ARCHIVE for Wednesday 27th February 2002 - Sound therapy

Pop Idol or no Pop Idol, we all have our own unique voice. Finding it might not be the key to a record deal but it could be the road to better health. Pioneer in sound-healing Jill Purcie claims: "We all have our own note, and if you liberate that you liberate the whole human being. By staying in tune with our own harmony, we can maintain a real state of health."

Purcie concentrates on ‘overtone chanting’ a technique from central Asia based on a single note: "You start on a single note, so you can’t sing out of tune. You need two or more notes to do that. But the effect is amazing the sound opens up like light through a prism and you start to hear flute-like notes floating above it."

Many people come to her convinced they can’t sing, but she insists that everyone can learn to chant. "It removes the disempowerment of being told you can’t sing."

She sees a direct correlation between the decline of communal chanting and the rise of our more isolated, stressed lifestyles. "As a society I feel we don’t use our voices. And if we don’t chant we become highly strung and out of tune. We have simply forgotten its tremendous healing value. It gives you an experience of complete blissfulness that can be quite remarkable and lasting."

A school of ancient Indian philosophy believes everything has its own sound, which is paradoxically often ‘silent’. Shri Shyami Bhatnagar of the US Sound Research Institute explains: "There is a silent sound. Our thoughts and feelings have sound but it is only at the point of delivery that they become audible."

Purcie has also discovered the healing art of sound at the heart of the ancient and traditional cultures of Tibet, Mongolia and Native American Indian tribes.

"Ultimately we are all wind instruments," she says, "designed to breathe and make sounds."

For further information on Jill Purcie's Healing Voice workshops call +44 (0)207 435 2467 or visit www.healingvoice.com.

Mark Winter