{"id":1422,"date":"2024-03-23T16:27:16","date_gmt":"2024-03-23T16:27:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/?p=1422"},"modified":"2024-03-23T16:27:16","modified_gmt":"2024-03-23T16:27:16","slug":"conversations-with-ananda-ch-61-anaya-singer-conductor-musician","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.yoganandafortheworld.com\/story\/conversations-with-ananda-ch-61-anaya-singer-conductor-musician\/","title":{"rendered":"Conversations With Ananda — Ch. 61, Anaya: Singer, Conductor, Musician"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Ananda<\/a>
The Palo Alto Ananda Sangha choir performs at Christmas 2023.<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Anaya serves as music director of Ananda Sangha in Palo Alto, California.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Tell us about your life in music, starting with your earliest years.<\/p>\n

Anaya:<\/strong> My parents were professional musicians. My father was a violinist and my mother was a pianist and violist, and I was introduced to violin at about age four. My father taught me a simple way to read music, by associating the notes with numbers. It was a very fast way to begin to associate 1 to 3 as a third, for example. I may have had an inclination for music, but as I reflect now, it seemed like a great way to learn to sight read.<\/p>\n

I was performing occasionally when I was five. Children are rarely self-conscious at that age, and performing was anxiety-free. That early experience no doubt made standing in front of an audience easier, even as I grew into adolescence when self-consciousness strikes with a vengeance.<\/p>\n

At around nine or ten I became interested in the piano, and I taught myself for a year, then my parents realized I was serious and found me a teacher. So I\u2019ve been immersed in music for a long time. When I was a baby in a basinet my folks would play classical quartets in the living room, so music has been very much in my consciousness from my earliest years.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> When you came to Ananda, did you immediately jump into the music?<\/p>\n

Anaya:<\/strong> Not right away. Swami Kriyananda\u2019s music seemed a little simple to me. Classically trained people will often come to Ananda and feel the same. But then I got involved with singing, I think this was around the time Swami was composing his oratorio, Christ Lives<\/em>. It was about a year after I arrived, and Asha had heard that I sang, and she made every effort to include me in the group that was learning the Oratorio \u2013 it was the first group that performed it.<\/p>\n

Still, it took me years to get fully involved, in part, I think because there wasn\u2019t a way to join the already existing small skilled groups of singers. But then at a certain point I organized a new ensemble so there could be a second group, and through that effort I began to discover the power of the music more deeply. Singing in a smaller group allows more nuance in the expression than a big choir does.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve sung in ensembles ever since, along with lots of choir singing. What has struck me the most over the years is that no matter how many times you sing these pieces, as simple as they seem initially, they retain their power. I\u2019m never bored with them, and it shocks me a bit, because I\u2019m bored very easily, but never by Swami Kriyananda\u2019s music. So the music grew on me quickly. I loved hearing Swami sing, but honestly, listening to music isn\u2019t nearly as interesting for me as singing, and the more I sang the more deeply I was touched.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> What effect did it have on you?<\/p>\n

Anaya:<\/strong> For lack of a better word, it was uplifting. When I sang it, I felt a sense of inner expansion. When I sang certain songs I would often feel a shift in my mood. I was particularly drawn to the minor-key, Indian-flavored songs like \u201cI\u2019ve Passed My Life As a Stranger\u201d and \u201cMother of Us All.\u201d When I sang those songs, I felt a lot of devotion, much more than I could generate on my own.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> As the choir director, you work with the new people. Do you find that singing the music is good for them?<\/p>\n

Anaya:<\/strong> Yes. You can see the effect it has by looking at people\u2019s faces when they\u2019re singing, which is one of the pleasures of standing in front of the choir as the director. After a new tenor\u2019s first Oratorio performance, he said, \u201cLet\u2019s do it again \u2013 the whole thing!\u201d<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t until we moved to the Mountain View community that Chaitanya asked me to direct the choir. It\u2019s been a wonderful shift for me to focus more on people and less on singing myself. It turns out that I love coaching, and I love seeing people go through experiences that are personally transforming for them. I also love seeing them get better in their musicality and expression.<\/p>\n

Being a director brought my own music experience to a higher level. It\u2019s fun to sing by yourself, but I find it\u2019s really<\/em> fun to help other people.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> What is it like standing at the director\u2019s podium?<\/p>\n

Anaya:<\/strong> It\u2019s deep listening, first and foremost. That, by itself, can be deeply healing for those singing, and for the one listening. It\u2019s also coaching. I would say that good conductors are, in most cases, enthusiastic coaches.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> You\u2019re very accurate about the music, but you seem to enjoy the challenge of making the best use of the talent that\u2019s available.<\/p>\n

Anaya:<\/strong> Yes, you work with the available materials. You don\u2019t pound on the details harder than people can bear. Many of Ananda\u2019s choir directors are trained on instruments, like David Eby, who\u2019s a professional cellist, and Cindy Gottfried in Seattle, who\u2019s an excellent guitarist. Instrumentalists have an awareness of flow and phrasing and expression, more than vocal singers usually do, because in instrumental music it\u2019s all you have \u2013 you have your instrument, and your job is to make it express. Directors who don\u2019t have that training aren\u2019t always as able to bring it out of the choir. As an instrumentalist, it\u2019s been important to me that the phrase is moving and the notes are alive, and that the music is going somewhere energetically.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the musical end of it, but the other side is working with people at the level of whatever training and ability they have \u2013 bringing out the best in them, given their limitations as singers, and not being disappointed if they can\u2019t produce more. Does that sound like a Swami we know? It\u2019s a wonderful way to experience how he worked with us spiritually.<\/p>\n

Swamiji says that the only way we can be authentic is by coming from our origin, from our spine \u2013 from our own center, and I think choir singing is like that. But at the same time, once you\u2019ve identified your core and you\u2019re in your spine, you\u2019re also expanding your sound until it\u2019s merging with the sound of your neighbors. You don\u2019t want to express your own sound without taking that other sound into account.<\/p>\n

So \u201cears as big as an elephant\u2019s,\u201d is what I would tell new singers who\u2019re joining the choir. You\u2019re generating your own beautiful sound, but your ears are all around the choir until you feel you can\u2019t really identify the boundary between your voice and the voices around you. That\u2019s the joy of choral singing, when you can expand beyond yourself. Most choir singers wake up to that along the way \u2013 they\u2019ll say \u201cWow, that was great, I disappeared!\u201d Or \u201cI became bigger than I thought I was!\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not easy to do, because people tend to be critical, and their minds will be thinking \u201cOh, she was flat,\u201d or \u201cI don\u2019t like their voice.\u201d But those things just hold people back. If you love your neighbor and you open up, something huge can come through.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Can you talk about the two sides of the music? The first being the work of learning the notes so you can sing well technically, and the other being how to prepare yourself.<\/p>\n

Anaya:<\/strong> Everyone has their own way of preparing. I\u2019m a very technical musician, so I like to warm up my voice as if it\u2019s an instrument. I\u2019ve collected many helpful warm-ups over the years from workshops with Chanticleer and others. If you hear my voice before I warm up, it can sound a bit unpolished to my ear. You want to move out all the rough edges and sing a bit until the voice has a lovely tone and you can move seamlessly from one note to another. When I get to the point where it\u2019s seamless, I\u2019ll sing the piece. If it\u2019s a solo that I\u2019ll perform, I\u2019ll sing it over and over until I get the nuance of expression just right.<\/p>\n

It can take some time \u2013 for example, in \u201cI, Omar\u201d there\u2019s a quatrain \u2013 \u201cThe moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on, nor all thy piety nor wit\u2026\u201d<\/em> And, well, do you breathe after that phrase, or do you hold it out to the end? Because the sentence keeps going: \u201c\u2026shall lure it back to cancel half a line, nor all thy tears wash out a word of it.\u201d <\/em>It\u2019s an unusual quatrain. The last two words are quite un-beautiful to sing \u2013 \u201cof it.\u201d<\/em> I\u2019ll breathe or break right after \u201cwash out,\u201d because people are thinking about the meaning of the words, thinking about their regrets for things in the past, and I want a break there to catch their attention. And Chaitanya would probably sing it completely differently.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll run it and run it and run it until I feel \u2013 how can I say it? \u2013 what has the most power to convey the idea to the listener. So those are some of the things I\u2019ll be thinking about when I\u2019m getting ready for a solo.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Can you share a bit more about how you try to give the audience the meaning of the song?<\/p>\n

Anaya:<\/strong> When you\u2019re performing a song, you want to sing it in a way that lets the audience hear it fresh, as if somebody were reading it dramatically to them as poetry. The words to Swami\u2019s music are as important as the music \u2013 or more so \u2013 and he doesn\u2019t want us to get up and sing without deeply thinking about the meaning. Some of his songs are packed with meaningful words, and it can be hard to keep up. \u201cTruth Can Never Die,\u201d for example, or \u201cTo Death I\u2019m a Stranger.\u201d \u201cSome men call it progress \u2013 down with those who doubt! To join the causes others join, and shout when others shout!\u201d<\/em> The meaning is dense, and you have to work hard on your understanding.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Or \u201cThe Christ Child\u2019s Asleep.\u201d \u201cOur pleasures, our pains, our losses, our gains, have kept us long bound. The ropes of yearning hemmed us round\u2026\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Anaya:<\/strong> Very true. That one, at least, is slow enough that you have a hope. But yes, it\u2019s not easy, it\u2019s very much not easy. When you\u2019re doing instrumental music, the mood of what you play is supposed to convey hidden meanings, but it\u2019s so easy for the audience to miss it. With classical music, the audience\u2019s experience will be very subjective, but with Swami\u2019s music there are words, and they define the meaning more clearly for you.<\/p>\n

David was saying something quite beautiful to me about singing with Anand, who lives in the Ananda community in Italy. Anand joined our group for a while when we were touring around Europe with a small ensemble. We had just two singers on each part, and Anand has a beautiful voice, and David was singing with him, and he felt Anand\u2019s consciousness reaching out to him, trying to find him. And he felt so joyful about it \u2013 he felt that it was the most fun you could have when you\u2019re singing, to feel the person next to you reaching out to you, in a sense embracing you with their consciousness and trying to sing together.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> I\u2019ve felt that way with Chaitanya. Of course it\u2019s not hard with him, because he has such a magnetic presence when he sings. But I\u2019ve wondered if this is a regular part of what we\u2019re doing in the singing groups. I came across some studies that told how people\u2019s heartbeats tend to synchronize when they\u2019re standing at a distance of up to six feet apart.<\/p>\n

Anaya:<\/strong> I couldn\u2019t have done it during my initial years of singing the choir music, because I was so busy learning the words and parts. But once you start getting those under your belt, it becomes easier to have the more expanded experience you describe.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Dambara and Chaitanya have created practice recordings for the tenors, and listening to them is wonderful because you feel yourself synchronizing with the way Swami Kriyananda wants the music to be sung.<\/p>\n

Anaya:<\/strong> It\u2019s something I\u2019d like to do with the choir, some exercises along those lines to help people avoid remaining only in their own awareness, so they can experience the music in a more expansive way.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Another quality I\u2019ve noticed in the experienced singers like you and Chaitanya and Dambara is that you seem to be right on the money with your placement of each note, and with the feeling of the song. It feels concentrated and one-pointed. I wonder if it comes partly from long practice.<\/p>\n

Anaya:<\/strong> I think that\u2019s part of it. Those guys are natural singers. They\u2019ve sung since they were kids, and I have, too. I was singing when I was tiny. In fact, I got thrown out of my first choir because we were supposed to sing in unison, and I made up a part that I thought would make it more beautiful. They said, \u201cOh, bad girl! Out of the choir!\u201d<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Oh gosh, they dumped on your creativity! But you\u2019ve said several things that will surely encourage people who are new \u2013 that you can work out the fuzziness in your voice, and that even experienced singers have to smooth their voices by warming up when they start practicing. That tells me that the rest of us aren\u2019t condemned to stay as rough as we are forever.<\/p>\n

Anaya:<\/strong> No. You\u2019ve probably heard Swami talk about vocal quality. He says he can listen to somebody\u2019s voice and tell how their meditations are going, how they\u2019re doing psychologically, and what path they\u2019re on.<\/p>\n

A great deal gets reflected in our voices, and I imagine we can work at it from both directions \u2013 we can work on our consciousness and our voice will improve, and we can work on our voice as a way of improving our consciousness.<\/p>\n

A lot of it is breath support. I watched the documentary, Pavarotti <\/em>recently \u2013 it\u2019s a treasure, by the way. One thing he said early on is that \u201cbreath is everything.\u201d He learned it early in his career from Joan Sutherland, who was an acclaimed master at it. It gives you control over nearly every aspect of the expression of the voice.<\/p>\n

But Swami also says that he draws the energy of his voice up over his heart chakra, like a bow that\u2019s being pulled over the violin of the heart, and it creates a lot of beauty and resonance in his voice.<\/p>\n

The most important thing for the Ananda singers is to allow something greater to flow through us, so the expression is free from any blocks of self or ego. Then a magic happens, beyond anything we can imagine.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> When people join the choir, how much time do they need to dedicate to improving their singing?<\/p>\n

Anaya:<\/strong> Not very much. It\u2019s good to warm up for a few minutes just before they sing. Also, many people speak with low energy, and you\u2019ll hear more gravel and creaks and moans in their voice. But if you speak as Swami speaks, letting the air come all the way through, and you\u2019re really relaxing the throat, your voice completely changes. That takes energy, but if you do that all day, I imagine your vocal quality will be beautiful, because you\u2019re practicing all day long. You\u2019re using your diaphragm and fully expressing the sound, without hesitation through the vocal box.<\/p>\n

My mother is in her late eighties and she still speaks with a bell-like clarity in her voice. She has outstanding breath control and posture. Swamiji had the same control. You\u2019ll notice many speech therapists and professional singers with this gift, and it\u2019s something we can all acquire with practice.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> Swamiji says he hums all the time. I find it helpful to straighten my upper spine with backward and sideward stretches, because any blocks in that central causeway will limit the energy available to the body. A strong, clear flow of energy in the spine helps me sing with less hesitation or impairment of feeling.<\/p>\n

Anaya:<\/strong> We don\u2019t talk about posture much, but Swami sings with perfect posture. When you sing that way, you can feel the difference.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> I try to breathe energy into the area of the heart. Researchers at the Institute of Heartmath have found that it\u2019s extremely important for physical health, emotional well-being, and spiritual awareness to harmonize the vibrations of the heart by cultivating feelings of kindness and compassion, and so on. In that effort, I find that chanting helps a lot.<\/p>\n

Anaya:<\/strong> Chanting is a great idea, but most choir members do benefit from technical work to improve their hearing and their singing quality. One of the things Swami said to our small Italian touring group was that we all needed professional training. ALL of us. He looked right at me when he said it. He said, \u201cYou\u2019re singing for the public, and you should learn to sing properly.\u201d<\/p>\n

So we all did \u2013 we took lessons from Jody Mori, an American living in Florence who taught professionals including opera singers. She\u2019s a long-time Ananda member, and we would drive two hours to Florence to see her. She was wonderful. I\u2019ve never been with a more supportive, encouraging voice teacher.<\/p>\n

I had the most prior vocal training of anyone in the group, and she was deconstructing my voice the most. She said, \u201cI want you to sing with a natural tone. You\u2019re doing too much with your voice. You\u2019ve had too many lessons. You\u2019re doing too many techniques, you\u2019re contracting, there\u2019s too much tension. I want you to just let it rip, just let it flow.\u201d And it was the hardest for me, I think, because I had to forget so much.<\/p>\n

By contrast, she loved David\u2019s voice. He has this beautiful, easy, resonant sound. She gave him a little bit of instruction, but not much, really, and I found that very interesting.<\/p>\n

Q:<\/strong> What kind of lessons did she give you? Did she run you through exercises?<\/p>\n

Anaya:<\/strong> Yes, she gave us simple exercises. Just \u201cAh-eh-ee-oh-oo-ee-eh-oh-ah.\u201d Like that. I don\u2019t remember the vowels exactly, but she would vary it according to people\u2019s needs. With one of our singers, she had her doing just long \u201caaah\u201d sounds with no other vowels, and with others she had them change vowels as they went along, maybe because certain aspects of their expression were tense and needed loosening. So a good teacher is a very helpful thing.<\/p>\n

Swami was respectful of expertise. You might not think so, because he\u2019s always encouraging people to come from their center and not copy. But he was firm about our need to learn and to do it properly.<\/p>\n

I have one last story to share. I hope it will be helpful to others.<\/p>\n

I was scheduled to sing the solo \u201cJohn Anderson\u201d at the Village. It was at a major outdoor event \u2013 the amphitheater was full and Swami was there. About fifteen minutes beforehand I was sitting to the side, and I was surprised by nervousness I was feeling, and so I became quite strong with my ego. Silently I said to it, \u201cI am completely sick of your self-involvement. This stops now!\u201d I closed my eyes and visualized a sword of light, and as fast as you can imagine, I cut a mental image of myself to bits until there was nothing left.<\/p>\n

It was a powerful experience, and when I was done \u2013 it didn\u2019t take long \u2013 the \u201cI\u201d that went on stage was free of the little self.\u00a0 The song just came through and I could feel it was something unusual.<\/p>\n

During the intermission Lakshman found me and said, \u201cSwami wants to see you right away.\u201d<\/p>\n

I went over and knelt in front of him, and his face was filled with tears. He said, \u201cKaren, I just have to tell you, that is the most beautifully I have ever heard you sing. It\u2019s the most beautifully I have ever heard that song sung. Thank you so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why? I listened to the recording afterward, and it was not noteworthy, at least outwardly. But he knew \u2013 something else came through me, and God was finally \u201cthe Doer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Interestingly, that night I heard from more people than ever, before or since, how touched they were by the song. Many were in tears. Some have told me years later that it\u2019s still their favorite performance of the song. Swami wasn\u2019t the only one who felt the difference.<\/p>\n

So that\u2019s the advice I would give to singers who want to sing Swami\u2019s music as soloists: to find a way to move the ego over to the side so that God can come through you. It\u2019s one of the most accessible ways for us to practice and feel that God is the Doer. Swami said that sometimes you have to do violence to the ego, and I can attest to the power of that teaching.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anaya serves as music director of Ananda Sangha in Palo Alto, California. Q: Tell us about your life in music, starting with your earliest years. Anaya: My parents were professional musicians. My father was a violinist and my mother was a pianist and violist, and I was introduced to violin at about age four. 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