Voice, music, silence - Mojca Belak, Saturday 16th April 2011 12.15 - 13.00

Gentle, peaceful, music greeted us as we entered the room.  I felt soothed after all the noise and bustle outside.  We did a range of fun activities involving music which were great fun.

Mojca asked us to think about the voices in our head and how they speak to us.  In groups she asked us to discuss the following questions.

• What is the voice that speaks to me like?
• How often do I hear it?
• Do I talk to myself?
• How nice am I to me?

We had a very interesting and thought provoking discussion about friendly and unfriendly voices in our heads. 

Next she asked us to consider our outer voice.

• Do I like my voice?
• Do I like a recording of my voice?

Again we discussed this in our groups.

We did a range of activities including:

• Transcribed Lines (translated phonemic script of lines of a song and then listening to the song)
• ELT karaoke (each person has a different line of a song and as a group they sort the lines as they listen to the song)
• Singing a song - including a canon in parts!
• Reciting a poem
• Skull cinema (listening to short musical extracts and imagining a story to share with your partners)
• Sitting in silence.

I'm afraid the last activity defeated me.  We were asked to sit in silence and not allow our inner voice to speak to us.  This was impossible - the more I tried, the more my inner voice said 'Listen to sounds in the environment, make your mind a blank, don't think about anything.'  My inner voice would not be quiet!