Every so often, life presents me with a ‘new’ idea that’s so true, and so seemingly obvious once it has entered my awareness, that I’ll wonder why I never thought of it before.

Such was the case when a dear yoga teacher of mine, Mel Skinner, said this:

“Healing, spiritual and personal development – and maybe just life itself – is a spiral of discovery, not a linear process.”

“Wow, that’s it,” I thought. Viewed through this lens of the spiral, different aspects of my personal evolution – from developing my vocal technique, to creating better relationships, to growing as a performer – suddenly began to make more sense.

I don’t simply get better and better at something, more and more skilled, or more and more confident. The progression isn’t that straightforward. It’s more the case that as I grow, I loop through different states of being, which sometimes creates the sensation that I’m backtracking.

One of the greatest gifts of this ‘spiral awareness’ is that it has helped me to reframe my setbacks. So this summer, when the high of my first-ever solo performance at a festival was immediately followed by an emotional tumble, I accepted it as part of my process. Whereas earlier in life I’d probably be down on myself for being down on myself, I didn’t get stuck in that rut. I recognised that I was turning through an arc of the spiral – moving forward, even as I seemed to be falling back.

In today’s post, I want to let you in to the full festival story. But first, let me explain more about this underlying pattern I seem to spiral through. If you experience similar twists and turns in your own journey, I’d love to know.

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Hitting those highs: the breakthroughs

First up in the spiral journey: the high points. These are the breakthroughs, the golden moments when the best of who you truly are – that buried-away being that’s grounded, calmly courageous, and brimming with love – rises up to split the skin of how you’ve been showing up in the world.

Be it holding a boundary you’ve always trembled to set, standing up to a bully, or performing your song with a new-found groundedness in your system – there’s a sense of bursting through to the next level. A defining moment that changes everything that’s to come. A visceral feeling of expansion. The excitement and relief of having shed that old snakeskin once and for all.

And then, sometime later, the inevitable happens.

You contract.

Back comes the self-doubting self that caves in in response to an unwanted demand, or loses her voice in the presence of that bully, or suddenly thinks her song isn’t good enough to be heard.

“Oh nooooooooo!” You think. “Not this again – I thought I’d left this version of me behind!”

Back again? What turning the curve really means

As you turn through a curve of the spiral, you’re deflated to find yourself back here, back where you were before.

Or are you?

The place you’ve landed in seems familiar, but in reality your location has shifted. Because you did taste freedom, and it has left you altered. Healing isn’t a straight line of progress, but nor is it a perfect circle.

My experience has been that from this new set of co-ordinates, the Higher Self I’m longing to step into is somehow more within my reach, even as I spiral through the layers of my being I’d hoped to leave behind forever.

With this awareness I can take a big breath, regroup, and carry on – spiralling onwards and upwards, towards the light of new possibilities. The possibilities that my courage and my commitment to myself have created.

This is exactly what happened to me in August of this year, in the aftermath of my first-ever solo performance of my songs at a little festival near Bath.

Countdown to performing at Connect

“Nine months of prep,” commented Claire Housego, my piano teacher and ever-supportive friend. “It’s like a pregnancy!”

Ha! I’d had the exact same thought myself.

After nine months of countdown, my appearance at the little festival Connect 2025 was like giving birth to my performing-artist self. Nine months from the moment I knew in my gut I was doing this and ‘asked’ the festival organiser if he’d have me, to the experience of being in that marquee, in front of that audience, sharing my songs.

Make no mistake, this was a big deal for me.

If you’ve followed my previous posts, you’ll know that I am the very same person who once froze mid-song during an impromptu open mic performance and had no voice or functioning fingers to carry on. I am the same Danielle whose body used to react to performance situations as if I were in mortal danger. When I think back to this previous reality, I can truly appreciate how huge it was for me to reach this milestone: to perform a 40-minute solo set which included my own original songs.

I’d got there – through intention, focused effort, supportive relationships, a powerful toolkit of techniques, and a state of being utterly in love with music.

Thank God I’d managed to cross that line. Because just over 24 hours before I performed, the possibility of reaching this personally momentous milestone had teetered like a house of cards on the brink of collapse.

Big bumps in the road

2025 has been a challenging year for me. At the end of 2024 I was diagnosed with severe deficiencies in vitamin B12 and iron (the root cause of which is complicated, and not because I was vegetarian or vegan, nor because I was neglecting my diet).

A deficiency in vitamin B12 can cause damage to the nervous system which is slow to heal, and in some cases may not ever heal fully. It left my nervous over-sensitive in a very specific way, which kicked in with a vengeance the day before I was due to arrive at Connect.

Small stress, large impact

Two days before my performance, I had a last-minute rehearsal with Claire and her husband Matt, who were going to be joining me to add backing vocals and cajón to the final song of my set – a cover of Island by French alt music project Roseaux.

I was excited for the chance to have musical playmates and a fuller sound! But during the first run-through, as Claire and Matt’s parts came in, I was momentarily thrown off-centre. Though I’d expected to take it all in my stride, I’d underestimated the additional mental load of hearing the extra vocals and percussion.

My performance wobbled.“Oh God”, I thought, “we’re performing this in two days, and I can’t hold it together.”

I felt a little spike of adrenaline to the head.

My flash of doubt was only momentary. The song came together quite quickly after that, and it was joyous and satisfying! But with the weakened condition of my nervous system, that little spike of stress (added to the mild panic of not having been able to find my camping kit for the festival earlier in the day) rippled out into something bigger.

Rehearsing with Claire and Matt two days before Connect 2025

I can’t get no sleep

That night, as I’d experienced many times over the course of my long-term illness, I hardly slept. Though my mind was genuinely calm by that time, as soon as I fully relaxed, my body broke into spasms.

When I’d described my nighttime struggles to my specialist doctor he’d said, “sounds like Restless Legs Syndome.” But that was a misnomer at best. My legs, arms, neck, and whole body were involved, violently jerking in fits and starts. I was wired with an energy that wouldn’t dissipate, until 5am, when I finally fell asleep for one hour.

I’m quite a high-functioning insomniac if I sleep for four or more hours. But one hour? Forget it!

I got up the next morning knowing that there was no way I was going to the festival that day as planned.

It was Thursday, and my performance was tomorrow. My only hope was to get a better sleep that night at home, so I could power through the next day.

But if tonight I had a repeat of the insomnia I’d just experienced, it would be game over. I’d have to pull out.

Will it work out? Time to eat, pray, love (myself)

That day, I did everything I could think of to support myself. I breathed deep into my belly, I meditated, I prayed. I drank the last of a bottle of French mineral water given to me by my neighbours, which has naturally very high levels of muscle-relaxing magnesium. I felt the ground through my bare feet as I chilled in my garden. I ate good food. In every way I could, I tried to switch on my parasympathetic nervous system, and tell my whole being, “it’s OK, we’ve got this”.

In my zombie state, I methodically found and packed everything I needed to take to Connect, feeling as though I was moving through molten tar. I went to bed early.

By some miracle, I slept for a full ten hours.

It was happening!

(As an aside, if anyone else out there is suffering from Restless Legs Syndrome, I recommend you look into Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises (TRE). These have been a game-changer for me, as I discovered I could let my body ‘tremor off’ all of the energy I believe it was trying to release through my Restless Legs. Since regularly practising TRE, I’ve had far fewer nights of insomnia.)

How everything fell into place

Everything falls into place,
Like the flick of a switch.
Well my mama told me,
There’ll be days like this – Van Morrison

On Friday 15th August 2025 (my nephew’s birthday – auspicious!), everything flowed my way. It was just as if a celestial switch had been flicked to turn on all the conditions that would most support me to deliver my performance.

I arrived in a dry field bathed in glorious sunshine, bumped straight into Claire – who helped me unload my digital piano – and threw my tent up in two seconds (it’s a pop-up tent!)

Two events were programmed in the main marquee before my set. As Claire and I entered the space, we were met with a swirl of resonance – sounds that emerged, shimmered, ebbed and flowed, bathing us in vibrations that felt like a gentle yet powerful embrace. We joined the other participants lying down on the ground, as therapeutic sound practitioner Belle Humble painted the room with an array of instruments, including the singing of crystal and metal bowls, intertwined with the singing of her own beautiful voice.

The scenario couldn’t have been more perfect. Those meditative sounds eased me into a state of deep relaxation and presence. What a way to get mindful and embodied before a performance!

As the sound bath wound down and we came back to sitting, Belle invited us all to add our voices in harmony to the soundscape of the room. “Yesssss!” I thought, “we get to sing!” My heart swelled as my body was soothed from the inside by the vibrations of my own voice, and met from the outside by other people’s. It was a shared moment of the most easeful and nourishing vocal improvisation. As a long-time collaborative vocal improviser, I honestly couldn’t have felt more at home.

Claire and I flowed right into the next session held in the marquee – a salsa class led by our newly made friend Jordan Berry. It was the best salsa class I’ve ever taken part in, so well structured, keeping my full attention without overstretching me. I was in the sweet spot for the flow state, and having fun!

I did it! Breakthrough and expansion

And so it was that I entered my 40-minute set at Connect from a foundation of relaxation, emotional warmth, groundedness, and positivity.

Sure, there were little butterflies in my stomach, but they fluttered lightly.

I’d told myself that I wasn’t aiming for perfection. The goal I’d set for myself was that any little mistakes would not interrupt my flow. Whatever happened, I wanted to keep on playing.

I did it!

My voice was so amplified that it reverberated around the whole festival field. With it, I had the sensation that my energetic self had also somehow expanded and was comfortably taking up more of the space around me.

Once my performance had finished, a couple of people approached me to feed back that they’d really enjoyed my music. “It was exquisite,” one woman said.

Earlier in life, my body had learned through challenging experiences – such as being bullied at school – that it was not safe for me to be seen and heard expressing myself in that way. The risk appeared to be that I could be hated for shining, or, at the other end of the scale, rejected and judged unworthy for not being good enough. I’d felt I had to walk an impossible line between this rock and a hard place, leaving me riddled with anxiety every time I ‘put myself on show’. Now I was receiving the message that my artist-self was welcomed. I could bring her out of hiding. It was safe.

I was so elated, and proud of what I’d achieved.

The contraction came a few days later. The trigger was the videos.

Return of the inner critic

Claire had very kindly set up her video camera on a tripod to capture my performance.

On the Monday after Connect, she sent the footage through to me.

“Thanks so much Claire”, I messaged. “I’ll watch these videos later.”

I was dragging my heels. I didn’t want to watch them. Something in me had a knowing of what was about to happen.

Watching a video is so different to living the experience that it captures. When I eventually hit the play button, there was the image of me singing, playing piano, flat-packed into the screen of my phone. And there, recorded with clinical precision, were all of my mistakes. My moments of hesitation, my fingers landing on the wrong keys, and – ouch! – my waverings off pitch.

“Oh nooooo!” I said to myself over and over again as I watched. “I did that?” “I did that?”

All of those months’ and years’ worth of musical training, and the best I could produce was that?

Seeing the spiral

Shame erupted in me. I wanted to take it all back, shove the genie back inside the lamp and stop pretending to the world that I was a musician, because – look, there’s the evidence! – despite all my efforts to upskill, I still couldn’t deliver my songs in the way I’d imagined them.

In the very same moment, another part of me was just noticing.

It was the ‘witness consciousness’. The unchanging seer that’s always there, beneath the swirl of thought, emotion, and sensation.

“Look, there it is”, it told me. “The spiral”.

I had had a breakthrough, and now I was spiralling back into contraction. My inner critic, still clinging to the idea that I had to be perfect to be safe, was sounding the alarm in a desperate bid to shut me down, AKA protect me.

But its assessment was skewed. Yes, the imperfections and mistakes were there, but it had amplified them in my mind to eclipse all that was beautiful in my performance. It was reacting in a way I’d never respond to another person, and its ‘you’re not good enough’ message was simply not true.

It took me a couple of days of quiet processing to work that shame out of my system. Thankfully, I then popped out the other side, back in possession of my post-performance joy and pride.

Onwards and upwards: spiraling into 2026

Three months after Connect, I performed a couple of my songs at a private open mic held in a friend’s house. I felt relaxed and safe sharing my songs that night like never before.

Relaxed and enjoying performing at a private party in my friend Nina’s house: November 2025

This experience – and the festival performance itself – have really brought home to me how much more demanding it is to be in a performance situation than playing your songs alone in a familiar practice space. The presence of an audience, a new environment, and even subtle differences in the position of your body in relation to an instrument create an extra mental demand – even if you’re feeling relatively calm and relaxed.

So my task since Connect has been to simplify some of the complexity of my songs (a strategy I’ve written about before, which started with my song ‘Walking’). I’ve been focusing on the parts of my arrangements which have been stretching my piano skills to the limit, and tipping me into a zone where mistakes are quite likely.

I’ve been seeking ways to create a bit more ease in each song, while holding on to the spirit of what I really want to express.

Now I’m looking forward to spiralling forward into 2026, creating new opportunities to share my music. I’m excited to discover what my learnings from Connect, and that experience of expansion, will make possible.

Watch this space!

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Join me, Claire, and Belle in 2026 for sound-bathing, vocal meditation and improvisation!

The connection Claire and I made with therapeutic sound practitioner and songwriter Belle Humble at Connect festival has resulted in a very special collaborative offering.

Having experienced how much Belle’s sound bath and vocal meditation benefited my voice on the day of my first festival performance, I’m really excited to be offering a combined experience of sound-bathing, Collaborative Vocal Improvisation, and creative voice and piano exploration – co-facilitated between me, Belle and Claire.

The Awaken Your Voice: day retreat is happening on Sunday 1st February 2026, at the Wild Box yoga studio in Bristol. We’d love for you to join us there! Learn more here: Awaken Your Voice.

“Let me know which songs you’d like to learn on guitar, and I can work them out for you. Just please don't ask me to try to tackle Joni Mitchell.”

This was the gist of a conversation I had with my second guitar teacher, Sheldon, who I'd come to for lessons as a graduate fresh out of university. I'd mentioned that I loved Joni, never imagining that I’d be met with this kind of resistance.

“What’s the issue with Joni?,” I thought.

Sheldon was a highly skilled guitarist. I think ‘virtuoso’ would have accurately described the level at which he played. Surely he could teach me how to play a Joni Mitchell song?

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Apparently not. Or at least, he was anticipating that unpicking a Joni Mitchell song could be a long and laborious process he'd rather not have to go through.

(This was back in the day when it was still quite hard to find accurate chords on the Internet for the songs you wanted to play.)

The ‘problem’ with Joni's weird chords

The issue with Joni was this: she wrote music ‘from the inside out’. The problem was that she explored music without the map of a formal music education, seeking out the sounds that resonated with the emotions she was experiencing in her body as she composed. She was a musical adventurer who often used off-piste guitar tunings and chords built not from a foundation of theory, but by her musical ear. This meant that there were fewer shortcuts to working out her arrangements.

In her own words, “Music is when you pull the chords from your inner core, whether they sound weird to people or not.”

Joni’s ‘weird’ homemade chords annoyed some (not all) of her jazz-musician peers, who felt that her music was ‘wrong’. That she was breaking the rules somehow.

(Of course, we all know that no great artist has ever successfully broken any rules – just ask Picasso.)

So my question is, did Joni's more musically educated peers have the authority to define what was right and wrong in her music? Did they understand music better than she did?

The different routes to understanding music

Let’s pause and reflect here, because I think in our culture we tend to assume that music is best known and understood by a musical ‘elite’ – a group of highly educated, trained, and technically skilled musicians who know all the theory. And from my perspective, that idea doesn’t accurately represent the truth – which is actually far more nuanced.

I want to be absolutely clear here that I'm not anti-theory, or musical education, or skilled musicians – far from it! I deeply respect and appreciate when people have spent countless hours studying music and honing their craft, and all the beauty that they bring into the world. I have very dear friends who have done music degrees, been to conservatoire, even toured all over Europe as classical musicians. Their depth of understanding of music goes without question. I myself love the way that theoretical concepts can shed light on my response to a particular moment in a piece of music, for example.

However, I also know that some of us feel and understand music on a deep level that hasn’t (or has only partly) been facilitated by theory and analysis.

From what I've heard about Joni Mitchell, she was one such person. Her relationship with music was immediate and embodied. She composed directly with, and in response to, the sounds she heard and how they felt to her. For me, this means she was making music in a very authentic way and on her own terms. Her songs, which have resonated with generations of people across the globe, reflect her understanding of how to create compelling compositions with real emotional impact.

It begs the question, ‘was Joni Mitchell any less of a musician and artist than people who’ve received an extensive formal musical education?’

I don’t think so.

I think that ‘painting with the colours of the sounds you hear’, absolutely makes you an artist.

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Want to be original? Try following your ear

I've written music this way too – most notably my song 'Treasured Hands', which started with me selecting a single note (G#), then building a chord around it by picking out three other notes from the keyboard that created a beautiful and intriguing sound. I then built two other chords in the same way – without any analysis of what I was doing, simply because the sounds resonated with me – and these three chords became the central loop of the song.

What I love about this particular song is that it sounds so distinct from my others. The fact that it sprang from my open exploration of sound via the piano keyboard helped to give it an originality that I find special.

However, there's something else to appreciate about the musical ear, aside from its value in helping us create original music. It’s something you might find helpful to know if you've ever found yourself feeling ‘less-than’ as a singer or songwriter because you lack knowledge of music theory.

To explain what it is, I'm going to share with you the story of a recent experience I had while writing a song, where a ‘magical’ and unintended chord suddenly appeared in my arrangement. The way it happened completely bowled me over, and taught me a lesson I’ll never forget.

It all began one Monday morning, during my weekly piano lesson with Claire Housego.

Minor seventh flat five: the big question

There's something you should know about my piano teacher Claire: she isn't in the business of teaching piano in the ways you might expect. Her mission is to teach singers to accompany themselves at the piano. Claire helps singers like me to express their unique artistic voice by supporting them to create their own piano arrangements for songs they’ve written, and/or covers.

Claire had started to take me through a process of relating musical intervals (interval meaning the gap between two notes, whether that's a tiny step or a bigger leap), to chords (a combination of two or more notes played together). Over a series of lessons, we were using a portion of our time to discuss which types of chords contained each interval. The idea was for me to revise, or freshly learn in some cases, a range of chords and understand how I could create them.

In this particular lesson we were looking at the minor seventh interval, and minor seventh flat five chords (m7b5). I remembered that I'd come across this chord before in a cover song I'd played and sung on the piano – Donny Hathaway's ‘A Song for You’. I loved the chord sequence of this song, which contained a range of expressive colours. Increasingly, I'd been wanting to bring more of a jazz and soul feel into my own songwriting, and to get more comfortable with incorporating chords like the minor seventh flat five. My question was, how?

“If I were writing a song Claire, how would I know that I wanted to bring a minor seventh flat five chord into it? How would I know that that was the sound I wanted? I guess a good first step would be to learn to recognise how the chord sounds?”

“Yes, and also I think it might help you to look at the chord in the context of ‘A Song for You’ and other songs you know, to give you examples of how it's used in practice.”

Lessons from descending basslines

So that's what we did. The following lesson, we revisited Nina Simone's ‘Feeling Good’, which is a cover song I've learned to play on piano. Claire shared with me that she’d noticed a pattern of the minor seventh flat five chord being used in songs with a bassline that descends step-by-step (chromatically). The songs that follow this pattern are all in a minor key. ‘Feeling Good’ is one example, and ‘A Song for You’ is another.

“I've got another example of this chord being used in a different way in another song we've looked at together,” Claire told me. It's in ‘Sway’ (the song that was written in 1953 in Spanish by Luis Demetrio and Pablo Beltrán Ruiz, and later made popular by singers like Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, who sang an English version).

“We'll look at how it's used in 'Sway' in a future lesson too.”

That was the plan – except that we never got there.

Here's what happened instead...

The magic of G#m7b5

At that time, I had recently finished writing a piano arrangement for a song I'd written called ‘Phoenix’. It's a song about the heartbreak of feeling a strong, seemingly mutual connection with someone without that connection ever developing into a loving relationship. It's also about how you can transform your heartbreak by deepening your sense of connection with other people and the beauty of the world, and living into the best version of who you are.

The song had begun with lyrics, for which I'd vocally improvised a melody. From there I'd worked out a series of chords on the piano to accompany the song, which I used as a map to create a more detailed arrangement. Claire was supporting me to work out the best fingerings, and also to memorise the arrangement from the score I'd written.

One or two lessons on from our analysis of how a m7b5 chord is used in ‘Feeling Good’, we were looking together at a section of ‘Phoenix’. As we came to the third bar in verse 2, the flow of the lesson was interrupted as Claire started to notice something.

After a pause, she said, “OK, there's something interesting going on here.”

“You've labelled the bar with ‘D Major’, but actually not all these notes are from D major. Can you see that in the second half of the bar you've created a different chord that wasn't in your original chord sequence?”

“I have? Oh yes.” The bar we were looking at was part of a broken chord sequence, and I hadn't even been thinking in terms of chords at that point. I’d just felt that the bar was lacking something, and had found a solution by playing around with my right hand until I found the notes I wanted.

“Can you see which chord it is?” There was something about Claire's amused expression which suggested that something unexpected and synchronistic had happened.

“It's not... the minor seventh flat five chord is it?”

“Yes!”

“No way!”

“Yes and not only that but...” There was another pause as Claire double-checked the score.

“What you've done here follows the exact pattern that I was going to use ‘Sway’ to explain to you. I was going to highlight this pattern to you as a teaching point, and you've already intuitively written it into your song.”

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All that jazz!

Claire went on to explain that what we were going to look at in ‘Sway’ was the use of a m7b5 chord as a chord of 2 in a 2-5-1 chord progression.

If you’re not familiar with musical keys and their numbered chords, then it’s enough to know that each musical key has a series of chords that follow the letter-names of notes in order. So to give an example, my song Phoenix is in the key of F# minor, and one option for chords in that key are:

Chord of 1 = F#m

Chord of 2 = G#m7b5

Chord of 3 = A

Chord of 4 = Bm

Chord of 5 = C#

Chord of 6 = Dmaj7

Chord of 7 = E

A chord progression of 2-5-1 is very common in jazz. I had heard of it before, but I couldn't have told you any examples of songs where it had been used. Led by my musical ear, I had put this progression into my song Phoenix, with G#m7b5 as the chord of 2, without consciously realising what I was doing.

The sequence I’d written was: G#m7b5 (chord of 2), C# (chord of 5), and F#m (chord of 1).

I couldn't believe what had happened! In that moment when I'd asked the question, “how would I bring a minor seventh flat five chord into a song?” I'd actually already done it. Not only that, but I'd done it within a 2-5-1 chord progression, which is a classic progression in jazz – even though I haven't studied jazz and I would have said I knew very little about it. And to top off the unlikely unfolding of events, this specific progression was the one that Claire had been intending to teach me – to show me how I might use a m7b5 chord in my songwriting.

A lesson for me and you

Life is a classroom, and here's the lesson I gained from this experience: I actually know and understand music better than I'd thought.

And it's not just me. I believe this is true for many of us.

There's an intelligence to the musical ear of many people who love music and have immersed themselves in it, yet don't have an extensive formal music education. The immersion might have come through deeply listening to recorded and live music, and/or taking part in singing and music-making.

It's similar to the intelligence of a child who learns to speak their mother tongue by simply listening and imitating the language that's being spoken all around them.

Learning the language of music

As children we don't need anyone to sit down with us and explain what an adjective is, how you make a plural, or how you should order your subject, verb, and object correctly in a sentence. We can learn how to speak our mother tongue perfectly, following the rules of grammar, without being able to explicitly explain what those grammatical rules are.

A similar phenomenon happens with music. Our brains can internalise the patterns we hear in music, and replicate them, without us having to analyse what it is that we're doing.

So as well as creating music in direct response to the sounds we hear and how they land in our bodies – the ‘painting with the colour of sound’ that I spoke about before – we also have access to a bank of musical references which our intuition is able to draw from, without the need for conscious reasoning.

How wonderful is that?

I’ve found learning music theory to be useful and interesting because it raises my conscious awareness of all the options I have as a songwriter. However, in practice, a lot of my songwriting process happens by my following the ideas that I hear first in my imagination, or that I’ve found through experimentation at the piano, without too much analysis going on at the time. These methods have often taken me to structures and patterns in music that I haven't actually studied.

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A takeaway to help you break through your blocks

Before I started writing songs in my mid-thirties, I carried around the limiting belief that I didn't know enough about music to write ‘good songs’. I now know this idea to be completely untrue!

So if you've ever felt shame around your lack of musical education, or the gaps in your knowledge of theory, then please keep the story I've shared here in the front of your mind.

Sing, write your songs, don't hold back. Be a musical adventurer like Joni – go to your instrument, play with the spectrum of possible sounds, and notice how different combinations make you feel. Improvise with your voice by following the sounds of your imagination.

And remember: you probably understand music better than you think.

Further reading / resources

Video: Joni Mitchell – Chords of Inquiry

This video by Paul Wilkinson includes footage of Joni Mitchell explaining her composition process and other people’s reactions to her ‘weird chords’. There’s also a demonstration of how to create some of Joni’s chords on the piano.

Website: Claire Housego – Piano Lessons for Singers

If you’re a singer who’d like to learn to accompany yourself at the piano, check out Claire’s lessons – available online or in person in Bristol, UK. Her piano lessons are one of the highlights of my week, and I can’t recommend her highly enough!

YouTube channel: Sheldon King – Ambient, meditative, acoustic guitar

It’s been many years since I’ve been in touch with Sheldon, but writing this post prompted me to search for him online. He has a YouTube channel where he posts incredibly beautiful, soul-soothing acoustic guitar improvisations. I should add that although Sheldon never taught me a Joni Mitchell song, he more than made up for it by teaching me many other cool things – including transposable chord shapes, picking patterns, and folk, blues, and indie guitar songs. Thank you Sheldon!

At the end of my dream of the Bird who Flew Free, I found myself improvising an entire song. The structure, the lyrics, the melody of the song were all fully formed, and tumbling out of me.

About six months later, it came to pass in real life.

I don't mean to suggest that the song I improvised was polished. It was raw and repetitive. You could say it was a bit wild, like a wrinkly newborn baby who landed wailing in my arms – fuelled by pure emotion and instinct. But even though I later added a bridge section (two actually), and tweaked some of the lyrics, it was already a complete entity on arrival, knowable in its nature.

Why am I choosing to share this story with you? Well, it's a story for anyone, like me, who has experienced a great sense of longing around the artist, vocalist, and songwriter they wish to grow into. And since you're here reading these words, I'm guessing you may have experienced a similar kind of artistic longing too.

The song I improvised, which I have since evolved and developed, is called 'Walking'. It describes a journey, and over the seven years since I first created it, it has taken me on a journey – one in which I've learned an invaluable lesson I simply didn't foresee.

Before I dive into the story, let's talk about the longing – why it's there, and what it's asking of us.

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What acorns and oak trees can teach us about being human

I once saw the activist Satish Kumar give a talk at an environmental festival (Seed Festival in Stroud). He likened human beings to acorns, with the potential to grow into oak trees. Just as an acorn contains all the intelligence needed to evolve and grow into an oak, I believe, like Satish, that all of us possess a knowing of the person we would become if only our spirit, soul, DNA could be given the conditions they need to be fully expressed.

It's just that there are many, many forces, barriers, drains on our being that are blocking that inner knowing and its fulfilment.

And what reconnects us with this inner intelligence? I believe it's our emotions.

Follow that feeling!

The feeling of longing for something is for me a sign with an arrow saying, ‘this way please!’ When it arises from the core of you, and it's deeply felt, I believe it's an indicator of your potential to bloom by following a particular path. So if you've felt a longing to write songs, perform them, develop skills as a piano player, or whatever it might be, I believe you'd do well to listen to it. It can be trusted – more than any opposing voices in your head, exterior opinions, or outside 'evidence' that seem to suggest something different.

I felt an artistic longing around my voice and creativity. I didn't see the possibility of prioritising it for a long while, but eventually I figured out how to follow it. Here's a little piece of what happened when I did.

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The birth of a song

I was ten months into Briony Greenhill's vocal improvisation course Wild Voice Solid Roots, and we'd just spent an entire weekend immersed in the theory and sound of the natural minor scale. We'd woven the scale into improvisation after improvisation together – we were practically vibrating with it.

As an aside, I want to acknowledge that there may be singers reading this who don't know the natural minor scale, who don't even know what a scale is. I'm mentioning it because not knowing what I'm talking about could possibly be triggering some uncomfortable feelings – of exclusion or feeling less-than. Just please know that in my world, explicitly knowing music theory is not the same thing as understanding music. It is a way to make sense of music, and it can support you to write songs for sure, but it's not actually essential. I'll have more to say on this in the future.

For now, it's enough to know that a scale is a set pattern of notes that go up and come down again. If you take the selection of notes that the scale gives you, and mix them up to make a melody, they have a distinctive 'flavour'. The natural minor flavour is generally considered to sound sad or poignant.

The very next day after my minor-scale intensive weekend, I'd arranged to go round to my friend Julie's house. She had an acoustic piano (something I didn't have, and still don't have – yet!) I was using a keyboard to support my daily vocal improvisation practice, but as a treat Julie said I could use her piano. I was looking forward to soaking up its rich resonance, and all the inspiration that comes with that.

When I arrived, Julie said, "I need to pop out to the local shops to pick up some groceries. I won't be out for too long".

I was left alone in the house, just me and the piano.

"Right", I thought. Julie's house was only three minute's walk from Gloucester Road and all its independent shops (said to be the longest stretch of independent shops in Europe). It wasn't going to take her long to reach said shops, so I probably didn't have that long to practise on her piano in private.

I had fire in my belly that day. I was focused. “I want to make something happen here”, I thought. “I want to improvise a song”.

Creativity loves limitations

I couldn't do much in the way of playing the piano back then. I'd had a few lessons when I was a child of five, and later at seven. The family home I grew up in was quite small; there was no room for a proper piano, and at that time keyboards lacked touch-sensitive keys. They were not any kind of substitute. As there was no way for me to practise, I didn't carry on with my piano lessons.

However, I could still remember where all the notes were on the piano keyboard. I also knew how to make the most basic kind of three-note chords by selecting notes from the natural minor scale. And finally, I knew that if I used only the white notes on the piano, keeping 'A' as my 'home note', I'd be in the key of A minor.

They say that creativity enjoys limits, and this was a perfect example. I had my limited tools – the natural minor scale, the white notes on the piano, and three-note chords (triads). Quick as you like, I found a sequence of four chords I liked the sound of, and which I could keep looping. Bingo!

I hit record on the voice recorder on my phone and started to tap out an intro using mainly the three notes of the chord of A minor. I was fully in it – you can even hear on the recording how my breathing was synching up with the piano rhythm, even before I started to sing.

Enter the longing

I suddenly felt frustration jab me in the ribs. My piano playing was so basic. "I'm just plodding along here," I thought. "I'm plodding over these keys and I want to run! I want to fly! I want my voice to fly and my fingers to fly and that's how I want to express myself! And I'm so so far from all of that."

Ohhhhh, the longing!

In that moment, there it was: the song. It fell out of me as a calm, measured response to all this longing and frustration – as if my Higher Self was now taking the reins. I took a breath, and over the steady groove of my fingers pacing over the keys, I started to sing:

"I'm walking, I'm walking, I'm walking, and it's OK."

I was accepting exactly where I was in that moment: the baby steps, the slow and steady pace I was taking over the piano keyboard. Referencing the fable of the Hare and the Tortoise, I found myself affirming to myself that "steady walking will get you up the hill". At the same time, I recalled a dream I'd had about two weeks prior where I'd been standing on a cliff top looking into a scene of the most vivid-imaginable turquoise ocean, with golden sandstone arches in the far distance. In this dream I'd been gazing on the arches and repeating over and over to myself, "I need to go there, I need to go there, I need to go there!" And I was also remembering the Zen wisdom that I'd read in a book about 17 years before, that 'travelling is more important than arriving'.

It was all happening in real time, in an unbroken stream of melody and lyrics.

As I sang, "I'm walking", I was also metaphorically putting one foot in front of the other until the improvisation was complete.

And it was all captured in a recording. Here's a part of it:

What's up with my voice?

You might notice that in the recording I'm singing with a slight North American accent, which isn't something I usually do. I’m really curious as to why this is, as it wasn't something I consciously decided on. I obviously had a very clear idea of the vibe I wanted to create, and it’s as if I’m referencing a genre or tradition that’s known to me.

As I write this, I'm remembering that I once did some reading online about the history of African-American music, including the work songs that developed during the era of slavery in the USA. I know that the rhythms of the songs synchonised with the movement patterns of labour. That’s what I was imagining as I improvised Walking: that as I was creating the rhythm, slow and laboured footfalls were happening in sync.

The really strange thing is that even though I know work songs exist, I don’t actually know any! I also don’t know when I first stumbled on the concept of a work song – it might have been since I improvised Walking. It all feels quite mysterious.

Manifest-sing

At the time I improvised 'Walking', my aspiration was to have the freedom to express myself in a way that was as big and expansive as the possibilities that were already alive in my imagination. Almost seven years on from the original improvisation, I've achieved this to a great extent. My skill at playing the piano and my vocal technique have both really evolved as a result of my consistently showing up to learn, train and create music. (Honestly, it's felt one-hundred per cent a pleasure, and never a chore.)

I took what I'd improvised and developed Walking as a song. The piano arrangement – which I finally completed in January 2025, six years after Walking was born! – is now very varied. I've also been able to add a long vocal run at the end, and make use of the higher notes that I can now access in my vocal range. Here’s a video of me playing part of the song last week:

The lesson I never expected

So my dear reader, I thought this post would end here. I set out to tell a story about artistic longing, the value of following it, and the possibility of realising your aspiration. But in writing this story, I've returned to listening to that original improvisation – the recording I made on my iPhone at Julie's house, when I could barely play the piano. And, there's something I need to acknowledge about it, which I simply can't deny:

It's just so arresting.

I find it achingly beautiful. (My goodness, it's hard to say that out loud about my own creation, but that's the truth of how I experience it!)

In fact, I much prefer listening to my original improvisation than to any of the recordings I've made recently of the more evolved song.

So what does that mean exactly? Where does that leave us?

The moral of the story

When I realised that I loved my original improvisation of Walking more, it put me into a spin. Had I just wasted countless hours over a period of years to develop a song I didn't like as much as the raw creation?

Once I'd calmed down about it, I decided to get curious. Actually, this was fascinating. I'd sung an improvisation about how much I was yearning for skill and agility in my voice and on the piano, yet once I'd manifested the skill and applied it to the same musical idea, I found myself preferring my original!

I'm still in a process of enquiry about all of this. However, after chewing it over with my piano coach, Claire Housego (who knows all my songs inside out), this is where I've got to with my thinking:

• The emotion and meaning of Walking were truly alive in me when I did the original improvisation, and that energy is a large part of what gives it its power.

• The slowness, steadiness and simplicity of the piano perfectly express the meaning of the improvisation.

• There's a vulnerability in the original that has been lost as I've become a more accomplished musician, and more focused on my technique as I play the song.

• So in conclusion, even as I was longing to be a more accomplished artist, I was already capable of delivering a beautiful, powerful, and moving performance.

I have no regrets whatsoever about the journey I've been on with this song. I truly love the freedom of expression I've gained as a more skilled piano player, and I feel a strong affection for my current piano arrangement of Walking. However, I feel that there's an invitation for me within the story I've just told. That is, to loosen my focus on technique when I make music, and refocus on meaning and emotion. For me, this is what brings music alive and creates the connection – between me, the song, and anyone who's listening to it.

Perhaps I will play with different arrangements for Walking, some of which could return it to its original simplicity, or incorporate improvisation on the piano. I’m reminded of the sheer power of vocal improvisation as a practice, and I definitely want to bring it back as a bigger focus in my daily music-making.

For me, the moral of the tale is this: do follow your longing – it will bring you so much joy, fulfilment and insight. However, as you walk that path of development, never underestimate the power of what you already bring.

We must resist believing that we can only shine as artists once we reach our desired musical destination. The essence of your artistic nature is already in you, and always has been. So, in the words of my song:

Enjoy the ride, walk with pride, and own your stride!

(And, if you'd like to hear the whole of Walking, you'll have to catch me at a live performance – or wait until I can get it professionally recorded. Watch this space!)

"Firefly, automated, extinction, sweet, catastrophe, hill."

The exercise was to come up with six unrelated words – to speak them out loud in quick-fire fashion.

We were a group of about twenty singers on retreat, and we'd already spent a few days learning the basics of Collaborative Vocal Improvisation: coming up with vocal loops, layering them over each other, and adding an improvised melody. We did this using 'vocables': meaningless syllables like 'dat' and 'capi'. Now it was time to bring out the big guns: words.

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Sitting cross-legged within a large circle, I listened as one by one my fellow retreat participants scrabbled for their six words. Their speech was punctuated by bursts of collective laughter as the vocabulary shuffled between the sublime, the ridiculous and the taboo. As my turn edged closer, my heart quickened. I hoped desperately that the 'right' words would fall from my lips. Namely, that I would stay within the rule of not using words with a related meaning, that my words wouldn't be too mundane, and that I wouldn't just be trotting out the exact same words that everyone else had already said.

'Avoid mundane' and 'be original' hadn't actually been in the facilitator's instructions. These were just rules my inner perfectionist had unconsciously made up for myself, to hold me to my own exhausting standards. I was a graduate of English language and literature, and an ethical copywriting pro – a large part of my identity and self-esteem was based on my being good with words. The last thing I wanted was to make a hash of this exercise and risk... well, what exactly? At the deepest level I think I feared negative judgments, rejection, and above all feeling unworthy.

My turn came, and I fired off my six words. Had I jumped through the hoop? There wasn't much time to think about it – and that was the point. But apart from repeating a contagious word that someone else had already said, I judged that I'd done OK.

Phew!

There was no time to rest on my laurels though. Our facilitator Briony was just about to crank up the challenge.

How do you do it? The mystery of improv

For our next trick, we were to come up with 'spoken image fragments'. It goes like this: just open your mouth, and start describing something – anything that comes – in full sentences. Something like:

"It feels so good to finally follow the slow and winding river of leisure to its final destination, there in the place where everyone is sighing a huge breath of relief and letting it all hang out."

As much as I was excited to be here at Embercombe, to have this opportunity, it was next-level stressful. The palms of my hands, lying in my lap, were wet with sweat.

My turn came. Bracing myself, I opened my mouth and said something:

"Under a moonlit sky, six silver horses are galloping along a beach, thundering towards their freedom, churning up the sand, throwing it in all directions... they are wild as the wind and nothing can stop them, not even that big black rock in their path..."

(Just for transparency I'm using my artistic licence here because I don't remember what I said. This happened almost eight years ago.)

"I don't think that's exactly it", was the feedback from Briony.

"You need to let go. Follow your train of thought until it disappears and that's it – don't try to revive it. You're doing something different".

But if I wasn't doing it, what was it? How do I do it? I didn't get it.

I now know that 'it' is the brain state of improvisation.

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An altered state of mind: your brain and improv

In 2008, researchers Charles Limb and Allen Braun ran a study on the brain activity of Jazz pianists playing in an fMRI scanner. (They used a mini 35-key keyboard that could be rested on the musicians' legs while they were lying down. If you've ever been in an MRI machine you'll know that it would be a challenge to squeeze a grand piano in there.)

Limb and Braun compared the brain activity of the piano players when they were playing a composed piece that they'd pre-learned, versus when they were improvising.

During improvisation, the researchers saw a unique pattern of brain activity, which has been borne out by various other studies since. There was a decrease in activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) – the part of the brain associated with self-awareness and self-consciousness. Basically the DLPFC monitors our behaviour and makes sure it conforms with social norms.

At the same time, the researchers saw increased activation in the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), which is associated with self-expression and internally generated ideas.

Dr Heather Berlin is a neuroscientist who has done a lot to raise public awareness of the results of studies like Limb and Braun's. In her words, what happens during the altered mind state of improvisation is that 'the inner critic must be shut down, and the inner Picasso turned up'.

That brain state is what we call ‘the flow state’. It's similar to what happens in the brain during dreams, daydreaming and some types of meditation. You're in a creative, generative, free flow, where you lose your sense of self and track of time. Your filter for what's normal and acceptable comes off so that you can make new associations – and just as in dreams, not all of it makes perfect sense.

It was that 'letting go' that I was struggling so hard to do in my first, public experience of improvisation with spoken language.

Why we might find improv so challenging

The struggle makes complete sense. For a start, this mental state was unfamiliar, especially in a classroom-style interaction. This was not the way I, or we (if your education was anything like mine) have been trained.

At school I learned that there was a right answer, a correct response, an ideal way to complete the exercise. My task was to quietly work out what that was, and then deliver it. In other words, the polar opposite of what improvisation asks of us. Of course I wrote stories and poems (lots of them) and I daydreamed. But not out loud. Not in front of everyone.

At first I didn't understand what I needed to do to access flow. Then, when I started to get it, I didn't really trust myself to be able to do it.

What if... there's absolutely nothing there. A complete blank.

Also, I found the process of improvising and being witnessed inherently terrifying.

For someone like me, whose body had a vivid memory of being bullied at school, rejected and sneered at by peers, told in multiple ways that who I was was not valued, the last thing I wanted to do was loosen my grip on the filter that kept me socially acceptable.

Although there is some level of monitoring happening during improvisation (the brain seems to toggle between internal thought-processing and external monitoring of 'how I'm doing') the letting go process is significant.

It's not surprising that anxiety shuts the improvisation process down. It can feel too scary to let go.

Eventually though, I got there.

Creativity is a muscle you can train

I got the hang of the spoken image fragments, then started to sing them, then progressed to longer melodies with lyrics. But how exactly is another story (or rather, multiple stories) which, dear reader, I will get to in time.

For now, I'd like to emphasise that creative flow can be practised. It's like a muscle you can exercise. You can get comfortable and familiar with it. And when you do, you'll realise, as I did, that creative ideas for songwriting – or anything else you'd like to create – are always there. They're there in abundance, just waiting to flow through you.

If improvising publicly and performatively sounds terrifying to you (as it was for me), then I'm sure you realise that many of us feel this way – the majority, even. But once you start to do the work to overcome your fear, you'll find wonderful states of being on the other side. Confidence, groundedness, self-acceptance – even self-love and self-delight! Deep connection to other people, and an incredible trust in your ability to respond flexibly to whatever life may throw your way. Improvisation can be a portal to access all of these things, and more.

Collaborative Vocal Improvisation has been for me a profound medicine. That's why I'm so motivated to share it.

Further reading / resources

Video: Heather Berlin on Genius and Creativity, via Big Think

What Time Feels Like When You’re Improvising, by Heather Berlin, via Nautilus

As a vocalist who teaches other singers how to improvise, you might imagine that I’ve had an empowered relationship with my singing voice for many years. Well in short, no! In fact, for years (like countless others I've met) I lived with an unmet longing to sing.

It wasn't that I didn't sing at all. I did sing, but mostly alone, in the privacy of my bedroom. I would lean over my guitar and give voice to a collection of cover songs. As much as I loved it, it wasn't enough.

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The call of the inner artist

Inside of me, there was a vocal artist that yearned for more. I knew she was in there, because whenever I heard music she would be aching to sing all over it – to play around with the melody or maybe try harmonising. It never felt satisfying to simply listen.

I wanted to liberate my inner artist to be the free-flying bird that she was. I dreamed of singing at jams, around festival campfires, at social gatherings, even on the stage. I wanted to sing with people, and around people. I wanted to create and sing my own music, so that my soul could finally break forth into all the colours of her full expression.

Fortunately, I had not experienced the trauma that an incredible number of people have, of being told (often at a very tender, vulnerable age) that they ‘can’t sing’. But still... my voice was scared. Really scared. I believed I didn't know enough about music to write songs. And I suffered from crippling performance anxiety.

From fight or flight to freeze

I remember one time – probably towards the end of 2012 – I was at an open mic night with my then boyfriend, who was one of the organisers of the evening. He put my name down for a performance slot without telling me. The compere announced my name, handed me a guitar and suddenly there I was in the hotseat, palms sweating and heart pounding. Halfway through the song my fear had built up to such an intensity that I simply stopped – my fingers wouldn't move any more, my voice wouldn't come out. My system had gone into freeze.

That’s pretty much how singing with, or in front of, others had showed up in my life for more than a decade. My voice was tremulous if it emerged at all. But there was also this intense longing.

It's as if the wild songbird that lived inside me was locked into a cage, and I didn't know how to break her out of it.

Then suddenly, completely out of the blue and about five years after the open mic freeze, life threw me on a path to setting my voice free.

YES to vocal improvisation

In 2017 I picked up a brochure at an adult education centre and saw a listing for a vocal improvisation workshop. Reading those two words ‘vocal improvisation’, I immediately felt a YES, which came straight from the core of me.

To have the freedom to improvise, to be creative with my voice – this was exactly what I wanted!

I turned up for the workshop excited and nervous, only to be told that it had been cancelled at the last minute. But a seed had been planted. A few short weeks later I found myself on my way to a vocal improvisation and songwriting retreat, held at the beautiful wild estate of Embercombe in Devon.

I almost didn’t go. I was worried that I would be completely out of my depth – that I wouldn’t be able to write a song, or come up with any improvisation. I imagined that everyone else would be seasoned songwriters, and that I would lag behind. My mind came up with every reason why I couldn’t afford to take the time out.

In the end, my longing was stronger than my fear. Three days before the retreat, I signed up, taking the last available place. It was to be a life-altering moment.

It was on this retreat that I had my first taste of Collaborative Vocal Improvisation (CVI) – a magical art form in which a group of singers co-create a cappella music on the spot. From Briony Greenhill, I learned forms or ‘ways into’ CVI which had been developed by improvising vocalist Rhiannon and other members of Bobby McFerrin’s Voicestra in the USA. The key skill I came away with was how to make up a repetitive musical phrase, or vocal loop, which could be used as a building block to create music in layers. It was a total gamechanger!

Making up a whole song had felt overwhelming. Creating a one-bar musical phrase was accessible and achievable. It unlocked something in me. Musical ideas started to flow through me thick and fast. On that retreat, supported by Isolde Lachlan who was co-facilitating with Briony, I wrote my first song. I was finally doing it – I was composing.

There remained one ‘small’ issue: I continued to be totally overwhelmed with fear every time I was asked to improvise in front of the group. Back came the racing heart, sweaty palms and tight throat. The road to transforming this response was long, but I had fallen in love with improvisation, and I was committed.

I took the next, big step and signed up for a year-long course in Collaborative Vocal Improvisation with Briony. I ended up studying CVI for three years.

How I finally released my songbird

Within four years, my relationship with my voice and music had truly undergone a transformation. I had improvised as a soloist in more than one performance, including in front of a 100-strong crowd. Supported by Claire Housego (who I can't recommend highly enough as a piano coach for singers) I had learned to write and arrange my own songs on piano. I had also recorded vocals for the soundtrack of a multi-award-winning short film in a top-tier professional studio. A few short months after that, I started to facilitate Collaborative Vocal Improvisation.

How had I achieved this? What made the difference for me was learning CVI in combination with a range of other skills and experiences that had helped to revolutionise my body's response to improvising and performing, as well as showing me that I could be musically creative.

Plus I had the most incredible support! I’d sought input from vocal and life coaches (Bex Baxter and Lise Huber), embodiment teachers (including Erika Chalkley) and a somatic psychotherapist (Madelanne Rust-D’Eye). All of these women have wisdom and gifts that are rare to find. I took my learnings from them and started to practise:

• Singing with improvisation, as well as vocal technique

• Embodiment tools, including breathing techniques, posture, movement, visualisation and gaze

By investigating my fear of singing in front of others through journalling and coaching conversations, I began to understand where my performance fears might have originated, and to have more self-acceptance and compassion for my struggles. I then began to expand my comfort zone for singing, improvising and performing in small, manageable steps.

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Perhaps you see yourself in my story?

If you can relate to any aspect of my story, please know that finding freedom in your singing voice, and overcoming blocks to your creativity, is equally possible for you. If you've got a longing to sing, to be creative with music, then trust it. It's the only indicator and permission you need.

No matter what kind of musical experiences you've had, or what people may have told you about your voice, you can always trust your longing. I know – not just from my own experience but from having worked with a number of students – that great shifts can happen when you have motivation, the right tools and the right support.

And I can't end this story without saying, look, I’m still on this journey too. It isn't as if I've arrived at a final destination! Right now I'm preparing for my first solo performance at a festival, where I'll be performing my own songs on piano. In practice sessions in front of friends, I've felt underconfidence creep back in, and my voice hasn't been as reliable technically as it is when I'm alone in my practice space. I'm not terrified like I used to be, but nerves are still having an impact.

However, I know how to use my voice itself as a tool to open up a new way of experiencing performance. The beautiful truth is that singing and improvisation can become a way for us to resource ourselves. Through the voice we can tune into our bodies, nourish them, actually calm our fears and connect deeply with others. All of which is deeply and incredibly healing.

I've launched this publication, Setting your Songbird Free, because I've got so much to share on these themes. My learnings really shouldn't remain a secret!

So if you're a songwriter who'd love to enter the creative flow with ease, reconnect with your innate confidence, and be fully in your artistry, then please stay tuned. If you haven't already, do subscribe, because there's so much more to come.

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One night in April of 2018, three months into my first year of vocal improvisation study, I had a dream.

In the opening scene, I found myself travelling. Sitting on a private bus alongside my improvisation coursemates, I sensed that we were being driven deep into rural England – but not the English countryside I knew. In the world of my dream, the land appeared vaster, and more fairytale-idyllic. I gazed out of the window and felt swallowed by layered hills and valleys, adorned with a dense array of trees.

According to the dream, this flourishing land was where the oldest of my two younger brothers lived, with his partner (now wife) and my nephew, who back then was a toddler. Their country house was almost a palace, complete with the odd tower and turret. I’d been invited to stay, so when we reached the house I said goodbye my friends, hopped off the bus, and went in.

A new scene dawned into my awareness. I'd greeted the family, and now I was wandering the long corridors. Entering the living room of the house, I stopped still as something caught my eye. Suspended from a tall stand was a white vintage birdcage, dome-shaped and decorated with elegant wire curlicues. I peaked inside, and saw not a budgie or a canary, but a wild robin.

Because dream logic does not obey waking rules, I was not at all surprised by the cage's wild inhabitant, but understood that the family had tamed her and were now keeping her as a pet. I loved her instantly. I spent long periods of my stay just sitting alongside her, observing her, and enjoying the simple companionship.

After many hours of sitting with the robin, I began to notice something strange. Before my eyes the wires of the cage appeared to morph and stretch. It dawned on me that the gaps in between the wires were wide, much wider than they should have been. With a spike of panic, I realised that there was nothing physically keeping the robin inside that cage, and there never had been. Yet she’d remained in there, living in that confined space, in captivity.

Alarmed, I called out to my brother, “AD, the robin is going to fly away!”

Without hesitation he walked up to the cage and with absolute calm said, “I think it’s time to let her go.” And he held the cage up high, opened the door, and let the robin fly free.

Like an arrow she flew through the open window, and into the embrace of the living green landscape.

I felt... bereft. I thought I’d never see her again.

It wasn’t true.

If you love something? Let it go. If it returns to you? It’s yours.

She did return. I discovered a way to call her back. (Here's where things get extremely Walt Disney – and yes, you've guessed it, I was that child that watched all the cartoons and sang along knowing all the words.)

I began to sing. I held out my hand. Sure enough, the robin returned to alight in my open palm and listen to my song.

I found I could do this with other birds too – blue tits, sparrows, blackbirds. Like a 1950s animated princess, or St Francis of Assisi cast in a musical, there seemed no end to the diversity of avian species I could attract. They all came to perch on my hand and enjoy listening to my song. What a superpower!

As I sang, I realised that I had improvised an entire song, completely on the spot. It had a melody, lyrics and a complete structure. This is something that in my waking life, I used to wish I had the skill to do. Before joining her course, I'd watched videos of my improvisation teacher Briony doing exactly this. I’d never done it myself though.

Ending the dream on a high, I woke up with the musical remnants of my song still echoing around my head. I didn’t capture them – but no matter. (There are many, many more ideas where those came from.)

As for the robin of my dream, she’s always with me. She was, and is, a metaphor for my voice.

I read a theory once that all characters you encounter in a dream represent aspects of your own psyche. It makes sense here: I (or my voice) was the bird trapped in a cage. I was myself, the observer, realising that my voice didn't need to be caged. I was my brother, with the groundedness and clarity to set my own voice free. I was myself, a singer, in relationship to my voice, in its wildness and freedom.

The cage for me represents being locked in stage fright, and creatively blocked. Longing, as I had done for two decades, to write songs but believing I didn’t know how. Intuiting at some level that there was a musical artist inside of me, but not knowing the way to liberate her.

Since seeing the gaps between the wires expanding, life keeps presenting me with opportunities to fly beyond. Expanding my wings, one small, managable flight at a time, that's what my journey of singing, songwriting and improvising is all about.

As for you, dear reader, there's a reason I'm sharing about all this. I want you to know that if you have a longing to be fully in your creativity, flow and confidence as a singer and songwriter – whatever that looks like for you – you can. Your voice can also be the ‘bird that flies free’. And I hope that by sharing stories and insights from my journey, you may take away inspiration and know-how that acts as the wind beneath your wings.

Your voice is an unrepeatable and precious gift to the world. Your voice too can become a bird that flies free.