 42:40

It's just as much amazing information and practical skills as she possibly can. The way that works is we have two teaching sessions about 40-45 minutes long and then we have about half an hour of live Q&A and in that live Q&A Judy will probably take a few people and talk them through so that you can then learn by seeing someone shift and change with Judy's individualised coaching, and it's going to be a stack of fun. So if I should come along, you'll see the links for that in the information below the podcast or you can come along to the podcast website, which there's a link for as well. But thank you, judy, so much. It's been so much fun hanging out with you today and thank you for sharing so generously all of this beautiful wisdom about how to heal your voice and empower your life.

Judy Rodman: 43:29

It's been a great pleasure. It's been a great pleasure, thank you.

Dr Edward: 43:34

Thank you everybody. Goodbye for now. We'll see you in the next episode.