A WORK IN PROGRESS
OR ROME WASN’T BUILT IN A DAY!
OPERA IN 4 ACTS
BY
THE VOICE DETECTIVE AKA GYAAN LYON TENOR
PROTAGONISTS
TENOR / THE VOICE DETECTIVE
GYAAN LYON
SOPRANO / THE MENTOR
ALYSSANDRA GYLEN
DR ALFRED TOMATIS
HIMSELF
PRELUDE
TENOR/ THE VOICE DETECTIVE: Hi, let me introduce myself. I am Gyaan, an explorer, a seeker, a dreamer. The cards life dealt me have made me so. I was born with right-sided Hemiplegia to French and Indian parents.
Unfortunately my early years were plagued with illness and physical and mental learning disabilities. My parents supported me through those difficult years, never gave up on me and instilled a ‘You Can Do It’ maxim in me.
ACT 1
THE EXPLORER
TENOR/ THE VOICE DETECTIVE: Sadly my academic prowess in primary school was lagging behind. At this point in my life, Fortuna alerted my mother to the work of Dr. Alfred Tomatis. Having the treatment block at age 10 not only helped me improve my attention, memory and concentration, but also awakened a much bigger dream in me and I mean big… I wanted to be the next Luciano Pavarotti!! Dr. Tomatis had opened a magical musical box in me and there was no going back.
TENOR/ THE VOICE DETECTIVE: Fast forward a few years, I was completing my masters degree in politics and finding it very stressful. To help with my stress levels, I decided to contact Alyssandra, the director and Tomatis consultant at the Listening, Voice, Music and Language Centre in London, UK. She was able to see me and a course, a Listening Therapy treatment block was started almost immediately. Neither of us knew what strange nets the Fates had woven for us and what was to slowly unfold consolidated further seeking and dreaming. Upon leaving my first session, despite it being very late and freezing cold outside, I felt like Gene Kelly, just ‘Singing in the’ Snow!
After completing my master degree, the big dream reawakened in me of becoming an opera singer and I took the leap to follow it; any opera singer would do! But please, please, please – let me be a TENOR!!!
ALYSSANDRA GYLEN: I remember when Gyaan came for his first assessment too. He had a lot to tell me about the stresses he was under but strangely made no specific mention about music except other than how much he loved Mozart. The ensuing very long assessment combined with him arriving in the early evening after university meant that he finished his first session quite late. He commented on how relaxed the treatment had made him feel and he left really elated. I thought, well, that is nothing new it is quite a usual reaction for clients experiencing the energising Tomatis Effect, but there was something more in his appreciation and relief.
Over the weeks it took to complete the course, I could see that this rather overweight young man with a winning smile who LOVED to talk was quite exceptional; the way he coped with his disability so easily and naturally, his interest in healthy living and his great belief and knowledge about the work of Dr. Alfred Tomatis.
Gyaan had never mentioned anything about singing to me before, though come to think of it, he was always picking my brains on anything to do with my singing career and how Listening Therapy had played such a big role in it and subsequently my life.
So when Gyaan contacted me one year later with the revelation of “Guess what? I want to be an opera singer and I want you and Tomatis Therapy to help me achieve it”, it truly was a bolt out of the blue; I must confess I hadn’t ever thought of Gyaan as opera singer material; but after a quick summation, I thought, why not! After all he loves to talk… he must be a tenor! LOL!
Apart from that Gyaan has a delicacy of tone and being, which is reminiscent of the singers of the bygone past.
ACT 2
THE DREAMER
ALYSSANDRA GYLEN: And then the hard work began…….. the job of excavating the singer within; deeply buried under layers and layers of misconceptions of proprioception which needed to be peeled away, exposing a new kinesthetic understanding for him which able bodied people might take for granted.
Sheer will power and enthusiasm is not enough when the body needs to be activated into experiencing new modes of proprioception and balance; but conversely it is also not possible without them either and these have been two of Gyaan’s strong points.
Subscribe HERE to follow for free, Gyaan Lyon AKA the Voice Detective on his magical mystery tour of the high and low notes of his journey as he searches for his own true Bel Canto voice.
Each month a new video of The Voice Detective Show will become available to you from a range of guest experts in their fields to help and inspire all those who sing, aspire to sing or those who would just love to sing.
EN 
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