Aimee shares that despite having a successful career as a lead vocalist, reciting Veda made her find her voice all over again. And she loves it!
By Sophia Ann French
Before she started reciting Veda mantras, California-based Aimee Echo used her voice to sing, and “making sound out of my mouth is something I have done a lot as a singer-songwriter,” says Aimee. Yet, she concludes her train of thought saying, “Reciting Veda felt like the opposite of singing.” We have many gifted musicians and vocalists in the Veda Studies community, and while we non-musicians feel that the musically inclined might have it easy reciting mantras given their trained ear and vocalisation skills, the fact is, even the most seasoned vocalists often find themselves finding their voice all over again with Veda recitation. And they love it! “It felt opposite because I realised that Veda is so structured. It is like this beautiful architecture that holds sound. My singing is inspired and can be very primal — I was a punk-rock girl. Veda is perfectly formed and structured. The sound is held, and it feels like there’s beautiful room for space within the structure. It’s really lovely. It was very interesting for me to learn and maintain the precision of sound in Veda recitation, which is literally the opposite of what I do in my bands,” observes Aimee.
Aimee is a Level 2 Authorised Aṣṭāṅga Yoga teacher and an IAYT Certified Yoga Therapist and Vedic recitation teacher based in Long Beach. She founded the Community Yoga Club, home of Aṣṭāṅga Yoga Long Beach, where she teaches daily Mysore-style Aṣṭāṅga Yoga and offers individualised Yoga Therapy, Yoga Philosophy and chanting classes. She is also the singer and co-founder of theSTART, with whom she has recorded and toured internationally. Her lifelong work with voice and sound naturally informs her study and teaching of Vedic recitation. Aimee’s initiation into Indic Knowledge Systems began with yoga. She found the practice while transitioning from her first band to her second. “I feel very lucky because I found traditional yoga as soon as I started. It wasn’t fitness-studio yoga; it was traditional Aṣṭāṅga. My first trip to India was in 2007, and I went to a school where Vedic recitation was mandatory. It wasn’t as stringent as the way Shantala teaches it. I had some chanting experience but started studying formally with Veda Studies when I found Shantala on my friend Eddie Stern’s Instagram. He was hosting her on his Instagram Lives during the pandemic, and as soon as I saw her, I went straight to the website and signed up. That was in 2020,” recalls Aimee.
A Singer Learns to Recite
Reciting Veda requires three notes and a few variations on those notes, whereas music’s range is more diverse. Aimee found the transition challenging, but it excited her and inspired her to explore these sounds more deeply. “I get very nervous to chant in front of Shantala. Oddly, I don’t get nervous when I teach, or when I chant in front of my classmates. I think even Shantala was surprised by my nervousness because she knows I come from a music background. With time, I realised the cause of my nervousness. I’m a recording artist, and when I record my voice for music, I am aiming for a finished product or piece of music. But when I record for Veda Studies, it is usually homework given for feedback. Given my recording background, I tried recording perfect mantras for Shantala. That stressed me out because the whole point of submitting homework is to receive feedback. It took me an entire year to stop approaching the recordings as a perfect, finished product. I’ve been studying with Shantala for six years and over time, I learnt to let go of that need for a perfect recording. I have become ok with just showing up and being a practitioner. I absolutely love it. It actually feels really natural,” says Aimee.
She believes that this is the one misconception that singers might have about reciting Veda: that it is just singing. “I think this happens because many people hear renditions of mantras on YouTube and various places and just feel that each mantra is the singer’s version of it. After I started studying with Veda Studies, I changed this misconception, and I realised that Veda is not free for artistic rendering. In fact, I have become a little protective of the mantras.”
From Student to Teacher
Aimee has been studying with Shantalaji for six years, and she joined the Indica Veda Studies Teacher Programme (2024-2025) to share the practice with her students. I asked her what sustained her practice through the years and what she plans to do with the TTC. “Shantala said something beautiful once about urgent enthusiasm. It feels like that for me. There’s no question that I’m going to study the next mantra because there’s this urgent enthusiasm, but it doesn’t feel out of balance or needy. It’s like a continuous ‘yes.’ The more I learn, the more I see that there is to learn. That’s so incredibly interesting,” says Aimee. She was practising various forms of Indic Knowledge systems before Veda but feels that the recitation has brought it all together. “Chanting Veda has given another dimension to my existing practices. It is the same kind of state change that can happen with an āsana practice or prāṇāyāma. I can get out of my own way very quickly and change my state. I don’t need anything but myself. Not even my voice, really. I just have to be with the recitation, whether it’s silent or not. It’s like being in a relationship with these wonderful, amazing cosmic forces and the poetry surrounding them.”
With the TTC completed, Aimee is looking forward to attending the next Veda Studies Retreat in Lugano (Switzerland) in November. My final question was: what does spirituality mean to her given her exposure to so many spiritual systems? “It’s that thing that happens when everything else stops, and Veda chanting helps us get there.”
For further information on Amy, visit her website at https://www.aylb.org/