Loud: The Voice That Cures Everything

LOUD: The Voice That Cures EverythingDeena Noroian was nine years old when her mother told her, kindly, that she was not a good singer and should probably stop. She did. It took three decades, a touring career, and a voice that gave out completely on stage before she understood what that one sentence had cost her, and that almost everyone she met was carrying a version of it.She has spent the 15 years since as a voice coach, which mostly means she listens to people for a living. What she kept hearing, under the nerves and the "I can't sing" and the apologies, was the same thing again and again: the human body is built to be loud, far louder than most of us ever are, and the gap between those two facts quietly wears on our health, our confidence, and our sense of who we are.LOUD is the case for closing that gap. It works as a memoir, the art high school, the band, the lost voice, the unplanned slide into coaching, and it works as a genuinely clear explanation of how the voice physically functions: the diaphragm, the air pressure behind every sound, the precise point where fear reaches in and turns the volume down. Noroian explains why you sound worse the instant you start worrying, and you will recognize it immediately.Each chapter opens with a line a client wrote about their own voice before ever meeting her. Most readers will find themselves in one of them.This is not a book about being brave. It is a book that demonstrates the instrument was never broken. It was set down. It still works. And it does not take talent, training, or anyone's permission to pick it back up. Read more