The Resonate Podcast with Aideen

Finding Courage Through Song with Simona Mango

• Aideen Ni Riada • Season 3 • Episode 89

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0:00 | 49:09

What if your voice already knows who you are becoming? In this episode, Aideen interviews classical vocal coach and holistic life and health coach Simona Mango to explore how developing the voice can unlock confidence, emotional freedom, and a deeper sense of purpose.

Simona shares her journey from a shy, airy tone to a resonant classical instrument, revealing how breath, posture, and mindset shifts transformed not only her singing but her identity. Together, they unpack practical tools for freeing the voice, building belief through supportive feedback, and using sound as a pathway to truth, healing, and self-expression.

Key Takeaways

• Choosing your path later in life does not limit your potential, commitment creates momentum
 • Classical singing technique becomes powerful when explained simply and practically
 • Breath and sound can unlock stored emotion, memory, and deeper expression
 • Precision combined with curiosity and playfulness builds both skill and confidence
 • Your voice reflects your identity, truth, and life direction

Simona Mango is a Classical Vocal Coach and Holistic Life and Health Coach who helps singers and seekers alike free the power of their voice, both the physical voice and the voice of the soul, while embracing holistic wellbeing and reclaiming freedom and balance in life.
With a background in classical singing and certifications in Holistic Life, Health, and Spirituality Coaching, Simona’s work bridges artistry and inner transformation. She guides her clients to connect deeply with their authentic expression, cultivate vibrant health, and rediscover their sovereignty as whole, creative beings.

Please check out Simona’s links and get in touch if you feel called to explore classical voice or holistic coaching.

Connect with Simona

Instagram: @simona_mango

Coaching IG: @simona_lifepurposementor

Website: www.simonamango.com

Life coaching: simona-lifepurposementor.com

Health coaching: holistic-health-with-simona.com

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Aideen Ni Riada:

Welcome to the Resonate Podcast with Aideen. I'm Aideen Ni Riada, and my guest today is Simona Mango, joining us from Italy. And Simona is a classical vocal coach, holistic life, and health coach who helps singers and seekers alike free the power of their voice, both the physical and the voice of the soul. While embracing holistic well-being and reclaiming freedom and balance in life, she guides her clients to connect deeply with their authentic expression, cultivate vibrant health, and rediscover their sovereignty as whole creative beings. Hello, Simona, and welcome.

Simona Mango:

Hi, Aideen. Thank you so much. I'm very happy to be here.

Aideen Ni Riada:

This is exciting for me because when we met, we recognized so many um similarities in our journey and in our approach to how we work. And it all starts with both of us having this tremendous wish to sing ourselves and to recognizing our own kind of the joy and how our hearts open up when we sing. Tell me how you discovered how important singing was for you.

Simona Mango:

Um it was important as a kid, like something that I would do naturally. I would just hum along anything I would um hear. Uh my parents used to listen to classical music at home and they liked opera as well. And whenever I recognized the melody or with opera, obviously there was words, there were lyrics, which always caught my attention. I'm very attracted to word, to uh meaning, to poetry, to all of that. And so I started humming along, and when I understood the words, I would sing the words as well. And you know, when we're small and we have these incredibly high-pitched voices, I would just go after any melody, any line that would stand out, uh, from the deepest bass to the highest soprano, to violins, to I don't care, I would just hum along or sing along with whatever was leading, the leading melody. And so for me it was really natural to sing. But um, so I had good pitch from birth, but I was never one of those natural talents with the voice that already sounds very good. I just had pitch and a uh huge desire to sing, but that was all. And much later, when I decided to at last start to learn to sing, I had to really uh build my voice as you would do in classical singing. There's most of the times there's a lot of building to do, and so I embarked on that journey. And yeah, it was very important to uh for me uh learning to sing properly, and uh for from a musical point of view, obviously, but also from a personal point of view, like the um the challenge it represented for me and uh the huge confidence boosts it gave me. So I I felt like it was a way of uh upgrading my my um identity also as a as a young person. Why did singing mean so much to you, do you think? Um from that point of view, I think it was very powerful because, for example, at school we had we had uh the school choir, and I knew exactly that I would have sung the solo parts better than the other ones who were bold enough to take them, but I was hiding somewhere in the choir. I would never have dared to ask for a solo part or then to sing in front of people. So I felt like this is something that I know I can do, but I don't dare. And I felt really as a small kid already, I remember thinking about that when I was seven, eight, nine in school, and thinking, if I had the courage to do it, I would have the courage to uh to do a lot more things in life. I would be much stronger, I would have a lot more courage. And so I thought I I just saw it naturally as uh a way in into finding my courage. I I I called it courage back then. It was my yeah, my courage to show up, to to be seen, to which I was lacking completely. So I always knew that that was a viable vehicle for for it.

Aideen Ni Riada:

How long did it take for you to start to see changes in your confidence and your courage when you started? Because I know you didn't start young like many classical singers. What age were you when you finally took that brave step? And how long did it take for you to start to notice?

Simona Mango:

Yeah, so um I started at 25, after after 25 and something. And um uh my boyfriend at the time found a flyer that said, uh, do you want to sing? Call us. That was in Rome. I was living uh in Rome back then. Uh he gave me that flyer that said, Do you want to sing? Uh call us. Uh we have nine spots open for female voices. So I took the flyer, I stopped at the phone booth and I called and I said, I found the flyer, I want to sing. And so I went there, and it was a young pianist who was basically teaching people for free. He needed to have pupils in order to then be able to apply for some funding or something. He had to prove that he had a music school. So he opened this course for uh female voices. I was one of the younger ones. Uh, the other ladies there were in their 30s, 40s, 50s, and some had beautiful voices. They were really great. And so uh we started going there once a week, and he would uh accompany us and have us sing uh pop songs, ballads, Italian stuff mostly because uh that was the language. And yeah, I was doing kind of okay, you know, but I wasn't one of these talented ones. There were ladies there who had never had a lesson in their lives, but they were singing like really, really well, and and I felt so so I don't know, so slim, my voice, so so inconsistent. So my pitch was perfect, obviously, but all the rest was like not anywhere. And one night we got there and uh the the young pianist sat us all down and said, ladies, I'm really sorry to break this to you, but you cannot sing to save your lives. So here you go. And he handed us out a business card of a singing teacher, and he said, I made um I made an agreement with this lady, she will take you for a very good deal. Go and have singing lessons, all of you. So I was like, Wow. Day after I called this lady and I went, I got the I got the business card. The the young pianist was called Amedeo, no idea what he became over the, I mean that's 40 years ago uh or 30 years ago. And this singer I went to, this teacher was called Amedea. So I said, Oh, I went to her and I said, I want to sing, and she said, Okay, okay. She gave me an appointment, started doing things and stuff, and a bit of exercises, a bit of scales, a bit of yeah, okay, what songs do you want to sing? And then she started singing. And I went, like, oh my god, you're an opera singer. She said, Yeah, why? I want to sing opera. She said, Forget it, girl. I said, Why? I want to sing opera. She says, No, no, no, look, if I teach you songs and pop and that kind of stuff, in six months you're making a fair amount of money singing in bars, you'll have a lot of fun and zero stress. Singing opera means that if you start today, in eight years, you're nowhere yet, you're not making a penny, you're stressed, frustrated, scared. I said, I don't care, I want to sing opera. She said, So we had a l a little a little fight. And I said, I want to sing opera. And then she says, uh, wait, wait, okay. She sat back at the piano, did uh played me something, okay, sang it to me and okay, do what I just did. And I tried to imitate it, and okay. And then she went up, up, up, down, down, down, and then she did more difficult stuff and everything. And I was doing everything. And she was, oh, there you go, all right. But then she said, Okay, if we're singing opera, you're never going back to to songs and stuff. It's not, it's not possible, she said at the time. I said, Yeah, it's okay, it's okay.

Aideen Ni Riada:

I don't care. Where do I sign? So it sounds like you had vocal agility that you had developed through your singing, your interest in music as a child.

Simona Mango:

I knew the idiom somehow, you know. I just I just had a feel for it.

Aideen Ni Riada:

That's great. So that was a a little bit of a head start compared to what she thought you were able to do.

Simona Mango:

Yeah. But then, you know, I had this really, really um feeble, shy voice. My voice was reflecting exactly who I was. Um it was I I felt it was almost transparent. It had no ping, no bite, no it was just like a you know, just very very thin, very empty. It would go everywhere, but but more like a little breeze. And opera singer sound like thunder. So you know, so I didn't have any of that. There I had a big handicap. On the other side, I had a big head start, yeah. Uh-huh.

Aideen Ni Riada:

And so coming back to the question, at what point then did the confidence start to grow in you? But I mean, even stating what you want and even fighting your teacher to say what it is you want, that grows your confidence too. So, did you find that you were starting to become more confident from the minute you were like, now I'm on my path? Now I'm not sure. I think so.

Simona Mango:

Yes, I think so. Yeah, because uh you know, since I knew, since I was a child, that I I kind of sensed that singing was was like a key for me. When I saw the slimmest chance of finding it, I I would not take no for an answer. I was no, I I want to sing operas, like I don't care.

Aideen Ni Riada:

So I have a similar story um from the point of view of my when I wanted to go back to college full-time. I didn't go back until I was in my 30s. And um for all of my twenties, I wanted to sing, but uh my my mind always said you can't do that. But I found a course and it was I wanted to also write music, and I I knew I didn't want to do classical music, I wanted to have some way of you know writing pop songs, or I wanted to understand music as well. I didn't want it to be too basic, like just pop. And I knew that if jazz musicians were able to improvise, I guess the improvising part, I knew that they understood some magic, like they knew what notes go went with what, and I wanted to know that too. So um that was why I decided I wanted to do this this course in jazz vocal performance, and they were taking 20 people total, and they were taking four vocalists, and there were 200 people applying. And I went in and similar, um, they played a few things, and I was able to do the little riffs or whatever it was. I had a good ear and I was able, I had some vocal agility. And um, but when they said, you know, we don't have very many places, and I said, Well, I'm going to be doing this, I want to do this kind of training. This is the right thing for me. If I don't get in here, I'm going to be doing it somewhere else. And I think my determination is the reason that I got in because I really wanted it.

Simona Mango:

Yeah.

Aideen Ni Riada:

And it was an amazing thing. I mean, when you go back, and I was doing a full-time course in that I was going in three or four days a four days a week. I had band practice, I had every kind of you know, ear training, um, improvisation, theory, all of that. And for two, almost two years, I did that um while I had other part-time jobs. It was difficult because I, I mean, financially it was a very difficult time, but I learned so much, and that is what set me on my path to doing what I really loved. And I think this is good for listeners to hear because sometimes we have these core desires within us that we don't really reveal to others because they're so vulnerable. That desire feels so tender that it's very difficult to tell anybody that that's what you want, and it can be very hard to take that first step, but when you do, it becomes something very it's like a tangible change in your confidence when you admit, first of all, to yourself, yeah, and then to others. I'm so proud that you had that, you knew to do that, and that's a beautiful thing.

Simona Mango:

That's and you exactly the same. We have the same experience there. For me, too. I would never have told anyone that I wanted to sing because then they would say, Oh, come on, sing, and I wouldn't have sung a note in front of anyone for for any reason in the world. So that dream was very secret. Only my mom knew what uh at night when she would cook dinner for us, I would go to the kitchen and I would sing for her. I would sing for her every night uh while she was cooking. And um that that was our little our little thing, our little secret, our little routine. Um, but no one knew. Uh, and especially, you know, I was I was very shy when I was in in the presence of my father, who was a very um assured person, you know, very very confident, very almost too much. I mean, he was he was like uh a bit um you know, bit of a bit of a handful. And he had a beautiful voice, gorgeous voice. That's where I think the genetics come from, not from my mom's side. And he had this amazing voice, and he had dreamt of being an opera singer, but he went a completely different path. Um he was an amateur musician all his life, but he did not learn to sing. So he just sang with what nature gave him, and it was a lot. And so here was I with my thin little airy voice that didn't find the the the body, you know, it was all head and all airy, and I couldn't find the body of my voice. And so he would tease me and he would say, uh, obviously he heard my perfect pitch, but then he was like, like, you can't sing, you don't have a voice or anything. He came with with one of these voices, so I I would definitely never have told him. Uh I felt way too vulnerable for that. I know exactly what you mean.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Yeah, and I think dads have they have a lot of power. My my dad had said to me, you can't make money in music. And first that really hurt me very deeply. Yeah, but you know, it came from his background living in Ireland, and you know, musicians in Ireland probably weren't making a ton of money unless they're it depended, you know, and it and I think I had to go through yeah, it really depends, and it's something that I had to address in my own heart and forgive as well, you know, because that feeling of being unsupported, I mean that when we talk about finding the body of something, it reminds me of like finding a foundation, like finding the depth, and that depth comes from the rootedness that we have and our security, how we feel do we feel secure enough to move forward? Like, do we feel strong enough to take another step? And sometimes something somebody says, someone who loves us, somebody that we care about deeply, can say something that makes us feel a little shaky, and then we're coming from that. And I think with as we became teachers, both of us, we became that steadying force for our students then to, you know, and that that reassuring energy that yes, you can do this, um, and I've got you.

Simona Mango:

Um, and that safety that for me is such a big part of our work, isn't it? Yes, yeah, yes, yeah, yeah.

Aideen Ni Riada:

And both of us have been through a journey of kind of reclaiming our voice. You could talk about freeing your voice, so you've been through it, you know this journey, you know that through singing you grew as a person, and so we're fast-forwarding a little bit now, but you went on to have a career in singing, and then eventually you started sharing, you know, singing as a form of uh developing as a person, of like you know, working with classical singers. So tell us, give us a fast-forwarded version, let's bring it more up to the present now.

Simona Mango:

Um the reason why I started teaching was that even though I met a few good teachers and got some stuff from one, some stuff from another, and I I kept learning and educating myself and taking masterclasses and also learning from big names and all of that, and also from obscure people who had something to teach. But I saw, and I know it's still true, uh many decades after, that uh classical singing is is enveloped in a in a shroud of mystery. It's like it's like, how do you do it? And uh, you know, it's a bit it's a bit like, oh, you're born with that, or you have met that particular teacher, you you you know, the stars aligned for you, but this is not for everyone. And it's like, no, classical singing is a technique, that's how you do it. If you do it right, you sound great, if you do it wrong, you sound bad. End of story. Yes, the instrument is inside, you can't see it, but you can get a feel for it, and I mean, get real. So I was frustrated with the stuff that I read also in books. It was either anatomy and incredible scientific stuff about you know what nerves run where and which is no use if you're trying to learn to sing, or it was this airy, fairy imagine, imagine your voice like a golden band, and you pull the back. What? How do I sing? And even even, you know, with all the teachers, it was difficult sometimes to just get a clear how do I do it, and so I learned to distill, I I had to work through the whole mystery, get my technique together, and I was really swearing that the moment I know how to do it, I will teach it because this is not fair, and so that's why I started doing, and then I was seeing other people studying with me who were still searching and very frustrated. And I say, look, I figured it out, I'll I'll show you.

Aideen Ni Riada:

So you wanted to help people to get what you didn't get and bring all of those different pieces of you know insight together and fast track them so they didn't have to go to all the different master classes and meet all these random. Exactly. Did you have did you attract clients who were lacking in confidence that were like you when you started?

Simona Mango:

Oh, yes, I did. And a very strange thing that happened a few times was that someone came to me. I have quite a few examples over the years of people who came to me where I recognized serious talent, gorgeous voice. Like they had what it takes, but I was seeing it, and I was trying to help them get it out and do it and believe in it, but they just would not believe in it. And it happened with a couple of people like that, that they thought I was kind of embellishing reality for them. I was uh no one ever accused me of lying to them, but I think they thought that maybe my my judgment wasn't reliable, that I was, you know, being too optimistic, or maybe maybe they thought I was lying to them, like uh, you know, giving them false hopes because because I I wanted to keep teaching them or something like that.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Yeah, I know of that.

Simona Mango:

Which would never have been me, but Yeah.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Um I can and I get that because I would have I would did a lot of group teaching when I started my singing teaching and I realized very quickly that if I said something to you know if I said something to the participants, they wouldn't necessarily take it on board because they'd be like, Oh, I'm paying you to say that, right? But if someone else in the class repeated what I said or who said it to them in a slightly different way, they would receive it differently. And that's one of the reasons why I loved teaching in groups, because it was that positive reinforcement would go deeper because if you had 10 people say I liked it, eventually they'd start to believe that it was okay.

Simona Mango:

Yes, that happened to me too, but uh sometimes it's you know it's so deep, this lack of um uh self-belief of uh yeah, even admitting the possibility that maybe you're not as bad as you think, that imprinting uh that comes from our upbringing, well-meaning but um wrongly behaving, parents, families, uh schools, you know, everyone, church, community, whatever. And they sometimes it's so ingrained, this conviction, this it becomes a knowing that you're not good enough, that nothing on earth will make you change your mind. And it's such a shame when you see it.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Yes, it is because there's a the biggest problem with it is you don't move forward, you don't take action. So I would have a um a singer that I felt was going to improve dramatically, but because of the way they were thinking about themselves, they never practiced.

Simona Mango:

Yeah.

Aideen Ni Riada:

So they would come in and they would be where they were the previous week when they could have made a huge leap in the few days in between lessons or something like that. Um we can change our lives so dramatically when we have even an ounce of self-belief because those small incremental changes we take on a daily basis create a huge change over time.

Simona Mango:

Unbelievable.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Yeah. Yeah, it's amazing at that what what both of us have been doing is trying to get people to step into their potential.

Simona Mango:

Yeah, absolutely. Because uh obviously, you know, it's it's about the voice. If you go to a singing teacher, you want to improve your singing, sure. Uh but uh what you're actually working on is so much more than just your singing. So much more. It's it's um it it reaches I think it reaches everywhere. It it it's um it influences every aspect of your life. If you if you start uh doing it and and if you start uh uh changing things, uh for example with your health, in order to uh uh perform better. Because you you see that you need a different level of of uh energy, a different level of rest, a different level of hydration, a different level of uh nutrients and and all of it. And it can be sparked by that. And there's nothing in your life that singing won't touch and uh yeah. It does.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Yeah. One of the things that's that I found really interesting was the emotional aspect of when the lyrics in the song, when the meaning and the melody came together, and how people would face a part of themselves or face an emotion within themselves that they may never have looked at unless they were doing it in the context of singing. Did that happen for you too?

Simona Mango:

Oh yes. Yeah, and yeah, yeah, yeah, and the emotions do you know uh have you have you noticed how when people start to sing, when they start to breathe better, what it unleashes, the amount of emotions that come up to the surface, the memories, the feelings. Uh sometimes I I've had people burst out laughing, people burst out crying, uh, all of that because something really, some some knot was released. And after that, just just by this way of breathing and and of emitting sound, of hearing yourself maybe for the first time in a certain way, and that can release so much tension, pain. Uh, I believe it works with trauma. I believe singing is uh is an amazing way to uh support trauma healing. I'm um I've seen that so many times, and and this is this is wonderful, and then you have these bad emotions leave the body with a crash and leave make space for beautiful emotions that will you know change the way you look at things at yourself, uh the the way you look at things and will ultimately change your health because uh that's yeah, that's the power they have.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Yes, and it's like a dom the domino effect is just how it moves outward. So, one of the big differences between how you and I worked, when we talked before, was how you really look for precision and you build people's confidence through the precise um exercises that we use in a classical singing to find that beautiful tone. And that's quite different from the way I would have worked because I would be always focused more on the emotional content of singing a song from the heart, even badly. So tell me, I want I'm really curious about your process and and about what you think is valuable about taking that slower, kind of more precise approach. Um, because in my like to me, I'm wondering maybe that that would be more difficult. I mean, it's obviously a difficult process in some regards, um, but do people like enjoy that process? Like, does it become something? I'm just curious about it. So please tell us a little more about how classical singing and that precision can really help you.

Simona Mango:

Yeah, so two things. Um either you are you you want to sing classical music because you know, um you are maybe trying to do your career, your exams, your auditions, your uh your whatever, and you need exactly that, and there's no way around it. Or if uh if it's not for that, but you have to really love it. This is not for everyone. There's a lot of people who think that classical singing sounds uh strange and they don't like it at all. For people who like it, um they they have this ideal sound that they hear from big singers, from we know what opera singers sound like, and also it's this power, we we use no microphones, nothing. So we sing with a you know, it's a technique that's incredibly powerful, that is very attractive to some people and absolutely not to others. So not everyone will choose this path. Uh absolutely. So if you want to do anything with classical singing, you have to have that precision you're talking about because it's very much, you know, the music is what it is, and you have to respect it. So you have to, it's like athletics, it's numbers. It's are you are you um are you making it to that height, uh, to that distance in that time? And classical singing is the saying, can you hold the note for you know, with that quality, for that time, that volume? Um it's it's really it's really black or white. It's not like you know, yes, but I like it, it's more my taste. No, it's either it's either you do it or you don't. So it's a lot of a of a you know, it's it's a big challenge. What you do is uh is a completely different approach, which I love and which in my work comes only later, once you have built your instrument, you got your uh you got your chops right, now you start putting all your artistry, your expression, your everything. Obviously, you do that on the path there, but you are focusing on on a craft. It's a craft, it's a precise and complex discipline. Completely different approach. It's really, really not for everyone. Yeah, you must love it, you must really love it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. What do you think is the the hardest part for people to change about their voice? Um maybe it is to overcome the usual aversion we all have for our own voice. Like when people hear themselves recorded for the first time speaking or singing, they go like, oh my god, this can't be me. Uh so getting to know who your voice is, because your voice is an entity for me. Your voice has its own life, your voice has its own personality, its colours, its uh energy. Um it takes it takes its own path, it's it has its own destiny, your voice is your voice is um it commands respect. Your voice is not just like um, you know, how many push-ups can you do? Your voice is um is full of is full of you, it's full of your soul, it's full of your message, it's full of your essence, and it shows it. It shows it like listen to someone's voice and you are often x-raying them back. So that's why also singers are so vulnerable, because when you judge my voice, you are judging me in some way. And people feel that's the way it's not. Not the surface of you.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Yeah, it's a deeper part of you, right?

Simona Mango:

Yeah. Yeah. So um I think uh uh acknowledging uh uh uh who your voice is and what it demands and what it wants from you, and uh that it's yeah, that you have to respect it, love it, support it, uh that is not an easy thing, apart from all the technicalities and everything, but I find that this is a big is a big one. Yeah, it is very important. What do you think? What what what's it what's your experience with that? What what what do you find is the biggest hurdle for people when they start singing?

Aideen Ni Riada:

It is about judgment. Um yeah, so it's it's that self-criticism. So I will say to people, um, you're not qualified to assess yourself because I'm the teacher, right? And I've been doing this for 10 years. You're not qualified to say if it was good or bad. Um, so um, I would try to help them to uh recognize that they they they maybe don't hear what I hear, and that can be helpful if they can put aside their self-judgment, then they can um enjoy that process. And I like to make it really fun. Um, so I do lots of silly things with with my clients so that they start to loosen up a little bit, because when we bring a playful um approach to anything, it's it it is naturally uh unlocks the critic the critical part of the brain. So I like to if I can get someone to be playful and to trust me that I know what I'm doing, then that will be that will allow for growth and a development. Yeah, it's interesting how how we both are coming from such a similar perspective, but we how each of our sessions looks is probably completely or quite different in some ways. Um, so here's something, right? Okay, I when I studied the Estel method, um, which is a way of um understanding the voice and the physiology of the voice, um, that's when I started to find the power in my voice when I learned about anchoring and tongue tension and not realizing that the tongue tension that I had and my lack of kind of physical strength and in the way I was standing, my posture were two of the things that were holding my voice back. Um, from your perspective, when do you find your clients go, oh my goodness, now I can do it? You know, what are the what's the the physic physiological shift that you find most people have a response to?

Simona Mango:

Yeah, definitely, definitely the tension. Uh when when they finally get that um that balance between relaxing the tongue so that it can go down a little bit and the larynx can tilt a little bit downwards and forward. So that there is no tension in the throat whatsoever. So there it's completely relaxed, whereas in the muscles here, in the in the in the support of the voice, there's huge tension. That's where the hard work is done. So there you are working like an athlete, and here you are uh basically uh leaving everything so relaxed that it can flutter and and and and flutter and and and and um uh quiver in the wind. It's so relaxed. So you have to you have to completely separate what part of your body is working like crazy and what part of your body is floating on top of that. That's the moment. Tongue tension, as you say, it's is um it's the same for us. It's the moment when when they find that that balance. That that's when magic happens. That's when you have that free, gorgeous, um, you know, soaring sound. That sounds like where does that come from?

Aideen Ni Riada:

And freedom. I love this idea of that people they they feel very free in that moment. Yes, but it's almost um they most people underestimate how much their pelvic floor, their hips, their back muscles, the rib cage, and you know, having an alignment as well. So most people don't have good, great posture in that we don't align our head right over our chest and our chest over our hips, unless you're a yogi. But a lot of people um underestimate how much that is to do with the voice, and a lot of people think their voice is just their throat area when most anyone who sings well knows it's your whole body that sings, right?

Simona Mango:

Well, you know, the the old Italian school of singing says that a singer has no throat. That's yeah, the mind my mind is blown.

Aideen Ni Riada:

That's a mic drop moment, Simona.

Simona Mango:

Tell me that again. So what do they mean? Yes, that is that is the truth that makes exactly that that when when the sound suddenly is like it sounds it sounds fantastic. So you have no throat, not that you don't have one, but in the sense that you are not allowed to use it. So when you sing from the throat, like when we talk or when we scream or when we sing, like ah, it's here, it's it's there's tension here. But when you do the work down here in the in the uh in your in your abs, in your belly muscles, and and and you you steer the the air from underneath, and what we were saying before, you relax the the tongue and the back of your throat and the larynx tilts and relaxes and everything. Your your throat is like it's there, it's a beautiful empty passage for the air, and it's not allowed to take part in the process. So that's what it means. A singer has no throat, is the throat has got to be, and this is the difficult thing, completely relaxed and open, so that that incredible pressure of air that's coming from underneath goes through without scratching, hitting, uh, without even touching it. Uh the ideal what happens is when when they start really understanding it, they go out of your singing lesson, physically destroyed, but the their their um their throat is perfectly relaxed and the voice shines. There's no screenshot.

Aideen Ni Riada:

And you don't get that tiredness as well.

Simona Mango:

Tired, not not hoarse or anything, but maybe all the rest is like you've you've you've done your fitness for the week, but um your throat is in peace. That so let me a singer has no throat.

Aideen Ni Riada:

A singer has no throat. That just blows my mind. So I am so happy to have had this conversation with you. Is there something that you want um listeners to remember about our conversation today around singing as a form of personal development? Because, you know, I think that this is what people may not realize. They may, if they if you feel, oh, I'd love to sing, you you don't have to love to sing in order to be on a stage. You can love to sing in order to just go on a personal development journey. So I'd love for you to tell tell the listeners a little bit about why that it can be so rewarding to do it this way.

Simona Mango:

Um, I think it's one of the most incredible tools. I would argue that, for example, uh probably dancing would be close in the power it has as a self-development uh tool. I would I would argue that dancing is is probably equal. Singing is um is a way of seeing yourself. You learn to see your voice, uh, you learn to listen to your voice, which is not easy because uh the sound that we hear when we talk or sing is not the sound that others hear. So we we're never really sure what we sound like. We need a good recording for that, and that's when people go, Oh my god, this can't be me. Uh so you learn to listen to your voice, you learn to listen to your body because it starts telling you a lot of things. You start, I say seeing your voice, seeing your voice as in who it is. What I was telling you before, like I think your voice has a personality, it has a big personality, uh it ha of its own, uh, which partly overlaps with you with who you are, but partly takes its own life and and uh yeah, it's it's it's it's it's really your voice is someone. It's more than just uh physiological kind of uh effect of some some organs in our body. Uh your voice your voice is very powerful. Um experience, my own, personal, and a lot of people I worked with, uh when you start cultivating your voice, you uh get more confident in speaking your truth. It's not only about singing, it's about speaking your truth, about being who you really are. Exposing your voice means you're being very brave and you are accepting to expose your heart. You're accepting to expose who you are, how you think, your your your values, your your heart. Let me say your heart. So uh your physical voice, I think. I think it also triggers you to then bring out uh uh what I call the voice of your soul, which is your truth is your uh I call it your contribution to humanity, your message to humanity. What are you saying to humanity? What what are you bringing out? Whatever it is, it's going to be yours and yours only. You're here to bring it. You you're here for that reason. So singing is, I find, the most incredible way of starting to move everything in you towards bringing your gifts to humanity. And it makes your life beautiful. And you know, for me, with my with my focus on life purpose, your life purpose is to live the happiest life you can live while bringing your true gifts to the rest of us. So your voice might well be one of these gifts. It might be a great discovery for you, it might be a a gift for the rest of us, not necessarily from a stage, your voice will find a thousand ways of expressing itself, of expressing who and what you are, and we want to see that, we want to hear that. So I'm I I believe everyone on the planet should sing, everyone should bring out their their voice. And why do we say something makes our heart sing? This is this is not this is not just uh a funny turn of phrase. This this is when our heart sings is when we are in our truth. And singing, singing is one of the best ways I know of doing just that. You owe it to yourself and to the rest of us.

Aideen Ni Riada:

Exactly. And it makes so much sense that on your journey that you started to recognize how powerful it was as a tool for people in general, and you you know started doing life coaching and you started doing the health coaching because that supported the singing, and there's so much that you offer. And I would really encourage anyone listening to look at Simona's different links and find out about what she does. And if you're attracted to that idea of classical music, or if you're attracted to her energy for more of a life coaching um journey, um, she is available for that as well. Um, so thank you everyone who's listened to our time together. It's an absolute pleasure. And it, you know, when you start doing something different, like when I started teaching singing to adults for confidence, I didn't know anyone who was doing that. And over the years, I've you know drawn many people who are doing slightly similar and have a same similar value. Um, they've all kind of been attracted to me over time. But when we started, we didn't have someone we were following, and that to me is a key sign that you're following your soul because it's internal guidance.

Simona Mango:

Absolutely, yeah. You yeah, I think you got the best job in the world. I mean, you know, what what's what's more beautiful than helping people come into their awareness and their confidence and the joy and the the power and the you know, oh it's it it's just it's sublime.

Aideen Ni Riada:

We're definitely doing the right thing with our lives, and and it keeps evolving, you know, and it keeps everything keeps moving, and yeah, and we I mean, neither of us will have 100% confidence all the time because as we change and we do the next thing that we need to do, there is always a level of uncertainty. But having trusted that in ourselves through during key points of our lives, we know that we can, it's always good to test the idea. So here's here's something I would suggest for people listening. If there is something that you love to do, maybe it is singing, maybe it is something else, test that idea. Like go for one lesson, go, you know, research what you could do because it's those small steps that help you to understand what would be right for you to do, and you know, being happy and fulfilled and in as much as you possibly can has to be so important. Um, so thank you everyone for listening. This has been the Resonate Podcast with Aidan, and um, thank you, Simona, for joining us. Thank you, Aidan. That was beautiful. Thank you so much. Take care, everyone, and we'll see you again at the next uh episode. Bye bye.