Joule L'Adara offers blissful and empowering sound healing concert events, sounding circles, sound baths, facilitator training, personal retreats and online courses. She also has a private sound healing practice in New York city with sessions available through the New York Open Center and Integral Yoga Institute's wellness spas. Sounding Circles as developed by Joule L'Adara are led improvisationa
l vocal sounding events specially crafted to bring about mental and emotional clarity, develop deep listening skills, and promote the idea of community building through group resonance. In this work, group-sounding improvisation is presented as a compositional tool, using specifically crafted parameters to sculpt and focus compositional elements. The Sounding Circles compositions are recorded and given to participants as group-authored sonic art pieces, which can stand as finished works in their own right or be catalysts for further music composing by the group or by the individuals. During a Sounding Circle Event, Mindfold masks are sometimes worn which shut out all light but allow the wearer to keep their eyes open. Giving the mind a break from the directionality of vision provides the opportunity for the heightening of other senses - particularly hearing but also smell, taste, touch, and intuition. Maskwork can also be combined with powerful essential oil aromatherapy to give even greater focus and specificity to group sounding sessions. Self-exploration and delightful play are emphasized during led floor-work in which participants are free to express themselves through vocal sound production. Because the individual is experimenting in a group setting they are anonymous and freed from the perceived judgment of others. The exercises eventually expand to include the interaction of all group members whereupon the focus is changed from self-exploration to group co-creation. Deeper levels of refinement are achieved as listening practice and group awareness deepens. Participants will be introduced to a collection of ‘extended vocal techniques' - being shown how to produce them healthfully, and how they are appropriate for sonic art creation and emotional expression. Among these classical and extended vocal techniques and methods will be toning, speaking, singing, overtoning, vocal harmonics, microtones, filtering, water and air sounds, ingressive sounds, vowels and consonants of English and foreign languages, phonemes, sacred seed syllables, and many more layers and subtleties in between. Sounding Circles introduces musical modes and scales from folkloric and ancient traditions and invites participants to experience them as musical archetypes. These archetypal energies can be harnessed for use as emotional access portals, which are greatly magnified through group work. Listening sessions designed to attune listeners to the modes and develop a personal relationship with them will be experienced along with group vocal composition using these newly discovered listening tools. No musical or vocal training or ability is necessary in order to participate in a Sounding Circle event or workshop. Individuals who claim they "cannot sing" or "have a terrible speaking voice" or who suffer from debilitating performance anxiety have been delighted by the immense and life-changing freedom they've discovered by participating in this group work. Trained musicians, professional singers, practitioners and healers will likewise make big discoveries about themselves, their profession and their art by immersing themselves in this intense group practice. Sounding Circles have many applications. They are a therapeutic tool allowing individuals to express their physical selves vocally and experience emotional release. They are a compositional art tool- one that cannot be attained by an individual alone. They are a community building practice, promoting group understanding. They are a way to access spontaneity and “magic flow” in life – allowing the muses to come through and influence your creative work and creative life.
