Tag: singing

Tapping the Creative – Tesz Milan

Posted on by Alexandra Kreis

Creativity is a soulful expression. A spiritual practice, even.

We’ve seen or heard it in visual arts, music, and songs, even in dance. For many centuries, people have used the creative to express spirituality, faith, and belief. It was actually through this that it was passed on to the succeeding generations.

When I encountered this episode’s guest, Tesz Milan, she had left singing for over a decade but she had just finally come into owning that she was creative.

To Tesz, being a creative director for other businesses is very much like a musical—you have a story that you’re telling as a singer and you’re creating that story for others. It was her way of connecting to all of what’s unseen. And she’s using her creative output as a way of drawing that energy and creating things for others to feel that for themselves in whatever shape that is in their lives.

In this podcast, we give light to the realities and practicalities of and around the artistic expression. Behind every awe-inspiring act, work, or sound is a whole being poured in in the process of its creation.

Tesz narrates how at the beginning, when she was starting off as a singer, difficult conversations about compensation and the struggle of finding a balance between that and cultivating the creative.

In places like finance or medicine or these more easily understood professions, we have a concept as a society of how we’re going to compensate for those services, whereas for artists, it’s so tough. So one has to know what they’re going into when venturing to art and the creative as a full-time commitment–it takes a lot of time, energy, perseverance, and courage to continue doing what artists do and not get paid right away.

And as an artist, especially with as quickly as digital has taken over our world in the way that we express and communicate our artistic and creative abilities, putting oneself out there to connect with others has been both challenging and exciting at the same time.

Catch this enlightening “insight from the inside” by Tesz Milan! Only here at the Outer Travel, Inner Journey podcast!

Links mention in the podcast

Pocket Quotes

  • Let me listen to your message. I bridge what you’re trying to communicate to your audience to who you are and what it is that they want and need in their lives. – Tesz Milan
  • Every time I’m being creative, it is a spiritual practice. It’s something that I do to feel connected to all of what’s unseen. And I’m using myself and using my creative output as a way of drawing that energy and creating things for others to feel that for themselves in whatever shape that is in their lives. – Tesz Milan
  • It’s so easy to have dreams and visions, but it’s very hard to bring them into this world and stimulate the subconscious. There’s always a sense that if I say my mantra often enough, I probably am going to get it. But it takes real action to get things down. – Tesz Milan
  • Music is a part of our spiritual makeup or our spiritual being. – Tesz Milan
  • The easiest way for me to feel discouraged is when I don’t feel like what I’m doing is actually reaching anybody. – Tesz Milan

Guest Bio

Tesz Milan, formerly a singer and performer, is a Creative Marketing Director and Copywriter. Her creativity helps businesses communicate their purpose and the value they bring to the world.

Natasha Nandini – Finding your Path through your Voice and Sound

Posted on by Alexandra Kreis

Like many of us, Natasha didn’t expect what would be her life-long passion at first. She didn’t know she would be into singing, much more into Indian classical music and singing, until she felt it in her body.

In this podcast, I am very proud to share a conversation with an esteemed music and yoga teacher and a friend, Natasha Nandini, about how she found and continues to find herself in the realm of what the universe brought her to do– TO SING.

Natasha fondly recalls in our conversation how oddly she first came across the power of Indian classical singing. She used to smoke about 20 Marlboro reds at the time as she found herself in a workshop singing for 4 hours. When she came home, the cigarette suddenly tasted disgusting. This was the beginning of her shift into a new journey that led her to study and follow this new passion. From raga to yoga, which somehow complemented each other and made her practice stronger and more meaningful. She shares with us that music is not so much about how good a singer you are because it’s not a performance, but about how much you can let go of your identification of how you sound and merge into the frequency that is bigger than us.

This conversation brought up tools and insights we can get on this long path of teaching: the evolution and essence of learning. Natasha bravely shares her thoughts about teaching yoga as a business now. She explains that a reality we have to face is that many want to be certified to make a living out of it, especially in a society where it is tough to make a living when something takes a long time to learn. It puts a lot of pressure on so many us and perhaps created it the way we see science now. Gracefully she raises these points and reminds teachers to remember that everyone is on a personal path. And as people who help others, we can only help and lead the way to a certain extend – to show the way we have walked ourselves.

 

Links mention in the podcast

Road to self c are

Podcast Highlights

  • I know that sound is vibration. So sound penetrates the tissues. Like water or sand moving in geometrical patterns just from a vibration of sound. In the same way, creating a sound in the body can push things through. That’s how powerful sound is! Also in the same way that when you speak of truth, the truth starts to be very powerful. – Natasha Nandini
  • Raga, as a form of singing, is the term given to a melodic structure that has a deeper meaning. Each raga has an entity, an entirely different character from the other. But the essence these sounds wake up seems like they are meant to be brought up, like the sun touching the horizon. – Natasha Nandini
  • We don’t do enough stuff for fun. Look at children. They learn so quickly because it’s fun for them. Let it penetrate you rather than you trying to trespass on its space before your time. It’s a process of getting to know ourselves and doing the things that make us feel good. – Natasha Nandini
  • I feel this is a time in the world and in my life when things are asking me to break open and out of lineage, out of all these regimented, rigid forms that have evolved even though their origins weren’t thinking that way. – Alexandra Kreis
  • First of all, there has to be a spark. It’s always good to follow whatever is sparkling for you. The things that are right for you will always shine a bit brighter, but it will only be noticeable when we don’t want things. When you see that spark, follow that spark deeper and deeper. But one has to gel with the teacher, someone you resonate with. – Natasha Nandini

 

Guest BIO

Natasha Nandini - Finding your Path through your Voice and SoundNatasha Nandini has been studying yoga, Indian classical vocal, and Indian classical dance as methods to cultivate the self since 1997. She is now living and teaching in London (and online) but she has been traveling to India for the last 20 years to deepen her studies and to host sacred tours. The tour is a window into the lives of the local people and their practices. Her yoga focuses on building strength and postural corrections by working through from the feet up.