Overview: Singing with Your Own Voice is a comprehensive, practical, and encouraging book full of exercises and tips for anyone who wants to - even needs to - sing. Actors in straight plays, performers in musicals, professionals and amateurs, even people singing in choirs or bands will all benefit from Orlanda Cook's expert guidance. Cook lays bare basic truths about singing. We are born "noisy"--Singing is part of what human animals do. Yet often we are inhibited as singers because we worry that we aren't "doing it right" or "creating the right sound." Cook shows that the breadth and potential of the human voice isn't about proper models at all - there can't be an ideal voice - but about integrating the mind, heart, and body of the singer. Her goal is to instill in her student-reader a belief in the power of the voice as a unique expressive tool. Singing, finally, should be what Cook calls "the noise of true emotion." This is a hands-on book, full of techniques and exercises, designed to give you the skill you need to sing with your own voice.