Singing Gets You High, Man

When I was 17, my high school choir sang the Mozart Requiem. Oh it was so amazing! We performed it with a professional orchestra and the soloists wore ball gowns like a real professional production. It was amazing. And of course, being the Neo-Goth kid that I was, I was so happy to be singing a beautiful mass about death. 

I was a soprano, and I can recall driving to school one day while singing some of my parts. Singing in the car was one of the many crafty ways I weaseled practice into a very busy schedule. But this day changed all that…

I was driving along in rush hour traffic, singing the high parts to Lacrymosa, one of the most beautiful pieces in the whole mass! After singing a few lines of the highest pitches, all of a sudden my head got all swirly and I barely missed hitting a car that had just moved in front of me! What happened? What was that? I had never experienced that before. 

I asked around and sure enough, singing gets you high. 

I had no idea. 

Singing just makes you feel good period. But when you sing really high notes, the vibrations hit your brain and you get really high.  

I realized that sadly there would be no more singing in the car. It was too risky. 

So what is happening here? 

There are two things you should know about singing if you want to use it recreationally, and as far as I know, this is still legal. 

First of all, singing requires deep diaphragmatic breathing, the same kind yogis use. The same kind breath workers use to reach drug-free psychedelic states. 

Second, singing stimulates the vagus nerve which calms your nervous system, giving you that “Hey man…” feeling. You know what I mean. Why do you think singers are so ridiculously happy all the time? 

If you don’t believe me try this. First experiment with breathing. Lie down on your back and take a big deep breath. Notice your belly rise. Close your eyes and do this several times, focusing on your breathing and the way it lifts the belly up and down. Breathe slowly and stay focused. You should start to feel really relaxed.  

Singers learn to breathe like this STANDING UP. That’s how we breathe all the time! 

Next, close your eyes and hum a few notes. See if you can get the pitches to creep up a little higher and focus on getting the vibrations up into your cheekbones near your nose. If you can, go a little higher. If you can get the vibrations up to your third eye point on your forehead, then you’ll start to feel a little trippy. 

This is just a sample. If you really want to get high on this stuff, you should book a lesson. I can help you hone these skills. 

And hey - instead of these dumb ineffective war on drugs programs, lets just reinstate choir programs into schools again. How about that? 

If you are interested in becoming a musician or singer, or booking a sound healing or voice work session, please contact me here: hello@bellapayne.com

Bella Payne has been a music teacher since 2003, having started out in Hollywood, CA teaching the stars and their kids. Throughout her career, she has also been a social worker, a massage therapist, and a raw food educator. She is also trained in Taoist Martial Arts, Kundalini Yoga, Breath Work Meditation, Belly Dancing, and Kid’s Yoga.

Her bachelor’s degree is in Sociology and Religious Studies. As a high school student, she studied music at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in Jacksonville, FL.

She is a classically trained singer and also self taught on piano, guitar, banjo, mandolin, harmonium, lute harp, swar mandal/tambura, and Native American flute. She has recorded 4 albums of original music and published one book of raw food nutrition and recipes. 

Her main objective in life is to create as many healthy musicians as possible. A world full of musicians is a healthy world indeed.

Beauty, Healing In Music

Is there anything more beautiful than a Chopin Nocturne? What about a slow and drawn out trumpet solo by Wynton Marsalis? Or perhaps you prefer the avant garde beauty of Alice Coltrane’s intuitive harp playing, or the graceful, meditative piano skills of Bill Evans, or maybe the playful and child-like finger dances of Thelonius Monk! 

No matter what you prefer, if you want to know what beauty sounds like, the obvious place to look is in music. 

On that note, the beauty found in the sounds of music make an imprint on your own energy body. How do you feel after witnessing an incredible music performance? I’ll speak for myself and you tell me if you relate. I feel buzzed, energized, excited about life’s creative possibilities, inspired… do any of those words resonate with you, too? 

The idea of consciously created sound being a healing force is as old as life itself, but our western mode of thinking has discouraged us from connecting the two worlds, however, if you just think about how you feel after listening to a great piece of music, it makes sense, yes?

It really is such an innate concept, yet we simply must complicate things by gathering groups of people, sticking wires atop their heads, and staring at computer screens to monitor brainwaves, just to arrive at the conclusion that is really so obvious to anyone paying attention: music is healing. 

Anything you find beautiful has a healing component, simply because it elevates your own state of being. 

When I was in high school, I had a really rough time with my mental health. No one could tell, though. I was pretty good at hiding it, however, deep inside, I was challenged by obsessive intrusive thoughts that kept me in a state of fear and worry. But whenever I sang in my choir or played my guitar, the scary thoughts went away. Poof! Gone! This is how a healthy obsession began. I had to play music because it was the only thing helping me feel good. 

And then I noticed something else. Once I reached college age, I noticed I didn’t have quite as many scary thoughts as I once had when I was younger. By this point I had experienced four years of regular music practice and classes, or, thousands of hours of music playing. 

And since then, I have been able to notice the patterns of difficult intrusive thoughts get quieter and less frequent. I believe a lot of the credit goes to music. 

When I play music, especially beautiful music, I feel a vibration of beauty surround me and penetrate deep into my mind a warm feeling of safety and security. Nothing can touch me in those moments. 

During the pandemic, I leaned heavily on my music practice to bring a sense of beauty into what I felt was becoming a very ugly atmosphere. 

In the moments I would play my singing bowls, fully surrendering to the sound vibrations, the world transformed into a golden heavenly realm. I could feel as if the sounds were floating around me like kind and gentle fairies, and any fears that were present before were being massaged away by the pulsating tones of the bowls. My voice would join in and it felt as if I too were floating in this heavenly realm. 

Afterward, I would feel calm and serene, and then I would teach my very-stressed-out-students online and pass on this serenity to them. That is how I knew this power could not be contained within my own four walls. And that is how I decided to start my sound healing practice. 

Creating beauty through sound can be done in many ways. You can participate in a sound bath, or you can simply select the music you play in your space by consciously considering how it might transform the feeling in the room, and then choose wisely. Or you could learn a mantra that you chant everyday before you go to work. Or you could make an effort to make playlists of songs you love the most that make you feel alive and inspired and play them every time you drive. You can also choose to work one-on-one with a practitioner such as myself. 

Regardless of how you choose to use this knowledge, try to remember that beauty is always a play-button away. If you feel frustrated, irritable, angry, sad, hopeless, turn to music. Surrender to the music and feel your being transform. 

If you are interested in becoming a musician or singer, or booking a sound healing or voice work session, please contact me here: hello@bellapayne.com

Bella Payne has been a music teacher since 2003, having gotten her start in Hollywood, CA teaching the stars and their kids. Throughout her career, she has also been a social worker, a massage therapist, and a raw food educator. She is also trained in Taoist Martial Arts, Kundalini Yoga, Breath Work Meditation, Belly Dancing, and Kid’s Yoga. Her bachelor’s degree is in Sociology and Religious Studies. As a high school student, she studied at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in Jacksonville, FL. She is also self taught on guitar, banjo, mandolin, harmonium, harp, and Native American flute. She has recorded 4 albums of original music and published one book. Her main objective in life is to inspire as many artists as possible. A world full of artists is a healthy world indeed.