Discover the extraordinary journey of Andrea Lowry, a unique soul who found her true calling in the world of sound practices. From an early age, Andrea’s exceptional vocal cords set her on a path of musical exploration, eventually leading her to blend her love for music and spirituality into a holistic practice that touches hearts and transforms lives. From Expressive Arts classes and mentoring to Holistic Voice Therapy sessions and Open mic evenings, Andrea covers a wide range of services and you can learn more about it in her exclusive MysticMag interview below.
How did you get into sound practices and how did this become your calling?
Great question, I was born with an unusual set of vocal cords. I was given a very mature voice at a young age and used it for singing in the church. I was an unusual child because I had full adult vibrato when I was very little, and that made me stand out. I knew that I wanted to do something with my voice and people in my small town encouraged me, but I was living in a very small town in east Texas. There were no teachers or programs to develop your voice and no internet. There was only the church choir. Fortunately for me, we had a good director and it worked out well because I had a home for my voice to grow.
Years later, I auditioned for a scholarship at SMU in Dallas and got it. I studied opera there, which was a big surprise. I somehow missed that it was an opera program. But it helped provide a foundation for my voice. Unfortunately, performance was not enough for me. As I walked the halls of the university, I noticed a sign on a door that said “Music Therapy”. Ah ha! – my true calling at last! Music therapy was something that wasn’t what I learned to do – it was who I discovered I was.
I realized that the applause that you get when you’re a performer only goes so far. I didn’t want to just provide entertainment. I really wanted to touch people’s hearts and souls. Music therapy gave me the ability to do that. After university, my first position was in an Orthodox Jewish nursing home. I had to learn to sign in Hebrew and Yiddish. Consequently, each time that I changed positions, and the clinical population that I worked with, whether it was Alzheimer’s, geriatrics, alcohol and drug rehab, or teenage and adolescent problems, I had to change my musical approach. Obviously, you don’t sing Methodist hymns in a Jewish nursing home. You have to use the music and the instrumentation that matter to your population’s religious background, age, culture, and interest.
For example, with teenagers, I absolutely used ‘their music – whatever that is. Anything they wanted to bring to the group and share – was encouraged. That’s where I developed my clinical career approach – using music therapy and psychodrama. My psychodrama training came after University, and it’s based on the work of Jacob Levy Moreno. My trainers were from Native American and Celtic shamanic backgrounds. It was a really wonderful fusion of full-body work in the sense that you’re actually using yourself, your mind, your body, and your spirit to look at issues. It’s a lot harder to hide when you have music and your whole body working together to sort out issues and think about things in a new way. That’s how sound practices came into being.
It’s grown since I left the United States in 2009. In each country I’ve lived, I’ve learned and added cultural pieces in ways suited to the country. Furthermore, one of the latest pieces of my journey came from time spent in London. I was able to study with the British Academy of Sound Therapy, receiving their Professional Diploma in Sound Therapy. I consider that from that time, I came into my own. Nowadays, I’m working with everyday folks, and not necessarily people with psychiatric diagnoses. They are people who just want to explore options in their lives and want to look at things differently and reduce pain and stress. That’s where my unique mix of training is useful, especially with the addition of different languages from places I’ve lived in. My time in Germany, France, UK was great – and now I have settled in Belgium. I’m semi-retired, but I’m still offering my services. I wasn’t sure there would be an interest here, but I’ve been very surprised that, in fact, there are people who would like to continue to work with my particular approach. So my website is being updated.
Can you walk me through one of your Expressive Arts classes?
Since 1996 I’ve provided free facilitation for Julia Cameron’s book, “The Artist’s Way”. I ran my groups the way that she intended, which was following sessions for 12 weeks and then moving on with your life. What I found was that people at the end of the 12 weeks didn’t want to stop, so I used my personal skills to build on it. It’s already phenomenal work and absolutely perfect just the way it is, but for people who want to continue, there is my Next Level class. We focus on maintaining creativity as a spiritual practice. Julia Cameron gives us a common vocabulary so that we can work more deeply on our creative journey. The format of my classes is very much the same, whether I’m teaching advanced philosophical English, which I do here in Belgium or Art&Soul. Art&Soul, which is offered on Zoom, was created from the needs of “Creatives” during the pandemic. It’s a free online resource for people who are on a creative journey and would like to be with their tribe.
The typical session format is in a classical Bell curve, whether it lasts 60 or 90 minutes. You have your introduction, sharing, and “check-in” portion, followed by your actual presentation of material, whether it’s an essay, a song, a poem, etc. It’s the meat of what we’re doing during that specific class. That is followed by a reflective exercise, like a warm-up. My goal is to inspire and leave people primed and ready for more. In other words, I’m just going to give them a taste of something that they can continue with on their own because I’m very much a ‘person-centered’ therapist in that respect.
I know that the people I work with have all the answers that they need for their journey. They just can’t always access that wise voice. I’m here to give some hints along the way, maybe make a few suggestions, see what resonates with and works for them, to inspire and lift them up. If you walk out of one of my classes and you aren’t feeling better or thinking differently than you were when you walked in, then I’ve not done my job. If I can inspire you to let the healer that’s already in you have a stronger voice, then that’s success.
We end with the final feedback and I find that Angel Cards provide an emotional vocabulary in a useful way. Each person ends the group with final feedback and they get their parting word. That’s a bit of a projective tool, and people can’t wait to get their word. It’s a fun thing to end the class with. It is like getting a fortune cookie, in a way. That’s the basic framework of my classes. The content varies a little bit, but the whole point is to lift you up and help you see the light during those moments when it’s dark in your life.
What can people hope to achieve with your mentoring?
Mentoring is very similar to a private session but is designed to give you skills that you lack. Self-confidence is a big issue for many people. What I have to offer in any session – is me. You’re welcome to what my perspective lends to your particular situation. I don’t believe that every therapist or teacher is going to have an amazing connection with everybody. There are certain people that you have good chemistry with, and those are the people that tend to find their way to me. The last mentoring I did was with someone who was working on a presentation about stress and relaxation. There were many things that he just hadn’t thought of. You know, I’m over 60, so I’ve got a little bit of experience and I’m more than happy to share. Also, being an elder, I feel like it’s my turn to do that – to give back and to share back. Younger people often find that I have some useful ideas to share that help them solidify their confidence.
What is the Monthly Group Sound Journey with Reflection?
The difference between a sound journey with reflection and a regular sound bath or a gong bath is that in addition to this wonderful relaxation provided by ancient instruments, you are taught a useful model for reflecting. This thousand-year-old process is known throughout the world to be able to bring you to a state of relaxation or, in the best-case scenario, to an altered state of consciousness and back. You have that experience, and all by itself is restful, lovely, and relaxing, but if you add that to a model of reflection, then you’re able to go much deeper.
To be more clear, don’t offer just sound meditations. I offer sound journeys with reflection. It’s a 90-minute experience and you’re taught two different techniques to learn how to go deeper and receive the messages that are there for you. Then you come back out safely and share to the extent that you wish to. You don’t need to share if you don’t want to. Then, of course, you get your word. That’s what a sound journey with reflection is. You’re going to use musical instruments and rhythm; You’re going to use the intervals between the notes to bring about an opportunity for enlightenment – an opportunity to push the reset button and allow your parasympathetic nervous system to calm down. These are all things that are really good for you, especially if you’re experiencing pain and turmoil in your life.
The model that I teach is one that you can continue to use in various ways throughout your life.
What other services do you offer?
In addition to group work, I also do couples work. Because I live in a beautiful place like Bruges, people come here for romantic weekends, and they can book a couples session and have their own personalized sound journey. I also offer private one-to-one Holistic Voice Therapy sessions. I offer music therapy at a nursing home to their Memory Care unit.
Each month, I host a free Open Mic evening very first Friday of the month on a boat, TARANTA, here in Brugge. It’s for building a sense of community and that’s important in my life. It represents a shared way for music, poetry, and quotes to live within our community.
I also teach advanced English conversation classes. These are all things that are part of what makes my life interesting. I continue to find ways to be useful within the community where I live. For example, there’s an active group of Peace Singers here, that I direct a couple of times a year when we have our Peace Celebrations. I’m a big believer in communitarianism.
At my age, I’m an advocate for people with marginalized voices. There’s an active immigrant artistic community here, and as an immigrant here myself, I am involved. We do what we can in the stages of life that we’re in. You have probably heard of the stages of women’s lives – the Maiden, the Mother, the Crone. A quick story: When you’re a little girl, you make mud pies and play pretend. When you are a little older – you ‘make out’ and practice life in relationships. Then later in life, you become a ‘mother’, (whether your child is your career, or a life project, or a baby). So, when we’re mothers, we make babies. But when you get to me my age, what is left? The answer is “to make a difference”.
Women my age, friends, and people that are in my community here, we’re all trying to find ways to make a difference and to help make the world a better place. Better is good. Perfect doesn’t exist, so I’ll settle for better. It’s interesting because once you get involved, you understand how much work there is to be done. It’s very fulfilling, and my online group “Art&Soul” is a way to maintain that sense of community and that connection, regardless of the country you’re from. I have people from five different countries who show up to my Wednesday group, and our tribe reaches beyond borders. It’s a gift that the pandemic gave us. I would have never started this without the push to do so, so I can thank Covid for that. Sound Practices is ready to serve and for that I am grateful.
To learn more about Andrea and her work, you can visit her website at www.soundpractices.org
