Yoga of the voice
What is the Yoga of the Voice?
The Yoga of the Voice Certificate program is nurtured by a powerful musical lineages providing cross-cultural and stimulating education on the therapeutic, artistic, and transcendental uses of sound, with a renewed spiritual emphasis. The seminars offer an in-depth study of the different dimensions of the healing voice: the contemplative, the expressive, the shamanic, and the ecstatic. Students learn to embody the quality of singing that transforms energy patterns and emotions, affecting consciousness more efficiently than any other form of sound. Participants become familiar with uses of sound and the voice in yoga, complementary medicine, energy healing, education, performance, and as spiritual practice. The experience supports the aspirant creative and professional path, inspiring deep healing and compassionate insight.
The Yoga of the Voice International Certificate is a 108-hour training in sound, consciousness, and embodied voice, developed over more than three decades through the Vox Mundi School, and is continually evolving with the shifting currents of social and environmental change. Rooted in Integral Yoga, sound art, and the universal language of music, this program invites the voice, sound, and resonance to become instruments of liberation, attunement, and spiritual engagement.
Unlike any other voice, music, and sound school program, this unique training bridges cultures and disciplines, integrating Western extended vocal techniques, contemplative practices, and the discipline and science of yoga with the deep listening and melodic sensibility of Indian ragas and medicine music like icaros and shamanic chants. The program is designed both for those seeking personal transformation through the sound and for artists, therapists, medicine circle facilitators, yoga practitioners, and educators who wish to develop a professional voice- and sound-centered practice.
What I will be studying?
- Sacred Music of The World
- Devotional Chanting & Mantra Medicine
- Shamanic Voices
- The Art of Melodic movement, modes, raga & rasa
- Voice development: range, timbre, placement, resonance, dynamics, intonation, breath and muscle coordination
- The Art of Improvisation
- Sound, Chant, & Music in Healing. Therapeutic modalities
- Professional Applications & Repertoire Development
- Nada Yoga, Kirtan, Bhakti Yoga and Tibetan spiritual music
- Afro-Brazilian healing songs
- Deity invocations
- Chants from the Amazon
- Sufi Chants
- Sonorous & melodious Yogic Practices
- Magic seed-syllables
- Tuning
- Vocal Embellishments
- Toning
- Resonance & Entrainment
- Ancient breathing techniques
- Chakras and Subtle Energy Systems
- Body postures and Sonorous Mudras
- Vocal Meditation
- Overtone singing
- Contemporary extended vocal techniques
- Mystical uses of sound
- The effect of sound on the body, the brain, and the mind
- Sound Tools as Drones, Tuning forks, bells, and drumming, and digirideu
- Intuitive playing skills with simple instruments
- Sound and Movement
- Conducting sound rituals
- Ongoing chanting groups & Music and Sound Healing circles
What can you expect to obtain from this program?
- Personal transformation through a sound
- Practice chanting & music as a sacred art
- Conduct rituals & chanting and study groups
- Access higher states of creativity and liberation through sound
- Learn innovative healing modalities to ‘open’ your voice through ancient breathing and sonorous yogic practices.
- Discover how certain sounds, musical intervals, scales, rhythms, and chants impact specific areas of the brain and the body
- Free oneself from any personal memory of vocal constraint empowering one’s confidence and the readiness to sing.
- Build a practice of chants and sounds that clear, tune, and stimulate the brain and the energy of the charkas.
- Identify ways to transform energy patters and emotional states.
- Learn how to employ musical instruments as healing tools,
- Realize which musical culture awakens your ancestral musical lineage
- Build professional collaborations/networking/ guidance/ tutoring
- Embody divinity through sound, enhancing vitality, and fostering a sense of well-being, openness, and love.
- Become a Certified Sound & Voice Practitioner
Who this training is for
This program welcomes:
- Vocalists, singers, composers, and musicians
- Sound practitioners and music therapists
- Yoga teachers and contemplative practitioners
- Psychotherapists, bodyworkers, and integrative health professionals
- Spiritual wellness seekers and community leaders in search of uncovering and refining their voices
All levels of experience are welcome. No prior musical training is necessary; curiosity and willingness to listen deeply are the primary prerequisites.
How can you apply this Program?
E-mail or Call to request a phone or personal interview voxmundi@yahoo.com or call +415-608-1535 – by appointment
About the Program
Like shamans, yogis, and mystics, today’s sound healing practitioners use sound, music, and the voice as gateways to transcendence and the exploration of consciousness. Integrating science with the wisdom of sacred and aboriginal sound practices, Silvia Nakkach and the Vox Mundi faculty lead participants in an exploration of the role of sound, voice, music, and intention in assisting psycho-spiritual insight and healing. Merging sound and music therapy practices with the traditions of Indian, Tibetan, and Afro-Brazilian devotional chanting, students learn innovative forms of vocal improvisation, shamanic songs, and divine utterances.
Participants will experience an innovative and unique cross-cultural model for using sound, voice, and music in contemporary therapies, with an emphasis on integration and spiritual renewal. In this fascinating seminars information meets inspiration towards a precise and powerful integration in the practitioner personal and professional practice. With the fast emerging field of Sound and Music in Healing it becomes increasingly important to understand more about how sound and chanting can support therapeutic and growth processes.
This program offers an in-depth study of the use of the voice, chanting, and the music of cultures that use sound to transform consciousness and realize healing. The Intensive Certificate is the only of this kind, providing the students with mindful, integral, and stimulating education in an optimum intimate environment for personal and professional development, learning about both practical and transcendental uses of sound, students will be able to go deeper into the experience of the transformative power of sound and the voice. Using the voice to transform consciousness and promote healing, students will learn a selected repertoire of chants focus on distinct uses of sacred sound from Afro-Brazilian chant, Amazon healing songs, Indian ragas and mantras, and sonorous yogas (ancient yogic practices involving sound). Vocal improvisation, voice range and tone quality are also part of the curriculum of the intensive. Discovering how through the practice and application of certain sounds, musical intervals and scales, rhythms and chants is possible to impact specific areas of the mind and the body, recognizing immediate ways to transform energy patters and emotional states.
Learning to cultivate familiarity with shamanic forms of vocal expressions and sonorous yogas, such as toning, tuning to the divine energy of seed syllables, invocation, mantras, medicine melodies and vocal meditation and to be able to incorporate these therapeutic practices in daily life and professional practice. Being the finest objective to experience divinity through sound and the devotional nature of sacred chant. Providing an in-depth understanding of how the integration of chanting, movement and shamanic cosmology becomes a practice of personal empowering and inspiration, realizing improved vitality and spiritual liberation through sound. Students will discover which musical culture opens personal doorways to open the voice and sing more, experiencing how group chanting encourages kindness and respect for other cultures, traditions and life. Course Format and Activities Lecture, discussion, experiential chanting, audition of selected discography, video and digital recording projects, written questionnaire reviews, home assignments and supervision, individual projects, including optional tutoring and internships.
Register now!
Lineage, community and format
For more than 30 years, the Vox Mundi School has evolved into a living creative community (sangha) of voice, sound, and music, offering training, retreats, and university-level teaching across the Americas, Europe, and Asia. Students stay involved for many years, deepening their sadhana, becoming teachers, and co-creating an ongoing culture of shared learning and mutual mentorship. The annual Summer Retreat in the Santa Cruz Mountains serves as a sacred bridge for the international community, weaving together in-depth practice, contemplative immersion, and lifelong creative collaborations. In addition, through the Study Abroad Journeys, students and teachers travel together, learn and advance their studies with master teachers, and share transformative spiritual inquiry.
The Yoga of the Voice Certificate is structured in modular form, combining:
- Live Online Modules (small groups or pods, individual mentoring, practicum, and online forum)
- Weekend hybrid intensives and clinics
- In-person retreats
- Study Abroad Journeys
- One-on-one Therapeutic Voice Clinics
- Recording and Workshops collaborations among the trainees and the teachers
- Immersive Residencies by teacher invitation; students have the opportunity to spend two or three weeks at the Vox Mundi School in Emeryville, California. The teachers will mentor and guide their daily practice, and the students will complete a project that reflects their core interest in the shared field.
Students at any level may enter through individual modules and accrue hours toward the 108-hour International Certificate or take modules independently for focused exploration. If the students decide to become teachers of the Yoga of the Voice, they may credit these Certificate hours toward the Vox Mundi School Teachers Training Certificate. All Certificates have Global access. Most teachers and students reside internationally.
What is Yoga Of The Voice
The Yoga of the Voice is a comprehensive method that approaches the voice as sonic energy – a vital and primordial force – beyond cultural conditioning, level of musicianship, and performance anxiety. Through guided sound tools, vocal meditations, music listening, and somatic yogic practices. Students engage in mindful breathing practices designed to activate subtle energetic awareness and cultivate a spacious, receptive mindset attuned to the freedom of the imagination, dismantling hierarchical levels of experience. This is a training based on equality understood as purification of the mind and the path towards Integral Yoga.
Key Characteristics:
- Voice as a portal to awakening Shakti (creative universal energy)
- Sound and silence as co-arising fields of awareness and consciousness expansion
- The “space between tones” as a site of subtle perception and expanded listening
- Integration of Indian ragas and Dhrupad-inspired tunefulness with modern vocal arts
- The voice as a vehicle for healing, contemplation, and liberation
- The voice is open as a deep listening tool, which is refined through creative projects, processes, and progress
When the voice is approached in this way, many students experience increased self-confidence, a more vivid musical practice, and the foundation for a sustainable professional practice, if that is their path. For over three decades, the Vox Mundi School has carried this living lineage, evolving continuously with the shifting currents of human sensibility and social change.
How the training is structured
The Yoga of the Voice Certificate is designed with flexibility and depth in mind. Choose to take modules independently or accumulate hours toward the complete 108-hour International Certificate, and towards the Teacher Training Certificate, if the graduate wishes to dive deeper into becoming a teacher of the Yoga of the Voice. It can be completed between one year and 18 months, depending on the student’s pace.
Take individual modules over several weeks, each with a specific focus. Small groups, individual mentoring, and an online portal for guided practice and collaborative projects.
Participate in real-time classes from anywhere. Recordings often available for asynchronous learning.
Optional immersions at our Santa Cruz Retreat and other locations for deeper integration and community connection.
Customized Therapeutic and Project-oriented sessions, available online or in-person for personalized mentoring and vocal development.
Upcoming 2026 modules
This core training introduces the foundational principles and practices of the Yoga of the Voice, focusing on voice as sonic energy, spontaneous expression, and spiritual practice. The Focus is on liberating emotional constrictions and group facilitation techniques.
You will:
- Realize and refine the quality of your sonic presence in speech, chant, and song
- Become aware of and engage with the infinite space between tones, refine intonation, and expand your vocal range
- Open to emotions as aesthetic expressions, depersonalizing the voice by attending to sound and the space of silence
- Learn to listen with the body and connect with the multi-sensorial source of embodied voice
- Receive an introduction to Indian ragas, mindful tone-breathing, the chant of Dhrupad, and medicine melodies
- Practice deep listening with sound tools that feel good, and encourage new portals of innovation and the facilitation of chanting circles
- Experience the joy of spontaneous self-expression beyond impediments
- Discover the voice as a free flow of energy and as a sound that travels and heals.
- Learn foundational voice and sound healing applications
- Create and manifest a transformative individual Project (a recording, gather a group that you will facilitate, or write a capstone paper that reflects the work that you love)
- Complete a Final Written Evaluation Certificate
This Module may be taken on its own or counted as 30 hours toward the 108-hour Certificate
Six Tuesdays, May 5, 12, 19, 26, June 2 and 16 – (students can join up to May 19 and will receive and listen to the recordings of previous classes )
12:30 PM-2:30 PM – PDT – Post-Recordings On-Demand
Tuition Fees: $700 UD dollars – before May 1st, $800 after
For Admission and Payment Arragements: voxmundi@yahoo.com
This course invites students to experience the generative quality and musicality of their voice combined with other instruments, an original repertoire of improvisation strategies, guided practices, recordings, and creative collaborations. The voice is sonic energy that can be liberating, tuned, and attuned to emotional balance and relational presence. Through playful, contemplative inquiry, students will explore voice as a musical instrument for community building, sound healing, and performance. The focus is on Healing.
When approached as a Sound Healing instrument, the Voice becomes:
- An entry point to connect with life, energy, and vitality
- A medium to assess energetic disposition and health
- A primordial vehicle to release tensions and clear the mind
- A way of attunement that activates circulatory systems and supports nervous-system regulation
- A joyful journey into intuition, harmony, and resonance
- An instrument to cultivate happiness and physical and emotional well-being
- Create and manifest a transformative individual Project that reflects the work that you love
This Module may be taken on its own or counted as 30 hours toward the 108-hour Certificate.
Six Tuesdays, October 6, 13, 20, 27, November 3 and 17
12:30 PM-2:30 PM – PDT – Recordings On-Demand
Tuition Fees: $700 UD dollars – before May 1st $800 after
For Admission and Payment Arragements: voxmundi@yahoo.com
General learning outcomes
- Rediscover Your Sense of Wonder: Embark on a journey to vocal freedom and musical creativity. Reimagine what “singing” and self-expression mean by breaking free from limiting beliefs—open yourself to new possibilities with your voice.
- Reconnect with Your Essence: Experience spiritual growth and deeper self-awareness through the transformative power of the voice. Discover how the voice functions as both a musical instrument and a potent tool for healing and self-inquiry.
- Refine Tone and Musicality: Enhance your vocal technique by practicing sustained notes and meditative melodies. Develop patience and relaxation, allowing both body and mind to unlock new levels of tunefulness, vocal precision, and trance-space.
- Embrace Emotional Expression: Learn to release emotions through continuous vocalization. Develop the ability to let feelings flow musically, transcending purely personal stories and tapping into universal expression.
- Enjoy Improvisation and Composition: by playing with extended vocal techniques inspired by Indian classical raga and experimental contemporary music as a template, including vocal percussion, multiphonics, and expanding the sonic range of your voice as an actual musical instrument. No previous experience is required.
- Build an Inspiring Repertoire: Explore a diverse array of vocal pieces and songs that focus on the textures and architectures of sound. Expand your creative imagination and cultivate a unique artistic voice.
- Explore subtle dimensions of sound and auditory perception where clarity and luminosity abide, transforming consciousness and emotions.
- Enhance your expressive confidence by having a mentor guide your creative process. Creativity is not an individual process.
- Collaborate and Facilitate Group Chanting: Engage in dynamic, creative collaborations with your peers. Gather yourself in co-creative environments that foster deep listening, artistic renewal, and transformation.
- Infuse your practice with Poetry—and let poetic expression enrich your journey towards inner resonance
General applications
- Understand voice-based healing as a way of enhancing inner joy and human resonance
- Grasp basic principles of tone production and tuning, and apply them in professional contexts (therapy, teaching, performance, facilitation)
- Engage the Vocal Meditation sadhana as a modality of self-healing and “tone magic”
- Use a repertoire of practices—ancient vibrational formulas, healing syllables, and chants—to release tension, improve memory, and connect ancestral lineages with innovative vocal techniques
- Identify and expand the acoustic range and corporeal spectrum of their particular voice
- Design a daily practice that supports their day and work life
- Lead simple chants and vocal rituals to co-create and commune with others as a tool for creative collaboration
- Use the voice as a gateway to universal languages that have been silenced
- Combine the energetic dynamics of the voice with the intelligence of the senses, hand gestures, and deep listening to foster neuro-coherence
- Integrate class information into interdisciplinary settings: integrative medicine, nursing, osteopathy, psychotherapy, bodywork, yoga, education, music, and energy-centered therapies
- Create a private sanctuary of voice purification techniques that clear energy patterns, stimulate the brain, and enhance memory through call-and-response chanting
Areas of study & modalities
- Using the voice in shamanic journeys
- Using the voice in group circles and healing ceremonies
- Vocal improvisation and medicine melodies
- The shamanic, contemplative, and expressive dimensions of the voice
- Enhancing memory through vocalizations and call-and-response chanting
- The voice and the art of songwriting
- Attending to vocal impediments through subtle, somatic approaches
- Uses of the voice in sound healing and therapeutic alliances
- Performance ease and stage presence
- Creating a vocal music repertoire, including classical Indian healing mantras and ragas
Therapeutic Voice Clinics are optional but offered as part of the curriculum, either one-on-one or in small groups, online or in-person, to support individualized healing and integration. (Required extra fees).
Certificate requirements
- Complete a minimum number of core 2 Modules (e.g., Free Your Voice, Play Your Voice; Voice in Sound Healing, Embodied Listening, and Practicum’s requirements)
- Participate in at least one Summer Retreat, Workshop, Study Abroad, or equivalent annual in-person immersion
- Attend a Therapeutic Voice Clinic or Individual Mentoring sessions
- Complete a Practicum Project (e.g., facilitating a chanting circle, developing a vocal healing session, generating an original recording)
- Write a capstone paper, write a research-based paper integrating your work into the field of Yoga, Sound Healing, Music Therapies, or other creative field of the student’s interest.
- Complete a Final Written Evaluation
Practical Details
- Next Online 2026 Module: Begins May
- Format: Live online sessions, recordings (if offered), small-group practice, mentoring, portal forum
- Location: Online, with optional in-person retreats in the Santa Cruz Mountains and other sites
- Registration: Email voxmundi@yahoo.com with your location, background, and your intention for taking the course
- Admission: Some modules may require a brief pre-consultation to ensure alignment and support
- Learn More about the Yoga of the Voice Certificate Program and to access the registration form, visit the Vox Mundi Project website.