Vocal work with Sarah Grundy and her loop pedal

In addition to working with the Drone Ensemble on some audio to my forthcoming exhibition at The Word, I am collaborating with Sarah Grundy. Sarah is an interdisciplinary artist who works in sound, performance, theatre, and music. The majority of her work looks to worldmaking – creating an idealised alternative for living in or dealing with society. She is also part of ‘The Anima Collective’ who explore the potential of the voice through singing. Sarah also performs with Edwin Li as Leroy McSex in the musical, drag duo Shirley Mann and Leroy McSex.

Sarah and I had spoken about the work a few weeks ago, and we both agreed that using the loop pedal with Sarah's voice could be a good way to achieve the layering of voices that I want to create. When we met today I gave her a sheet with words on that she could use to play around with.

In her usual remarkable way, she soon began to thread words together and create some rhythmic patterns and harmonies, exemplified through the use of the loop pedal. We made a great start, and are to continue with developing this piece.

Voices at Tate Modern

I thoroughly enjoyed my first visit to the newest space at Tate Modern, The Tanks.

"The Tanks are designed to showcase live art, installation and the moving image. The artworks all explore different aspects of the human voice.

Whether used as an instrument, an affirmation of identity, a way of connecting and communicating or for storytelling, the voice is one of the fundamental means of human expression. It can convey meaning through language, be used as pure sound or a combination of both. The works on display show how artists have made use of its versatility to achieve evocative effects."

The installation by Janet Cardiff was a spectacular sonic experience.



"Janet Cardiff’s Forty Part Motet is an audio installation reworking the sixteenth-century choral work Spem in Alium by English composer Thomas Tallis

Janet Cardiff worked with the Salisbury Cathedral Choir to record 40 individual singers, playing each voice through its own corresponding speaker. The speakers are carefully positioned in eight different groups of five, responding to the structure of Tallis’s complex vocal piece, or motet. Each group forms a choir of five singers with different vocal ranges: a bass, baritone, tenor, alto and soprano. The eight choirs produce harmonies which blend into a polyphonic landscape of sound. Visitors are encouraged to walk among the speakers to hear the individual voices, as well as the immersive sound of the motet. Cardiff said: ‘I am interested in how sound may physically construct a space in a sculptural way and how a viewer may choose a path through this physical yet virtual space.’

Sung in Latin, the first line ‘Spem in alium nunquam habui …’ translates as ‘I have never put my hope in any other but in you, O God of Israel’. Although Tallis wrote his music for a Christian setting, Cardiff has shown her audio installation in a variety of spaces, both religious and secular. The artist is interested in the ways in which music can evoke different emotions."

Conversation with Anjeline de Dios

Following a recent blog post about my research into voice hearing, a number of researchers and voice hearers have contacted me. One of these is Anjeline de Dios, a geographer and maker of music in/from the Philippines. This morning (UK time) we began our first Skype conversation, and what followed was an incredible 2 hours of sharing and developing ideas.




I'll attempt to provide a summary of some of the topics of conversation we covered.


Anjeline provided a brief introduction to the cultural context in the Philippines. With over 80% of the population being Catholic, singing is very popular. People are not scared to sing in public and choirs exist in institutions such as churches and schools, but also at work.


Anjeline's PhD centered around Filipino music practitioners who are entertainers on cruise ships. She spoke about how they are a kind of their own, viewed as unauthentic as they cover existing songs, and do not have a sense of affinity with other musicians.


What are the performers listening to?
What are they listening for?
What songs do they sing for different people?


We then discussed Anjeline's experience of singing and vocal meditation. She set out with the aim of bringing herself to the point of tears, and was trying to find out what she sounded like; embodying the music.


Does singing in a group change the emotional level that one can reach when singing alone?


Group singing and singing for an audience introduces room for self doubt, vanity and self inhibition. There is a threat that one will not sing as they would when they are alone, but group singing and singing for an audience allows for inter-subjectual listening, meaning that the singer is in conversation with others and can find out what other people hear.


We acknowledged the human tendency to take on board the bad things we hear more than the complements we receive, and how this is a survival tactic.


I spoke about my difficulty at focusing on one conversation at once when in a situation with lots of conversations happening, and how I am most able to concentrate on my inner voice when I am walking. Anjeline recognised that I am responsive to external stimuli, and spoke of the modern trend to multi-task.


Our conversation moved onto the inner critic: the internal voice that tries to infiltrate one's thoughts with negativity. You are not good enough, your actions are not good enough, the inner critic attempts to prevent you from doing things and be less confident. We recognise that the inner critic is frustrating and it takes a lot of effort to challenge the thoughts, but that there is some purpose to the inner critic. It drives us to better ourselves.


I introduced my experience of the presence of a creative critic in addition to an inner critic. Whereas the inner critic tends to focus on the person as a whole, the creative critic is critical of what I am creating artistically. It tries to prevent me from continuing pursuing ideas and belittles what I do.


I spoke about my recent experience of contacting my inner child, and the development of an ability to identify with my different selves, accept the different selves and work with the different selves in a way to make my mental health as positive and stable as possible. This has taken years, and is still very much in the process of developing. It is a skill that can be learned and practiced.


We ended with a discussion about the relationship between creative individuals, an inner critic and a creative critic in relation to experience, in particular education.


Is the creative critic a development of the inner critic?
Do creative people turn to creativity as a way of dealing with their inner critics?
Are creative people more able to tune into their inner critics because of their creative education?
What does this mean for education in the creative fields?


I am really excited about continuing these discussions with Anjeline, and collaborating in some form or other.


To find out more about Anjeline's music and research, please visit her website


http://anjeline.ph/

A Bodyssey Odyssey Choir

At the weekend I participated in A Bodyssey Odyssey Choir, a singing workshop and performance led by artist Ditte Goard in response to A Bodyssey Odyssey, the current exhibition at BALTIC 39 by Pester & Rossi.

"The event was curated by Gayle Meikle as part of BxNU Respond, an ongoing dialogue between current Northumbria University post-graduate students and PhD researchers and the exhibitions in BALTIC’s Project Space, BALTIC 39.

Newcastle based Ditte Goard was asked to lead a singing workshop resulting in a performance to which members of the public could attend. Ditte works collaboratively with vocal performance and costume to explore ideas of 'folk' - especially folk song and storytelling. Going against our hierarchical and materialistic world, 'folk' traditions belong to no one and yet to anyone who claims it, without authority or regulation. Goard seeks to discover whether this autonomous activity can be used to give agency to both performer and audience, expand our engagement in political ideas and ultimately foster our sense of identity and independence."

There were about 20 people taking part in the workshop, a mixture of male and female, artists and non-artists, singers and non-singers. The presence of children in the group encouraged the adults to lose any inhibitions and enter in the playful spirit of the event.

We began the workshop with some warm-up exercises. Ditte had selected the song 'Women of the world' by Ivor Cutler for us to perform.

"Women of the world take over
'Cos if you don't, the world will come to an end
and it won't take long
and it won't take long"

Once we had learned the song, we decided on the actions that would accompany our singing.

We began stationary and low on the floor, humming. One by one we began singing the Ivor Cutler song, and it was during this that we started to move around the gallery space. Within the performance space we had an array of props and costumes made by Pester & Rossi for the exhibition. As we circulated the space, we began to adorn ourselves and each other with these various items and materials. There was a range of coloured face paints and pots of coloured glitter for us to use. These proved very popular with the children, and the adults were quick to join in. In the next 10 minutes or so the group entered into some kind of ritualistic activity. Although we were all singing the same song, we had started singing at different times, so it was a multilayered round that somehow sounded like a meditative chant. We interacted with each other, painting each others faces, putting garments on each other, scattering glitter over each other and so forth. At one point, one individual laid on the floor and we began walking round them in a circle as if in a form of worship. 

The introduction of party poppers signalled the time for us to stop singing and return to the humming as at the beginning. We removed the various costumes, props and materials we were each wearing, and used the supply of sweeping brushes to gather the glitter and party popper ribbons into a pile. Gradually we all slowed down and took a static position on the floor. Our humming simultaneously became quieter until it stopped completely, marking the end of the performance.

The description above does not do justice to what happened, but I guess that is often the case with art. There was a bond between the performers, even though we had only met as a group less than three hours earlier.

I was surprised to realise the size of the audience that had gathered to witness the performance. Probably the youngest member of the audience (no older than 1 years old) joined in the performance in the latter stages. Not yet able to walk, she shuffled along the floor, thoroughly enjoying covering herself in glitter. 

What a wonderful way to begin the weekend. It certainly made me twinkle inside and out! Thanks to all those who made it happen.

Circus Introducing... Sarah Grundy

The next of the Circus Between Worlds Newcastle artists to be featured here is Sarah Grundy. Sarah is an interdisciplinary artist who works in sound, performance, theatre, and music. The majority of her work looks to worldmaking – creating an idealised alternative for living in or dealing with society.



She is also part of ‘The Anima Collective’ who explore the potential of the voice through singing.



For Circus Between Worlds Sarah will create a costumed vocal performance exploring aspects of political theory. Her work focuses on the manner in which capitalism's success is born out of its seductive qualities and demonstrates how the circus successfully appropriates capitalist visuals to promote a different political stance.



At the our last rehearsal Sarah performed a version of her performance as a work in progress. She used a loop pedal to create layers of her own voice over one another, and the rhythmn of the drum hrough singing.