Arthur Q & A

Q & A with Arthur Samuel Joseph

20th July 2011 | 1:31 pm

Q: You shared with your audience that you hear sound differently. Were you born with this ability—what many would consider a gift? Or were you trained just to listen differently?

A: It was clearly a gift but I didn’t know it until my mid-to-late teens. The discovery began with my first voice teacher, Mrs. Julia Kinsell, to whom my first book, The Sound of the Soul, was in part dedicated. Mrs. Kinsell was in her 70s and I was 15. I’m not exaggerating this response, this is literally what happened: I would manically clamp my hands over my ears and say, “Stop! No, I don’t want to do it that way. I hear it this way.” She allowed this bizarre behavior from a 15-year-old because she already knew something about me I didn’t yet know – that I hear vocal sounds differently from anyone I’ve ever met anywhere on the planet. When I hear your voice, it’s an instant imprint. It’s what I call “perfect pitch” – not that I can recognize “B” from “B flat” but I get a complete impression of who you are as an individual, emotionally, vocally, spiritually and, then, we begin to put the pieces together from that awareness that I was gifted with. People often say to me that you sound as though you are speaking to someone within me. And, I suppose, in a manner of speaking, I am because I’m listening and calibrating all the time and it happens virtuously instantaneously.

Q: Are you able to quantify the percentage of people who are consciously aware of how he/she sounds?

A: Or speaks even. And that’s an easy response. Zero.

Q: No one is consciously aware of his or her voice?

A: No. Speech is habit. I tell all the great athletes I teach that you brought the gift to the sport—but someone taught you to do every single thing you do. And, without that training, you’re gift is wasted. But, who taught us to breathe? Who taught us to tune in? Who taught us to see language – what, in Vocal Awareness, we call “visceral language.” Seeing every single thing we say on the virtual computer screen in our mind’s eye. Nobody. That’s this Work. And, just like the arts or athletics, it is training. And, it happens, frankly, very quickly but it is a program – it is a course in mastery – and, mastery is only achieved when you integrate mind/body/spirit and, when you integrate the subtleties and master the subtleties of form. In this context, people come to me for all types of reasons – to be a sports broadcaster, to be a TV broadcaster, for speech improvement. Women who want to improve the sound of their voice, female executives. And for myriad more reasons.

But, for me, it’s all metaphor. Vocal Awareness is a metaphor. For I’m really teaching empowerment through Voice and Voice in this context is not the lower case “v,” but the capital “V” – integrating our inner Voice, our vision of who we are, to our outer voice – consciously, strategically in every single communication.

Q: So, why do you believe that sound and proper or effective speaking is so important and how is it so that Voice can change a person from low confidence to high confidence?

A: Well, let me take out one of the words in your question. I don’t “believe” it, I know it. Believing is an equivocal in this context. Voice has changed the world from the beginning of time going back to Biblical periods. What was Moses voice like? What was Aaron’s or Abraham’s…Jesus, the Buddha, Mohammed. There had to have been something energetic in the sound of their voice to cause people to follow. In our day and age one of the most demonic examples of this is, of course, Adolph Hitler. Through the power of his voice to his performances, he stole people’s very natures. Let me re-frame that. Through Adolph Hitler’s voice, through the power of his performance, he persuaded people to The Dark Side. It’s energetic. While at the same time you had Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill striving to keep the free world together through the power of their voice via radio.

Q: It’s the Voice and the Voice is Power, as in the example of Hitler, but, is there a relationship between competent and speaking powerfully. Can a competent person still have stage fright and be simply afraid to speak in public—what is the relationship?

A: I’m always teaching in Vocal Awareness that the emphasis in this Work is not just on the message but the messenger. One of my clients a number of years ago was running for President of the United States and he called me one Sunday after we’d had a lesson and he was exhilarated. He said, “Arthur, I breathed.” Well, of course, he breathed. But, what he meant was, he did it consciously. He did it strategically and it shifted our perception of who he was. And, so, here in this Work—it’s very interesting, I work with so many great artists, so many great superstars and athletes who, in their skill set, are in personal mastery—but, who, in other aspects of their lives, may not have and, very often, do not have a confidence to stand up and embody who they are without a character to climb within, without a prepared speech, without a song to sing or a play to run.

So, what we’re learning to do here, Rebecca is claim your Persona. That’s an Etruscan root word, an ancient Greek word, which, literally, means “through the sound.” And teaches how to embody that so that every single time, just as a great artist or a great athlete in a performance moment, is dialed in extemporaneously even in this conversation with you, my dear friend. I am consciously aware so that I am never again “self conscious”, lower case “s” but, always, conscious of Self, capital “S” – embodying the man I choose to be. So that when I – I used to train Tony Robbins years ago and I’ve trained other significant self-help gurus as it were — motivational speakers. But here, once and for all, we are learning how to embody something that has never been able to be taught before this Work. It is a paradigm shift. And, I’ve told people for years, the blessing and curse of this Work is that it can be all things to all people.

Q: Now, apparently, Vocal Awareness transcends simply vocal “improvement.” This is really life-enhancing skills to be acquired.

A: You’re absolutely right. It’s so interesting to me. Once again, people come to me from any number of reasons—many of which are professional needs such as broadcasting, for example. But, others because they may struggle with lisping, stuttering, spasmodic dysphonia or other speech impediments. But, when we look at self-improvement from the bigger perspective – Self Awareness from the bigger perspective – this Work is designed to help us embody who we are in all contexts. And, in this regard, I am always teaching: Context does not determine outcome. What am I saying? The way we think and feel about something changes the way it is. So, if I struggle with stage fright, for example, I will teach you how to prepare for that at home on the mirror with our Ritual Checklist in front of you. On your audio recorder. On your video camera. Practicing your openings whether that opening is a Powerpoint presentation for your executive coaching meeting. If you’re a woman in business or have separate courses for female executives, how does a woman embody the power of who she is in all contexts?

Q: When did you proclaim and determine through your Work, evolving the Vocal Awareness Method, the connection of inner and outer Voice and was able to tell your students this was different than—you are teaching something very different than a traditional vocal coach who might help someone give a speech or give a presentation? What was the period that you really said to yourself, the inner and the outer are sewed together?

A: It’s so interesting. I was asked this question, literally for the first time, yesterday by one of my football clients. And, I said, it came in it’s entirety when I was 18 and, then, it was codified within the first 4 to 5 years of the Work and, post that window of time, it has simply deepened and broadened–but I came to recognize between the ages of 15 and 18 that I always had a knowing and, so, when I first began teaching at 18, I didn’t have a empirical evidence as to why I wanted a student to do something. I didn’t have empirical evidence to why I wanted a student to do something but I emotionally knew, I intellectually knew but, then, what I began to do was really train it into myself, study it from a Voice Science perspective.

As an undergraduate, I had a triple major of Music, Philosophy, and Psychology. In graduate school it was Voice, Music, Conducting. And, so, I was already beginning to put the pieces together. And I remember I was about 32 and I was one of a handful of people in the country invited to The University of Florida, Gainesville, to attend an institute called The Advanced Study of the Communications Process. And, it was at this same time when the thought came to me that is paramount to everything I do: Voice is the only artistic experience, which is both finite and infinite at the same time. It goes on from there and I very clearly remembered exploring that philosophically, intellectually, checking it out with these world-renown voice scientists because I knew that Vocal Awareness was a paradigm shift. And, I found it so interesting. I’m often saying, Rebecca, to students, friends that Vocal Awareness has required me to be a far, far better human being than I would have been without it, quite frankly. I come to this Work having been born in a deep, dark tunnel and Vocal Awareness has been the light in my miner’s helmet—it helped me see my way out of the tunnel.

So, this Work helped me become all that I’m capable of being and it continues to do so. So, the privilege that I have, Rebecca, is in teaching this Work—is not just that I’ve been teaching it for almost 50 years or that I’ve got a lot of intellectual or psychological, philosophical, spiritual understanding—but, equally importantly, I taught this Work to myself and I was a person in my early days who was very fragile, who had no self-esteem, who had no self-confidence. And, in learning this Work, I was able to finally and, ultimately, embody the man I am capable of being.

Q: You created a method, the Vocal Awareness method, and that accompanies the three foundational principles: stature, the Persona Statement, and the 7 empowerment rituals. Can you speak about when and how you developed the actual method? Can you speak specifically about stature and how that became the starting point for any new student in Vocal Awareness?

A: That’s wonderful. Thank you. While I speak with you, I’m going to ask people to do this. I discovered early on the nature of my language was very different–and it was, frankly, never difficult for me to ask somebody to do something. For example, if you merely sit up nice and tall or sit with good posture or sit at attention, you’ll find that the body does not breathe and you’ll find that it looks somewhat presentational or feels forced. But, by embodying ourselves as people of stature and feeling a thread, as I speak, literally pulling from the tops of our heads and continuing to pull. It’s not even static, it continues to pull. And, as one does this, you notice the body first response is to breathe and the space instantly becomes quieter And, now, within that I asked people to relax their tongues, their jaws, necks and shoulders and the body, once again, breathes. So, that, from the very beginning stature was first and foremost what I asked people to do. But, for many years I had 12 rituals. A number of years ago, however, I revised this ritual program and created 7 Rituals. Stature moved from the first ritual to preparation for everything we do—so that it supports us in ourselves.

Tony Robbins used to refer to my Rituals as “pattern interrupts”—because I’m teaching us that we are not our behaviors. At the behaviors—speaking, breathing—we’re unconscious but, by shifting our awareness, we become no longer simply conscious or aware but we are in, what I call, conscious awareness. We are always attuned – but it begins with stature.

Q: How stature—all of your students are required in their own creative way to create a Persona Statement. Can you speak about the Persona Statement and how that serves as the foundation for all the Work that’s done in the Vocal Awareness Method?

A: Yes, again, everything that I’m sharing has been there virtually since the beginning. The root of the word “persona” is an ancient Greek word, an Etruscan root word, which literally means “through the sound.” The root of the word is phersu. One’s identity is largely conveyed through the sound of the voice. And, since we live in a society where perception is reality and an opinion is created in 3 seconds, I teach people in this Work how to truly claim what they are capable of being. And, one of the first things I say in our additional time together is my promise to you is never to make you into someone you are not but I’m passionately committed to bringing out who you are capable of being. And, it begins with the Persona Statement. And the first question people address is: How do I believe I am presently perceived? The second question is: How would I like to be perceived? And, it raises an interesting notion, Rebecca, that we actually have a choice. And, the point that I’m getting at here is that every single thing in life revolves around two things: To chose to do something or to chose not to. I didn’t know I had a choice in how I could be known by others. When I behave in my unconscious, habituated way, then people may see my stage fright or I may stammer or they may see my insecurity or I may begin to stutter, etc., etc. I’m actually saying to an individual: See my jugular vein. Here take a bite. Excuse me. I say to somebody, “See my jugular. Take a bite.” Because I exposed my fears, the very weaknesses, my anxiety, the things I don’t want you to know anything about and you could take advantage of that.

So, here we learn in this work to claim who we are and we write out the Persona Statement in sentence form because there is another metaphor: A period at the end of the sentence. The period says: This is how I want to be perceived. This is how I want to be known all-the-time, period. We’re not going to write any parenthetical caveat that says, I’m amazing except when I don’t feel like it or I’m anxious and I can’t. All the time. Is this not what we see great artists, great athletes do—the true champions, the true superstars who always give us their best. Well, I want us in life to be able to have the opportunity to do the same in every context—personal or professional.

Q: What does the life of a new student look like in Vocal Awareness and how long would someone see a shift in their behavior—how long would it take? Can you quantify it?

A: Oh sure, literally, in a matter of moments—maybe 2 minutes. An example: a number of years ago I was speaking at Esalen Institute and in this seminar one of the young women did one of the exercises, a vocal warm-up called a yawn-sigh. And, then, after that, she spoke. And the group was, frankly, stunned at the change in her voice. And I said, paradoxically, that doesn’t interest me at all. Her voice has to change. She just warmed up. But what is of greater interest to me is your perception of the woman and how that changed. And it changed in a matter of moments because I put her in stature. She observed the first 3 rituals of the Work. We did a warm-up and the entire essence of this woman presently changed. And, that whole process took ninety seconds to two minutes.

Q: She changed instantaneously but how does you continue that evolvement, the personal improvement, if you aren’t working with her directly. How does one continue to learn it and apply the Vocal Awareness Method and do the Vocal Work-Out?

A: I tell people if you look up the word “anal” in the dictionary, it has my name there. Because this is a course in mastery, as in all mastery, it about attention to detail and it is all in the teaching. Now I come to this Work as a singer so I know from an artistic perspective what it takes to learn a role, to learn a song, etc. I was singing at our youngest son’s wedding 41/2 years ago and I sang a piece I literally sung hundreds of times but, for 4 to 6 weeks leading up to the wedding including the day of the wedding, including walking around in the dress rehearsal with the string trio and people setting up chair and I’m in my black tie, I’m working 21/2 hours doing my exercises, doing my Work—because it’s all about attention to detail. Years ago I was a visiting artist and taught at the National Theater in Austria for a month–and one of the men I was teaching there also was brought in to work with me because he was going to play Jean Valjean in the Viennese premiere of Les Mes. And he shared with me his theatrical process which was to come into the theater every night 3 hours ahead of everyone else, turn off the lights in his dressing room, lie on the floor on his back, and recite the entire play from memory at warp speed. My point is that was his process. Arnold Schwarzenegger has another one when he was a great body-building champ. Franco Carlotto when he was a fitness champ. Emmitt Smith when he was a great football player.

Q: Everyday people like ourselves that are not necessarily after the athlete, how do you apply this and how do we incorporate Vocal Awareness into ourselves.

A: My point being that champions do it differently. And I consider those who come to do this work true champions because one realizes that I want to make more out of myself or I want to get more out of my life. I have more compassion than I have been able to exhibit heretofore and I’m willing to invest in myself to bring this about. And, so, to summarize what I’m saying here for all of us: every one of the people I teach learn the same thing, whether you are a lay person, a famous person, an athlete, an artist and the template is 7 Minutes-a-Day. That one literally develops in the 7 minutes Vocal Awareness Workout and, then, takes and applies one of those principles or two of those principles for 1 minute or 90 seconds prior to a powerpoint performance, prior to an important business call, prior to a social event that is very important that you want to support yourself in, once again, claiming this emerging person. So that, heretofore, this has never been possible but it’s not what I call brain surgery. This is actually when I call The KISS Approach: Keep it simply, Sweetheart. So, if I ask you while listening in on this conversation, to once again simply embody yourself in stature. You don’t believe it but there is a part of you that knows this is true.

Q: And for those people that have speech impediments—you mentioned before stuttering. Does the Vocal Awareness method correct these challenges as well?

A: All. All speech impediments. One of the most severe and I tell a most poignant story about a man who worked with me for several years. All speech impediments and one of the gravest is called spasmodic dysphonia and an extraordinary man worked with me for several years and had the most severe case of spasmodic dysphonia I had ever experienced. And we conquered it. We literally conquered it. I’ve again literally taught deaf people to sing when I used to be a professor at the University of Southern California. One of my students was deaf and, by the time she finished our work a year-and-a-half later, when she sang, you would never know that this dear child could not hear. And, so, one of my gifts, to be quite honest, is the attention to detail. It’s not just a breath but the quality of a breath. It’s not just look someone in the eye, but the quality of why we look and how. Our body language. Every single piece of who we are is communicating something and, just like learning to sing a song or just like learning to run 5 steps out and catch the ball, or dance a pirouette. These things have been taught in arts and athletics for thousands of years but, for the first time, it is now available to communication. And, we can all access it in the privacy of our space and every time we go back out, we can take a piece of the Work. We come back in, we practice a little more and little by little, we are so aware of Self that we are never again self conscious–we are always conscious of Self. And it doesn’t matter what we do with it, what we want to do with it, I teach you that Vocal Awareness is the glue that sticks everything together.

Q: And, my last question to you, Arthur: What is the most important piece of advice you give your students?

A: Perhaps the most single important piece of advice is Be who you are. Never “present” who you are, seeking approval. Sociologists tell us, that the greatest fear in our society is public speaking. They’re wrong. The greatest fear in society are actually two: Claiming our greatness, being who we are, and fear of abandonment. When I hold my breath, when I look away, when I wonder what you are thinking about me (which I’m never going to know anyway because I can’t read your mind.), I’m abandoning myself. So, being who we are, risking, claiming, embodying, being who we are is the most fundamental, the most far-reaching, the most critical thing I can say to anybody—so that we never again present, therefore, lose who we are really capable of being.

Q: How does Vocal Awareness differ from other vocal coaching?

A: In answer to your question, it’s different in every way. Very often vocal coaching, for example, singing these are the people whose voice style, pop, jazz, classical, voice teachers and singing are technicians that help build. Vocal coaches abound from people who call themselves life coaches, media coaches or what have you. But Vocal Awareness is, to the best of my knowledge, the only vocal training method that incorporates all modalities—singing and all the subsets of various styles, public speaking and all the subsets of those various styles from broadcasting to corporate training to every form of public speaking to the Human Potential Movement. I really abhor that word, that concept, the Human Potential Movement, but I’ve used it here intentionally because that’s the common nomenclature. For me Vocal Awareness is the human achievement movement and so that’s the motivational speakers and that type of thing. So, when it comes to Voice, Vocal Awareness touches every facet of the Voice both interpersonally, working one-on-one, communicating one-on-one with one another and intra-personally, communicating within ourselves, with ourselves.

Q: Why do you believe that so many people are afraid to speak in public?

A: Voice is the most intimate art form. It is the only one you can’t see or touch. I can read the book you write, I can see the dance you do, but I can’t see your voice. It’s completely, inter-, intra-personal relationship—it really feels like I’m wearing my inside on my outside, exposed. But the root of the word intimate, Rebecca, comes from the Latin word intimus which literally means “intrinsic” or essential. So, it is intrinsic to be who we must and essential that we be that as well. Sociologically, part of the conditioning that we all undergo is it begins at 6 months of age and we’re sitting in church, in synagogue, temple, a mosque, being held by a loved one, someone who we’re bonded to and one of our intrinsic ways as an infant is to explore who we are through our voices. We go ga-ga and goo-goo just being ourselves. And, this individual who is holding us pats us on the back and says, “shhh” and we begin to shut down even before we begin to open up. and, then, all the mixed messages that go on from there: “Oh, You shouldn’t act like that. What will people think?” Or, “you shouldn’t say that. that sounds arrogant.” But, you asked Arnold Schwarzenegger, “What do you think of your body?” For him to say anything other than the obvious is foolish. For, to state the obvious is not a boast, it’s the truth. So, in Vocal Awareness, I’m teaching us how to claim what we know intrinsically is true for us. And, to this point, if I say, “Vocal Awareness is extraordinary Work. It can help you change your life in a matter of moments.” How stupid and arrogant does that sound. But, if I say to you, “Vocal Awareness is extraordinary. It can help change your life in a matter of moments.” That’s not arrogant, that is not boastful, it’s my truth. So, the point here, as I state so often, the emphasis is learning how to embody the messenger not just the message. So, we are all comfortable conveying the truth as we feel it for ourselves.

Q: Now, you’re saying that if someone is standing there, they’re feeling more comfortable within themselves and, therefore, they’re more comfortable speaking because my sense is that people are afraid of public speaking not just because of their voice but for just standing there and have people look at them.

A: Look at them. Own what they have to say. How often do we hear from broadcasters, “I think this or I mean that.” Of course you thought it, you said it. But, they say it because it’s equivocal and it’s sometimes too daunting to claim it. It sounds too aggressive or whatever. So, we want it to be unequivocal. If we’re not sure, we say, “My sense is…” or “My feeling is…” something like that if we’re not sure. But, this also falls under, what I call in Vocal Awareness, the “white noise of language.” I tell people…It falls under the label of what I call in Vocal Awareness “the white noise of communication.” I teach people how to eliminate all the “ums” and “ahs” and “you knows” and “I think” and “I mean”—all of these quote, unquote “fillers.” Because as a singer I learned many techniques including space has value. Without a rest, it’s not the same piece of music. But we tend to fill space with all this white noise because we’re afraid we’ll lose our audience, we’re afraid someone will interrupt or tune out or whatever the case might be. So, again, it comes back to Vocal Awareness is a synonym for conscious awareness. It comes back again to two other key words surrender, sovereignty—two French words surrender meaning “to yield” or “give back” i.e. to be in service to the Work, to the Self, to our Vision and sovereignty, “supreme excellence or an example of it.” Not presenting, not being arrogant, aggressive, just claiming who we are because it is our birthright.

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