It all started with that nerve-wracking moment…
How a music-loving girl took the power of sound from a school stage to the big stage
The legendary John Lennon once said: “There’s nowhere you can be that isn’t where you’re meant to be.” As one of the greatest musical geniuses of all time, he should know!
Serendipitously, that’s also how the foray into the world of sound therapy began for The Sirius Sound’s founder, Michele Chong. Although it wasn’t a complete coincidence, she did discover this new door both by chance and by choice – like it was ‘meant to be’.
And yes, she was all of 8 years young!
Read on to find out more about Michele’s unique journey in Part 1 of this candid interview.
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What were you like as a child, Michele, and how did you get interested in, of all things, sound therapy?
Snice young, I love singing, I love music, and I would look at the mirror while
My parents, my siblings, we all sing. So that’s how I discovered my passion in life. I think I got put on stage when I was only 8 – and since then, I’ve loved singing, and I told myself this is something that I want to do for the rest of my life.
I sing and dance! And yeah, I always, in my dreams every day, thought that one day music can heal people. So that was the image in my mind – even though music and songs can make people happy, can it also have the power to heal?
But then through the singing, through my own teaching and learning, I realised how powerful our voice can be. Voice can really change a person’s moods and emotions, and when I started teaching music, I saw my students’ emotions, and even their illnesses through their singing. So that’s how I discovered sound therapy actually.
Fascinating! What do you remember most about that pivotal moment on stage that started it all for you?
Haha, it was a disaster! I was so young, so fearful and scared, and I remember I was singing off pitch! It was like oh my, I love this thing so much, yet I couldn’t do it well.
So I told my Mom and Dad I wanted to learn music, I wanted to study music after my O-Levels. And luckily, they didn’t stop me. If they had tried to lock me in my room for a few months, it wouldn’t have worked, because the music from my room every day would have been too loud!
So what eventually led you from that early experience in life to setting up The Sirius Sound?
I was working previously at a wellness company where I was exposed to all sorts of meditations, Healings and programmes, including sound. Getting to know these different modalities, I soon realised that sound therapy is really powerful, if you focus on using the different sounds properly.
So that’s how The Sirius Sound was created. In my brain, I was telling myself at first – I’m not going to do sound therapy sessions yet, I want to balance myself first by just coming up with pieces of music that can soothe physically and emotionally, and then share them with people. So that was the initial plan.
But many clients then told me they’ve been waiting for two years (for structured sessions or classes). I remembered one client said – if you truly believe in sound therapy, you should focus on it and do more from it. So that’s how it happened – I shifted the whole focus of The Sirius Sound back to therapy again after three years.
What’s a typical working week like for you as a professional sound therapist? And how do you prep yourself for it?
I know some people think our regular schedule is just conducting one session, and then you finish, then you conduct the next one. But in actual fact, it’s not that simple. We must balance ourselves daily, we have to keep our bodies very fit to be able to carry all those heavy bowls and work with different equipment.
So I go for strength training, I do tai chi sword training, I golf, I make myself exercise quite a bit every day to train the body, and then I meditate. There are also a lot of tasks to go through before my client sessions, especially if these are individual sessions where I need to prepare detailed research on their case. Plus for group sessions, you have to know who is coming and how the group dynamics are like, to determine what should go into that specific session.
So you must do a lot of research, studying which are the best tools and instruments to bring each time.
I understand you also travel a fair bit in the course of your work. Tell us about that.
Besides music, travel is definitely another passion of mine. To me, traveling to different countries and experiencing other cultures, the way others live, means I also get to learn how different people speak their emotions, how their speaking voice actually relates to their cultural emotion as well.
Nowadays, if I travel, it’s mostly for work – to attend or conduct talks and workshops overseas. But at the end of the year, I always make sure travel is reserved for leisure!
Interviewer & Writer:
Clarence Chang
Interviewer & Writer:
Click HERE to view brief video excerpts of Part 1 of Michele’s interview
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Coming up next:
• What’s the biggest misconception people have about sound therapy?
• And why should anyone bother with it if they feel perfectly fine?
• Is sound therapy based on actual science, or the supernatural… or something else?
Watch this space as Michele addresses these hard-hitting questions and more, in Part 2 of her interview – to be published soon. Don’t miss it!
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