WW1 LIVE MUSIC AT OUR FUNDRISING CONCERT BY RADIO DAYS AND THE BLOOMSBURY CHOIR

Christmas Truce: A Concert for Peace

Singing4Health CIC is organizing a fundraising Christmas concert in aid of the Bloomsbury Patient Network. All proceeds from the event will be used to fund the provision of music activities of The Bloomsbury Choir. With specialist in the music of this era, Radio Days Music.
The concert is a commemoration of the 1914 Christmas Truce on the Western Front, when British and German soldiers exchanged seasonal greetings and sung Christmas carols together. To celebrate that event, the fundraising concert for peace will bring together on stage Radio DaysMusic, who specializes in Edwardian music and songs from the times of the Great War, The Bloomsbury Choir, community volunteers from Richmond, and special guests – teachers from the German School London.

Songs from the Great War years, interleaved with little known stories, will capture the spirit of the era, telling the story of the rush to war and of the war resisters. The finale of the concert will be a candlelit performance “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht”.
Dec 12, 7.30pm, Old Town Hall, Richmond, adults £15, concessions £10, bloomsburynetwork.co.uk/tickets

ON BEAUTY AND CREATIVITY, WITH MENNO KUIJPER

I am interviewing Menno Kuijper, a great cabaret artist based in London, a very clear mind and a lovely person. I wanted to know more about his views on Cabaret and the way that music and song writing has become an important part not only of his career but also of his personal development. Our talk was long (it will give me scope for a second episode on Cabaret). This is an excerpt of our discussion.

Maria: When did you start writing?

Menno: From a very young age I was always writing stories, or singing or drawing, I used to draw loads, and all these things are about story telling, but just in different ways.  In my teens, and especially in my twenties, I gravitated much more towards the songwriting, but always more from the point of view of the lyrics and the idea of the song rather than melodically putting a song together.  I don’t really consider myself a ‘melody’ person as I’ve never learned to play an instrument and think ‘OK, I should work together with people who really understand music and melodies’, but having worked with composers I’m now beginning to think more in terms of melodies and instruments, how we could harmonise it...so that's quite new to me.

One morning I woke up and I had a melody in my head and I didn't know where it came from!  It was just there in my head, kind of sad and melancholic, and the words where just there!  So I quickly got my phone, recorded myself humming the tune and wrote down the words, and within minutes had it all down. I looked at the words and the thought “What the hell is this? What the hell is this song? Where did it came from?”  It's called “Fuck me senseless!” I just thought “How bizarre”, and I looked at the lyrics and I thought “Is this me?”, “Are this things I feel?”, “Is this desire on my part?” or “Is it just something that came out of a dream?” Who knows!

Maria: You are a very good lyricist.  Do you see yourself as someone who tells stories through music?

Menno:   I’ve always seen myself as a storyteller before I call myself a singer or a performer – its about the story telling.  I like to write, I like to perform, I like to sing, I like to draw, I like to put songs together... it's all about taking something and find the right way to express it.  So, what form is it going to take? What I really like is when something takes shape by itself, to have a very organic approach. And I think this is something I'm focusing much more now, like you have an idea and you just go with it, you don't have a plan, you just see what happens.

Maria: Has story telling help you survive to some extent?

Menno: Yes, I guess, I was always in this fantasy world.  I remember my mum, she used to check up on me when I was supposed to be sleeping and then she would say “You're still awake!” and I'd say “Yes, I’ve got too much going on in my head”. Now, of course, as a child, you don't have stuff like bills or your job to worry about, so it was all fantasy and weird stuff!

Maria: so did you get rid of so much stuff going on or you always got more?

Menno: Well, I think that from the age of about six-seven I got bullied a lot in school because I was quite girly, and not like a ‘traditional boy’, so I think it was part a escapism. My dad would say to me “get out of that pink cloud”, and by “pink cloud” he meant this fantasy world I lived in, because I was always bumping into walls or breaking things. I tried to sit on the sofa once and I sat over the side table instead and broke this beautiful lamp that my mother had inherited. So that was always like a drama because I was like “in another world” most of the time, so he just wanted me to get my feet on the ground. That's why he said “get of that pink cloud!”, and I never liked that because I didn't understand it, I would think “what pink cloud? I'm not on a cloud! I can't see it!”. But I would just be writing, writing, writing stuff...and then when I was a teenager I wanted to perform, I had seen cabaret artists and comedians on TV and I thought “Oh, I wanna do that!”. And I started doing some performing in high school. And then I started to write songs, but in Dutch.

Maria: Cabaret has to do with critic. It can be very political. Does that help you express your ideas?

Menno: For me, nowadays it’s even more like that, I have a clear point to get something across. As a teenager it was mostly whimsical stuff, but now I want to write a whole play about religious based homophobia, which of course, stirs up a lot of emotions.

Maria: The song you sang the other day “Equal opportunity shagger”, makes a point!

Menno: yes, and what's really interesting about that is that I've performed it in different places and it does make a point on how people today face online dating, and how we use apps and meeting apps for sex purely, how you commodify people and you don't see people as a person but just as a body, people can look at you as a collection of body parts, and “Do you have all the body parts that I want in one body?” Or “Do I even care about your body? --I just want a particular type of penis”. It get's broken down and compartmentalized so much.  It's not about knowing someone anymore.

Maria: that's interesting, specially coming from someone who also works for the beauty industry. Do you relate those thoughts to that other job?

Menno:  I see it as something very different and separate, I've never consciously related it to the work I do for hair salons (because I also work with hair salons and spas and beauty saloons).

Maria: That has a lot to do with people who want to look good.

Menno: Or feel good.

Maria: We do live in a day and age where the physical is very much emphasised all the time.

Menno: Yes, if you look at all those girls in adverts and see how much they've been enhanced, through lightning, through make up, afterwards in photoshop their eyes are made bigger, the jaw line is made sharper...or whatever, so much of what we are presented is fabricated, and I am quite political about this. “Equal opportunity shagger” is about, “Lets be a bit more open minded”.

Maria: and it's a beautiful song.

Menno: I did it in a bar in Dublin, and one guy heard it and came to me afterwards and he was saying “Actually, that really made me think”, and that is to me a great compliment, because as a story teller I like to do two things: I like to inform and entertain. Together. But if someone gets more from the informing part that I do, that to me is the end goal. And it's not that I say “I know everything and this is what you should be thinking”, that is not what it is about, but obviously, you go through life, you observe things, and you want to address them.

Maria: what is beauty for you?

Menno: Away from performance?

Maria: Away from performance.

Menno: it's all about the eyes and the feeling a person has around them. At the end of the day if I find someone who is very grounded a very calm, then that's beautiful, ‘cause I tend to be all over the place and need someone to balance that.  And someone who is understanding and is open, that is beautiful. 

Menno and myself spent some minutes improvising, and this is part of what happened next. A most enjoyable morning!




 © Maria Soriano 2014, Singing4Health

INTO THE SMALL -- CONTRIBUTING TO MAKING A STRONG COMMUNITY

When you already belong to a community, have you ever thought that perhaps you know eveyone you need to know and there is no need to know more people?

Or you believe you need to meet many more people in order to have access to either fun activities, network more, have more friends or access specific information?

What if looking to the people you already have around you discover you don't really know them?

Not talking about people who feel isolated and not belonging to any kind of groups, but being part of a choir or any other community group can be so rewarding if you really get to know who is around you that you would be surprised of the reach that can have. We get used to belong to different networks, neighbourhood, parents association, dance lesson, choir, community groups... and many times pass through them not really getting to know people and not allowing ourselves the opportunity for discovery of what we already have around.

When I started to get to know better the people in my choir, I realized so much potential and so much richness, that I never felt the need of trying to meet anyone else. Although of course I will, this is just to say: think of so much people you might be having right at your side, and how little you know about them. If you approach and open up to them and listen to their stories, you will realize how much more interesting everything is around you, how many fascinating people circulate through our lives every day and we are unaware of it, thinking that perhaps one day we will meet someone more special or more interesting.

Your community will become stronger the better you get to know each other, so that you will also naturally stand by each other and create bonds and offer support in a way that rushing one activity after the other won't. 

Special people is all around you, in whatever tribe you already belong to. 

You are already surrounded by the most interesting people. Get to know them.

Just open your eyes, open your ears, and enjoy and acknowledge that immense potential.

  © Maria Soriano, 2014

FOOD, VOICE AND RISKS...WITH MOISES PÉREZ

Moisés Pérez is one of the founders of MuOm, the Barcelona overtone singing choir, very unique and beautiful music project that visited London last 25th and 26th July. They use techniques such as "overtone singing" and "throat singing", that come from Tuva, Mongolia, Tibet and also the Xhosa people in South Africa.
Moisés is the only Spanish person who has ever participated in a competition of troat singing in Tuva. He stayed at home for a few nights and I had the chance and pleasure to talk with him about music, singing, health, love, life and more... and this is a part of what happened.

Maria: What did you study?

Moises: I studied Biology in University as Undergraduate. But I've never felt a Biologist. Or nothing.

Ma: And how does one feels like “a biologist”?

Mo: I have never felt like anything. There are people who can say “I'm a biologist”. I studied biology. To “be”... I don't know “what” I am. But I worked in waste water treatments with natural systems and involved for various years in a government department for sewage discharges licenses.

Ma: And even if you “are” not a biologist, why did you choose Biology?

Mo: When I was a teenager, what was really doing was to study music in Conservatory, up to the professional degree: four years of guitar, sol-fa, two years of harmony, a couple of years of singing... but I was in a way “obliged” by my parents to study a degree... so I left Madrid to study in another city, expand myself and explore other disciplines. I started to do contemporary dance, theatre... joined an amateur Peruvian music group, in which we played flutes, and that was a great experience... but it felt like life was taking me through other paths, I was also very active in the ecologist movement, had a lot of meetings about it and music had to take a second position.

Ma: Are you vegetarian for environmental reasons or for any other reasons?
Mo: I started being vegetarian when I was 19, but well, I don't consider myself to be really a vegetarian, or I don't define myself as such. In the beginning it started because I had a shock doing some practices on arthropods in Galicia because a sea warm I had to kill to preserve it, and then I forgot about it and the bottle got rotten... that made me felt really bad about senseless and futile deaths, all that was really very intense for me. I don't know, but that was a very strong experience.

I have always felt very connected to nature, and this experience made me think and reconsider my way of eating animals. I've had many stages, sometimes I eat animals, others I didn't, for health and environmental reasons, but it was after a Vipassana retirement various days doing meditation ten hours a day, where I not just thought about it but I also felt it: it really came from inside, I felt I didn't really want to do that. I prefer to avoid it.

Since them I am more strict about it, but I still eat meat occasionally. For example when I was in Tuva, the nomads kill animals specially to give you meat, and I didn't felt like I should say no to them.

Ma: Are we what we eat? Do we sing what we eat?

Mo: It does affect the vibes. In our group we have the tendency to have a healthy way of eating. Not that we should be obsessed about it because that could also be insane, but going beyond if you eat meat or not, most of us look for ecological products, or raw products, with a lot of enzymes, with a lot of life energy, that in the end will have some repercussion in your body and your energy. And I'm sure that this will also help for singing.

Ma: Give us a recipe for a concert.
Some hours of fast, lots of water.

Mo: That doesn't make you weak?
Not really, I think that so that you can really lower your diaphragm is best that all that area is empty. And also a lot of being concentrated in what you have to do, so that external organizational factors can't affect you. I prefer to be in retreat and focused in what I am going to do. I also avoid chocolate.

Ma:Do you think that affects at all?

Mo: It does. It creates mucus. And on the days before a concert I avoid flours and dairy products.

Ma: So you think there can be mindful singing and mindful eating?(Laughs)
Mo: Yes... to me it's all linked. It's about how you live your life according to what you feel it's important, so you blend it all. Singing is part of my own process, the same as being part of consume co-operatives and creating them, so that you help the ecological agriculturist who respects and values environment, so you value this and buy from him. And these aspects are all important to me.

Ma: What matters to you?
Mo: To be well. I believe that the most important is to be well, because in reality everything external is just external. Maybe I give it importance because I want to promote someone's well being and with my actions I try to help to have a better world, to promote certain structures. But in the end what matters the most is to be well with yourself because you can be a great ecologist and very important, but be a jerk.

Ma: I recently had someone talking to me about how dangerous can it be to construct your identity in the things you do. “If I sing in this choir, that is my identity, that I do gigs...” so if you loose your voice, what are you going to do?

Mo: That has happened to me and it was a great lesson. It happened to me while learning khoomei (Tuva's throat singing) and later on in critical moments, like going to record a CD and loosing my voice, and with all the load of work that I was putting into the group, I am also trying to relax myself about this, as I have been putting some pressure sometimes on it to pull the group forward. In the end live was telling me “be calmed and quiet”, so I try to be as calm and fair as possible rather than being with lots of emotional ups and downs.

Ma: How are you now?
Mo: I feel fine! I think I am in a moment of my life in which I feel very much connected to something very and deep inside myself, my own life purposes, and I am feeling like everything will be okay. I am also an optimist!

Coming to England has also been a great step for MuOm, and it feel like we are finally coming out of our frontiers and even if it's symbolic, this means a materialization of our intention, so there is a part of me that is put to rest because of this.

Ma: Would you like to sing something?
Mo: Okay.

Ma: Whatever you like. And I might join...or not...I don't know.
Mo: I can make a drown for you, with a harmonic of 5^th, and then you can find where to fit in. I won't move too much from there.

Ma: You do as you like. But if you feel like moving... just do it.
Mo: Well, I might move a bit.

(Laughs)

Mo: You are a provoker!
(Laughs)

Ma: I can't help it!

Mo: Because this thing I've just done, I normally don't do.

Ma: Ah, so you do this sometimes?
Mo: It's inspired in the Chukotka singing.

Ma: Blimey, what is that?
Mo: I had before seen the Inuit singing in a video doing something somehow similar, but then I had the opportunity to meet this Chukotka woman and she showed me this. Chukotka is a part of Siberia close to the Bering Strait. Their singing is very interesting, very guttural and very ancestral. Inuit do it between two women together, I recommend you to see this because it's breath taking.

Two Inuit women place each other in front of the other and it's a vocal game with some rules and connotations. What they do is to make one kind of sound when the voice comes out and other when taking a breath in, in a rhythmical way. They can then make changes on their vocal game, and the other woman has to follow, and if she doesn't follow they laugh or just stop the whole thing.

It's very interesting because you can see what they do can get really complex in rhythm and it's really amazing.

Ma: In my case, I had no idea about this. I just have my headphone and I am “there”. I mean, I am must listening and reacting to what you are doing.
Mo: Yes, I can see. That is why you are a great provoker.

(Laughs).

And you took me to places where it's normally harder for me to get.

Ma: It's fun. I didn't know that there is an Inuit doing something any similar, as to me is about listening and because I am not trying to do anything or not doing it, that is just what I feel like.

Mo: And this is a good starting point, this is what I use to say to my students, that it's about exploring your voice. You can later shape it in a way or another in order to present it to an audience, but if you have not explored it you won't find certain things.

Mo: Also, after this you can create a work of conscience. If you put some conscience to what your are allowing to happen, you may find something you have done and then you can learn how you did it so that you can do it again. If you are able to retain what is was, that moment, perhaps you can even come back to it.

Ma: I understand that even if you don’t understand it or make the effort to retain it, once you did it, it's already in your “circuit”.

Mo: It's easier. Easier to do it again.

Ma: So with practice it can happen again by it's own. Even if you where unable to retain that moment, your body did it, so your body has in a way “learned” it. It's there somewhere. It will be easier to let it happen again. Even during a singing lesson, sometimes the singing student's anxiety for trying to do again something that came out “well”, like “gosh, I did that right! I want to do that again!”. And that makes exactly that you cannot do it again!

Mo: Maybe its more about “re-cognizing” so that when it happens again, you can recognize it again, and so when you have recognized it a number of times, you can then produce it, more than forcing yourself into it at all cost.

Ma: I believe that if you did it once... you know you can...
Mo: I also explain when teaching overtone singing techniques. The body is wise. Students are exploring and sometimes comes out something really sharp, and that is the way to go forward... so if you put your ear in it then your body can register it without having to look for something specific, because there are so many micro movements and adjustments that one needs doing that we cannot really have all that in mind at the same time. There are so many factors that is very complex to think about all this. Your body processes at a much faster speed if we don't put the rational factor into it. So if you put your internal ear instead of your head, then your body can get there on it's own.

Ma: The body on it's own before your mind. The mind is fast... but the body can be faster.

Mo: Of course. Rationalizing it's a process that can take time, so this is passing through another circuit.

Ma: Maybe If you don't risk to do anything new, you won't know your voice well enough.

Mo: Yes, because your voice talks about your limits. So if you really begin to truly explore it, even if it sounds however it may sound, it doesn't matter, or if anyone can think aesthetically what the f*** are you doing?

Ma: Exactly. This recording we have just done, we may want to display it publicly or not... but is not about that.
Mo: No... it's important that one has fun too.

Ma: Did you have fun?

Mo: Yes.
Ma: Me too.

 © Maria Soriano 2014, Singing4Health

MuOM, BARCELONA HARMONIC SINGING CHOIR

And now for something completely different, I want to speak about harmonic singing.

Also known as overtone singing, is a type of singing in which the singer manipulates the sounds created as air travels from the lungs, passing the vocal folds and out of the lips to produce a melody. This way the singer can produce two sounds at the same time, and even three!

I can't really say more about it of what you can google around, but I really wanted to introduce you to a lovely choir from Barcelona that performs this special kind of singing that is used traditionally in various countries and cultures like in Mongolia, in Siberia, Tibet, Pakistan and even the Inuit and in Sardinia.

MuOm is a Barcelona based ensemble that uses harmonic singing and Mongolian throat singing with a unique concept of connecting to their audiences. They not only make audience sing with them during a part of their performances, but are able to choreography, design and conceptualize every performance so that there is always really interesting happening all the time.

MuOm has just visited London and Wales for the first time, giving two concerts in London (St Peter's Church in Vauxhall and St Etherlburga's Centre for Peace and Reconciliation) plus one at Llangollen Fringe Festival 2014.(Find more information here).

Even if as a choir singer you are not specifically interested in practising harmonic singing, I can assure you that this practice does indeed make your voice richer in tone, and at the same time helps with your concentration, as it can be meditative and calming.

I had the pleasure to lodge at home one of the singers and founder of the choir, Moisés Perez, and that was a fantastic opportunity to talk about music, singing, live, songs, choirs... and more music and how that is good for your body and your mind. We have recorded a podcast together that will come out as soon as I have the time to translate it into English.

Thanks to Cumie Dunio for making contact, and thanks to all the fabulous singers who decided to show up and sing with us at a party in London the day before.

It was a lovely experience to be at the concert at St Peter's Church in Vauxhall. My arms and legs felt softer after listening one hour of this fabulous music. A truly unique experience that I will recommend again should they visit UK again.

Silence vs talking in the Inclusive Choir

Silence and talking in the Inclusive Choir

Marsilio Ficino (1433-1498), Florentine philosopher wrote a wonderful sentence: “Music is nothing more than a Decoration of Silence”. What a wonderful statement. 

Shall we take it to the choir?

Undoubtedly silence is in many ways a pre condition for music making. In silence we concentrate, in silence we can really listen... so that we realize that total silence is almost impossible. In silence we meditate, and in silence we keep calm before sound happens.

There are different and controversial feelings from choir singers towards silence during choir practice. Some people is not used to keep silence, and may even feel uncomfortable in silence. Others need so much to be in silence so they can concentrate. Some people tend to talk a lot, or wish to. Others don't. Some people don't get bothered by some talking, others get really nervous about it.

So what is my approach having in mind I promote inclusive choirs?

I personally like silence. I also don't mind some talking. Talking can mean that people is happy together and enjoy to communicate, is not something I would always evaluate as “bad”. Can I ignore chatting when is not too loud while I conduct? I can. But still my choirs need a policy on how to tackle this issue.

Because in an inclusive choir it's a lot about tolerance and developing empathy, so both ends need to be addressed: the people who do the talking and the people who get irritated at it (if any).

I wouldn't take for granted that talking is a lack of respect for the others, that will necessarily make people uncomfortable. As much as I will still promote silence. But I won't enforce it out of fear or ridiculing people publicly because that is a killer for creativity and wellness.

Let's take an example. We sometimes take for granted the need of silence in order to learn a song. We love African songs. Songs from Southafrica, also from Tanzania. I do have some lovely songs from a great selection that professor Polo Vallejo has been compiling for more than twenty years and published in different formats.

So would you imagine that in the kind of villages Dr Vallejo visited to record the music from the Wagogo tribe, there was silence all the time? I know from his books, from his conferences and from my personal knowledge of Dr Vallejo that they don't. Singing is a part of the life of the Wagogo, and they do it while working, walking, cooking, collecting the crop... and there is never silence around that: you can hear in his recordings and see in his videos people talking, laughing, clapping at different tempos, and different sounds like animal grunts and grain smashing. I'm sure they never consider they need any specific kind of silence of concentration in order to learn any music, they just do it! And not having to go as far as Tanzania, I've many times seen two or three people in Spain all of them talking and speaking at the same time, and they did not fail to understand what the others where saying. ;)

So is it perhaps a cultural thing to think we must all be in total silence for 2 hours in a classroom? I believe it comes with the personality and it also comes with cultural ways of understanding the limit of what is “disturbing”.

So in an inclusive choir with people from different cultures, different believes, different learning capacities and different degrees of commitment, I believe that tolerance is the key.

 I believe that it's more about concentrating in the positive side: promote silence instead of enforce non-talking. Encourage singers to enjoy some moments in silence, rather than tell people to stop making noises.

How can I put that in practice as a choir leader? I have listed a few tips here. Maybe you can add more of your own.

* Make the choir singers understand that you won't treat them like little children but as adults, and that it's their responsibility to keep focused.

* Understand that not everybody is used to silence (not even comfortable in it). Silence requires conscious practice.

* Understand and explain that when we really focus we can even train ourselves to overcome background noise (not every concert's acoustic will be ideal so it's not a bad thing to practice with some background noise sometimes). That it may not be ideal, that life is not always ideal. That it's okay not to be always ideal.

* Develop strategies to help people accept each other, and make yourself as choir leader and effort to understand and accept different attitudes and feelings towards both silence and rumours.

* Help yourself as a choir leader not to get anxious when there is too much silence (people don't talk to each other) or too much talking. Talking calmly and firmly will work better than displaying an anxious body language. Work slow into why that happens and you will be surprised at how much people can achieve.

* If a specific choir member does too much talking it might be a good idea to have a conversation with that person (out of everybody's sight and ears) and try to find out why that is. You might find issues you where unaware of, and also you can make that person understand the reasons for the need of silence not having to put off that person in public.

* Give specific moments during rehearsals for talking and for making “sounds of release” (sighs, deep breaths with some sound, anything that will help release tension various times during the choir practice).

* Practice silence in every rehearsal.

It will require continuous adjusting to keep the fine line between the need to communicate with each other in a friendly environment and the need for focused attention. And that is your job if you are into community inclusive choirs: you need as many social skills as musical ones.

Finally, it comes to my mind a great anecdote about composer, teacher and musicologist Polo Vallejo. When he met for the first time the Wagogo people (a group form central Tanzania), he explained to them that he was a music teacher.

The Wagogo laughed at him.

Wagogos cannot conceive that something as natural as music is, needs to be taught.

We are, indeed, diverse.

And that should be our strength.

This article was published by Maria Soriano at www.choirplace.com where you can find more thoughts and resources about choirs and singing.

Bibliographical reference

«Polo Vallejo Patrimonio musical de los wagogo de Tanzania: contexto y sistemática (Patrimoine musical des Wagogo de Tanzanie: contexte et systématique)», Cahiers d’ethnomusicologie, 18/|2005

© Maria Soriano, 2014

IT'S FLAMENCO SINGING TIME!

I did something really special this Easter holidays, and that was to spend some days in Almeria (Spain), where my family comes from. I had the chance to listen to Lidia Plaza and her group of flamenco musicians (David Rodriguez -guitar, Salvador Martos -percussion and Chochi Duré -accordion) at La Guajira.

Lovely music, very well assembled musicians, a good choice of repertoire, with modern and early flamenco pieces (as it corresponds to a living tradition) and superb interpretation by the voice of Lidia Garcia. I couldn't miss the opportunity of a short interview on how singing makes a flamenco singer feel. She noticed me inmediately as I walked close to the back door, and came to find me, and warmly agreed to meet us after the concert for a chat.

How did you start singing flamenco?

It runs in my family. My father used to sing flamenco and

play guitar, so I've been listening to this kind of music since I was a kid. I didn't start singing myself until I was 29 years, so that was quite late. I joined a music school in Roquetas that had a flamenco workshop with flamenco singing lessons, so there I went.

Do you think that singing flamenco has ever help you personally?

Yes, a lot. It's given me confidence, and happiness, I can wind out when I've had any problem. Singing renews me inside, it feels like my cells are being renewed. It's regenerating, it makes me feel alive, and when I'm on stage I enjoy it to the maximum.

When I sing in public I try to make others feel how much I am enjoying it so that others can also feel that adrenaline and sense of renewal and well being when they listen to something that they are enjoying.

Do you feel that there is anything specific to flamenco singing with regards to emotional expression?

Yes. Flamenco singing is pure feeling. Depends on what palos you sing you get different emotions, some are happier, like tangos, alegrias and bulerias, that were performed by our ancestors to celebrate popular parties. But the mine singing, the seguidilla, the soleá, it's about suffering and difficulties that people had to go through in a tough area. It's a very special kind of singing, with lots of suffering and it comes from a very deep place inside one. They express how people could cope with the everyday hardness, how people used to live in the past. That was the way they used to express it, by singing.

If I tell you singing and health, what comes to your mind?

If you sing, your mood improves, you can really become happier and you get closer to an authentic state of health.

What are your projects for the future? What do you aim for?

What I really want is to sing and to be in a stage and share music with people, an audience to enjoy with me. That's what I always want to do, with disregard of the fact if I record a disc or I become famous and all that fantasies, but my biggest wish is to sing... I am already fulfilling it!

 A lovely night in front of the medieval arabic castle of the city, that ended with a walk in the warm andalusian night. I highly reccomend Lidia Plaza and her ensemble for performances in UK.

SEE VIDEO

SINGING WITH NO WORDS

Singing in harmony is lovely... but so it is playing with sound. To allow ourselves to stop and listen to the sound of the voices that are together, not worrying about being or not in a particular "tune", and being able to pay attention to this cluster of sounds, and understand that it's also a material that can be explored and it's bound to be a fantastic experience.

I have many times been approached by people who love singing, and from whom singing in a group is a very meaningful experience. There are others who might enjoy to sit and listen, but won't say they like to sing. When asked, the reply is variations of:

- I don't like it because I don't do it well

So the more self-conscious one is, the most likely to not enjoy singing if they are aware that they cannot follow a tune. But we did various experiments. Last December, at Kingston Centre for Independent Living, I offered a session with both people who enjoed singing and people who didn't like singing. I said that nobody should do anything they did not feel like, and started to create a group dynamic and some fun warm up exercises. No need to leave your chair, no need to sing. But we started to produce sound, and do play and paint with our sounds in the air.

In less than 20 minutes we had a joyful circle of improvisers, who where happily participating in a common musical piece, each one at their own pace, with their own contributions. Those not so comfortable with tune, could do percussion sounds... or atonal melodies that where integrated in the whole circle that was becoming more and more happy!

Needless to say that those who "don't like singing" had a great time too. :)

We did a similar experience at Leith Hill for the challenge event that Heritage2Health took there last October 2013. In this case it was people with learning difficulties, their friends, carers and families. And again we played with sound, using some techniques that have been used by free improvisers and contemporary composers. One discovery was to find out that sometimes people with LD where much more outgoing and daring to produce much more kinds of different sounds, that the people with no LD, so in this situation the edges between disabled and not disabled where very much merging. People who didn't have LD but where much more self conscious, would need more time before they are ready to produce a variety of sounds without becoming very critical with themselves. Finally everybody bind together in sound production without many worries about how they should call the experience.

But people who is familiar with the work of Evan Parker, Fred Frith, John Cage, Morton Feldman, John Zorn, Eddie Prevost, Keith Tippet would identify this kind of approach to voice and sound. And those who don't... it was pure joy and enjoyment on the freedom of the voice and the body! 

I came back home on the copilot seat, relieving the scene in my mind and thinking on the enormous possibilities that playing with sounds can have to make us feel non judgamental, at ease with our voices and bodies, and free.

Looking forward to more.

ARE YOU IN TOUCH?

There is something that struck me since I have been conducting choirs here in UK. That is the fact that some people gave me, amongst other kinds of positive and most interesting feedback, comments about “surprising” and “unusual” pedagogy. They were referring to touch.

I remember that around when I was first starting my voice studies, my teachers would make take my hand over his upper belly and breath, so that I could “understand” what was happening with the air. I have never been a very touchy person, but I understood that by feeling other's people's abdomen I would have a most clear picture of what they where actually doing that if it was just explained with words. And when my last singing teacher, the wonderful Esperanza Abad wanted to explain me her way to understand “three dimensional breathing” she has making me feel in my hands how she was doing it, and that one of the most interesting and revealing sessions about breathing that I ever had.

Later on, in my time being a student first in UK, there was so much to do about touch! And even if socially I am not the touchiest person in this world, I learned that was good for me for many reasons. Not only I could be able to understand better if I touch, what other people is doing with their bodies, but also touch is important with regards to emotional expression, and by touch we can learn to help others relax and communicate so many things. And not just that, there are significant health benefits around physical contact and a lot has been written about it.

Touch can help others to feel supported, to calm down, to connect with others, and from a technical point of view, to understand quicker what another body is doing. So sometimes in our warm ups we include some gentle touch on the shoulders of the person at your side, or hold hands in a circle, or if I am explaining about how does the diaphragm lower and make space in your body all around (including the kidney area) it works very well to let a student put their palm over my kidney area while I breath and then sing. It can save me hours of explaining!

Of course, this would never mean you are to invade the personal space of the others (I am the first one who does not like to be touched randomly by people for no reason), or touch people without realizing if they are or not comfortable with it, but whilst I must say I never got anyone unhappy about it, my surprise was that some people found it surprising.

- But is it okay for you?

- Oh, yes, it's fine... I was just surprised about it because I never did this before.

- But should I stop doing it?

- Please, don't!

So I do use touch in my sessions. 

It surprised me as much as surprised others, that they found it “surprising” and wonder how much policies have changed in the last twenty years in England. I left UK in 2004 to teach in Madrid, and now when I am back it looks like things I used to do and learned here are not so often happening due to policies.

- You should write a document saying that your choir workshops can include touch, and get people to agree with it and sign it. -I was once told.

And I will do if it it's necessary but wonder what has happened in the years I've been away. I was surprised to find that some people thought that my surprising methods are due to a cultural difference (I am Spanish), and I smile while I remember that it was in England were I learned about physical contact and emotional release.

And I totally understand that institutions must have

a way to prosecute abusers and prevent abuse. But wonder if preventing physical contact can be somehow alienating at times. And I was surprised to hear that a yoga teacher told me he never touches anybody, so if a posture needs to be corrected he can only do it with words and explanations, or demonstrations. And I wonder if this is natural. And I know it's not.

So I will keep doing my job the best I can, and appreciating all the lovely people that gives me feedback, that keep coming to my “surprising” sessions and decide that they actually like them, whist I'm sure other professionals share these values too here in England too.

And I thank the comments that “inform” me about the fact that I should take on board new policies that didn't exist 20 years ago, so that I can be aware and try to work gently with everybody so that it will never be abrupt, but actually reinforce trust in others and in ourselves, as touch is a way of very meaningful expression that reaches were words cannot reach.

I leave you an interesting talk by Dacher Keltner on Touch. He is an UC Berkeley psychology professor and faculty director of the Greater Good Science Center, shares his insights from the new science of touch: compassionate communication, touch therapies, and proof that "to touch is to give life."

Further reading:

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/hands_on_research

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/23/health/23mind.html?_r=0

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/wired-success/201209/why-have-we-lost-the-need-physical-touch

Browne, J. (2004). Early relationship environments: physiology of skin-to-skin contact for parents and their preterm infants. Clinics In Perinatology, 31(2): 287-98. Denison, B. (2004). Touch the pain away: new research on therapeutic touch and persons with fibromyalgia syndrome. Holistic Nursing Practice, 18(3): 142-51.

Geldard, F. A. (1960, May 27). Some neglected possibilities of commu-

nication.Science, 131,1583–1588

Hall, Edward T. The silent language, Anchor Books, New York 1973.

Hertenstein, M. J., Holmes, R., McCullough, M., & Keltner, D. (2009). The communication of emotion via touch. Emotion, 9, 566-573.

Hertenstein, M. J., Keltner, D., App, B., Bulleit, B. A., Jaskolka, A. R. (2006). Touch communicates distinct emotions. Emotion, 6, 528-533.

Montagu, A. Touching: Human Significance of the Skin. 1971, New York: Harper & Row

Weze, C., et al. (2005). Evaluation of healing by gentle touch. Public Health, 119(1): 3-10. Wood, D., Craven, R., & Whitney, J. (2005). The effect of therapeutic touch on behavioural symptoms of persons with dementia. Alternative Therapies In Health And Medicine, 11(1): 66-74.

SING FOR YOUR HEART NEXT DECEMBER

We have received a lovely invitation to contribute to "Sing for Your Heart", an initiative from Heart Research UK, that we think we should share with you.

A Sing for Your Heart event encourages choirs, singers and people alike all over the country to sing, whether in a train station, bus station or at home on the karaoke to raise money for Heart Research UK. Choirs and singers can sign up to sing at one of our organised city venues, but they also want to encourage everyone to set up their own events and sing to raise money for them.  Not only is singing a great way to raise money, research has shown that it's also good for your heart. It has been proven that singing not only warms the hearts of so many people all over the world but research shows that singing is also good for the heart.

There are many ways in which you can help from planning your own Sing for your Heart event to supporting one of our Sing for your Heart events by volunteering to collect for a couple of hours or recruiting you local choir, music group, singers to perform or why not go the extra mile and coordinate one of our events. 

If you require further information or fundraising support please contact Claire in the fundraising team on community@heartresearch.org.uk or call 0113 297 6212.

More information at  http://heartresearch.org.uk/fundraising/sing-your-heart

HOW DO WE WANT OUR CHOIRS (The Singing4Health approach)

We want our choirs to be inclusive.- a choir for everybody who wants to join regardless of how people consider that they can sing or not. Even people who consider themselves to be “tone deaf” has proved considerable improvement with practice, relaxation, enjoyment and lack of judgement. I even had students in the past who said “they couldn't sing” and ended up a three year period being able to sing solos from musical comedies in front of an audience! Never underestimate your skills.

A workshop in a lovely place, Leith Hill. For Heritage2Health.

We want our choirs to be embracing- a group that at the same time that they do musical and body training, are working towards community building and socializing with the others. This process is as important as any final concert, performance or presentation; what is happening inside the choir, that is a matter of days and weeks and months of collective practice. We become inclusive when we are able to recognize and accept everybody with disregards of their “apparent” skills. And I say apparent meaning that many people join choirs thinking they can do less of what they can really do, and on the other hand, there are skills that sometimes remain unnoticed in a first instance that mean a lot to a group, and they are not always related to singing: patience, empathy and not being judgemental are some of them. People who naturally stand out in this are a real treasure for any group, as positive attitudes are contagious!

We want our choirs to be a safe place where to express ourselves- to be able to balance what as choir singers when sometimes need to give in, in favour of a group sound, so may be our way of singing in a choir won't be exactly the same as our solo singing. At the same time we enjoy and give the opportunity to create spaces where individual expression is supported by the group and each member is given it's time and opportunity to make their own individual contribution to the richness and variety of the whole.

Where we are all on the same boat.
Are we ready to become in our choir the difference that we want for the world?

  ©2014 Maria Soriano

PRIMAL SINGING AS WORKSHOPS FOR WELL BEING (III)

It was then when I was offered the opportunity to do my first workshops in Primal Singing. As before, I started in Yoga centres, offering this technique as 'mindful singing', and getting a wonderful group of people willing to sing and express themselves. I taught at the Yavanna Centre and at the Allegro Spacio, both in Madrid. 

We would do mainly Primal Singing, but also often followed by short songs of students' own choosing. And it was clearly the intense Primal Singing sessions that provided the essential groundwork for students to then be able to meaningfully sing their own songs. 

 Thus I remember how workshop attendees, once attuned to a state of mind that will lead to it, would choose a meaningful song for them and work their emotions over it. The woman who had been forbidden to sing from the age of 12, for example, who now came for a singing lesson in her 60s, and chose a children's song she always loved, through which she got in touch with so many feelings almost forgotten consciously. Or the stiff dancer who chose a song of the loss of youthful innocence, whose muscles relaxed in resonance with her singing that connected her with those primary emotions. 

Such were the incredibly powerful experiences that gave me the assurance and confidence to know that I wanted to develop the Primal Singing method further.

Later on, it was time to move out of my 'comfort zone', and I started to offer it as 'emotional improvisation as a tool in modern singing didactics' for students of voice, particularly at Escuela de Musica Creativa, the largest private music school in Madrid. You can see, published below, a typical example of a workshop in Primal Singing that took place in Madrid in 2007.

For a vivid short summary of what Primal Singing can do for people, I would recommend you watch the following video:

'Before and after Emotional Work session'

During these years, I persevered with my experimental work, observing body expression and body changes as Primal discourse takes place, observing how audiences and participants react to it and would find in it a channel for self expression they didn't have before, or they didn't realize they had. 

I recognised that the health-related aspect of my Primal Singing practice had been growing more salient and more obvious in light both of my own lived experiences, reactions, and personal transformation and of those of participants in my workshops.

© Maria Soriano 2014

PRIMAL SINGING (II)... FROM PARTICIPATION TO PERFORMANCE

It seemed natural to me at that time, as a performing artist, that the next step was to performe Primal Singing in public. After the personal experience and its achievements, I started to do performances in Primal Singing, in the first instance in small venues such as yoga centres, where I offered a theoretical introduction to what Primal Singing was about, followed by a demonstration of it. I also travelled to Lalita, a retreat in the depths of Extremadura's countryside, to deliver demonstrations, and my demonstrations started to become more participative, such that by the end of them the audience would have the chance to choose what emotions I was going to work on. 

This second stage, going public, was risky as one could not have predicted beforehand how the audience would respond to it; but at the same time these were very exciting times. I got a great deal of feedback from a variety of audiences who had not necessarily been exposed to contemporary music before then. In most of the cases something very interesting came out of it: if you authentically feel the feeling, it resonates with the audience irrespective of the form, structure, or modality that the music takes. Is that perhaps what some contemporary music was sometimes lacking, and why it was hard to engage audiences with it? Over recent decades a lot of very complex music has been written that demands a great deal of intellectual and physical effort to produce with exactitude, and yet perhaps at the cost of feeling being lost … But I couldn’t find other people who were following this path I had chosen, so I went on performing and asking for feedback from my audiences.

I graduated from smaller to more major venues. I performed Primal Singing for University Felipe II (Aranjuez-Madrid) in front of a large audience who for the most part did not have any background in listening to atonal music. The result was very much the same: people engaged with it when there was emotion, and improvisation was a huge enhancer of those emotions and the engagement with the audiences.

Contemporary musician and composer Francis Garcia had the opportunity to listen to one of my experimental performances of Primal Singing, and proposed that he collaborate with me and integrate virtual synthesisers in my performances. Voice and synthesisers became a stable duo, performing under the name Punto Zero. It was clear to us that Primal Singing had a cathartic effect and the potential to release people and emotions. We reflected this idea in short videos entitled Primal Elements and Primal Catharsis,  under the direction of Gui Campos.

More experiments took place, and modes of interaction explored, some reacting to touch, as at minute 2.30 of the video 'Hace faltaser...', for example, in which I am blindfolded and take my cue for vocalisation solely from and in response to my arm being manipulated by a workshop participant.

Francis and I started to meet regularly to explore sound, emotion and improvisation together, and ended up producing several shows that were taken into the theatre.

A recommended illustrative video of such a performance is published online as 'Punto Cero: Primal Elements'.

That was, I would say, the culmination of this second stage of the development of Primal Singing, in which I felt confident to perform in front of an audience, and sufficiently well trained to have the necessary awareness for engaging with the audience and at the same time to 'let flow' with no fear, emotions and aesthetic fleeting impressions provoked in and by the very moment itself. Primal Singing became very much 'singing the moment'.

By this time I felt confident in delivering Primal Singing in front of an audience, but much more was yet to come.

PRIMAL SINGING (I) WHAT IS IT?

Primal Singing is about connecting with our emotions through voice, about liberating and giving voice to our inner being, about breaking through the barriers of self-consciousness and fear that alienate us from who we truly are. Let me tell you about my own journey.

In the beginning … Primal Singing as therapy

My first encounter with Primal Singing was in 2003, as accidental as it was serendipitously life-changing. Still emotionally fragile from the upheaval of a divorce, I recognised that I might benefit from therapy through this moment in my life. And so it was that, on the recommendation of a friend of mine, I began therapy sessions with gestalt psychologist Dr Carlos Velasco in Madrid.

It was through Carlos that I discovered Primal Singing, a therapeutic technique that he had been developing over many years and practising with patients since 1995, and which he summarised for me quite simply as “whatever comes to you ...”. Yet behind that deceptively simple statement lay years of theory and practice:

When in 1995 I dared to use with some of my patients this technique that I had begun to call Primal Singing and Dialogue I realised that it was a powerful tool by which we could reach deep into the emotions, to the unconscious, and could expand consciousness. The energies generated by the physical movement (movimientos energéticos) of vocalisation facilitated the discharge of tension, breaking through the barriers of the defences, better enabling the patient to talk about himself. ^1"

Carlos had got into Primal Singing in 1990, when he met a french psicologist, Michel Katzeff, who had been in North America with a group of Native Americans receiving the transmission of this ancestral techniques, the "internal singing". He sat on the floor with him, held his hands and helped him to sing for the first time in this way.

The potentialities and emotional impact of it, for a conservatory trained singer such as myself who had until that moment been singing only Opera and Lied in concert, were truly revelatory. Primal Singing was suggestive, meaningful, and promising … but I still needed to know how far could I take Carlos Velasco's insightful method into new directions.

I decided to give myself the opportunity to explore it more deeply, freed from the interferences of my classical training; and therefore didn't take any bookings for public performances for one year. I was to spend that year doing only Primal Singing in my home. That was my first year of training in Primal Singing! And far from being dull, it was to be a very intense and productive experience.

I had the chance to experiment with my voice with a completely different approach from that which, as a classically educated singer and music professional, I had been doing for many years before. This required an open mind and attitude, it required (and this was challenging for a trained musician) uncritically accepting the vocalisations that I was producing, observation of the mind and body as it happens, and the discovery of the immense potential it had.

It taught me that it can be simultaneously a method for developing vocal technique with conventional voice students, a way to do healing body/mind work through sounds, as well as aesthetic experience in and of itself. It proved to have the potential to help raise awareness of our own emotions and feelings towards people and situations. It was helpful in developing a deeper sense of non-judgement towards others, and I could even feel how it helped the body and the voice connect harmoniously together through the power of emotions.

I will offer a demonstration on Primal Singing on Thursday the 30th, at The Flying Dutchman, in the exhibition "Rainbows through the Lenses" organized by Four in Ten, LGBT service users asociation at the Maudsley Hospital. 156 Wells Way Camberwell, London SE5 7SY

1'Funciones del Canto Primal', http://www.psicoterapia-transpersonal.es/Taller%20Canto%20Primal.htm

"SINGING CALMS YOU DOWN"

It was some nice summer days out of Madrid and near the see, and an International Contemporary Music Festival. I enjoyed so much being there just for the mere closeness to the sea. But no time to go to the beach, as there was lots of work to do. I was commissioned to create the drama part of a new piece, to be premièred by a chamber orchestra, and was staying at home of my friend composer, so that we could make the best of our time.

But time was running over us, as some unexpected urgent work matters took my friend's attention

for some days, and the music was unfinished just a week before the concert. Not that it would be impossible to finish, but it would definitively require my attention for many hours every day.

My friend, was taken away during the day by emergencies at his work as a music consultant, so I was left alone during the day in the quiet of the neighbourhood, to work on my part of the music and write my notes... so that when the night comes and my friend was back, we could revise together the work that I have been doing, and then he would take the lead and continue with the music writing.

This situation lasted for some days... and the day of the première was getting closer. We had almost finished, but our main worry was to give the sheet music on time to the musicians. We had already delivered sheet music to the orchestra, but there was a soloist coming from France. As he was coming from a tour, he won’t be able to print any music if we gave it to him, so we had to go to his hotel as soon as he landed, meet him and give him the sheet music just on time for him to prepare it and have his first rehearsal with the orchestra.

That being said, I would add there are a series of musicians who play Contemporary music who do an amazing job and music reading and at being ready to perform at a very short notice, and fortunately he was one of them. Still, we were in a real rush this time.

We got in the car, and had to go to the other side of the city. I was really nervous, and didn't want to imagine what if we didn't make it on time that night. The clarinettist would have to leave to another meeting, we wouldn’t have the time to meet him and explain him about the piece... so even if I didn't want to think about it, I was thinking about it. All the time.

Jean was driving with a more unworried expression. Traffic was awful, and we had to cross the city from side to side to get to the Hotel.

- Remember that medieval song you sang to me last week? -said him – Can you sing it again?

So I sang it again, that medieval song that took me to Galice and when I was performing in long red robes, songs from Spanish trouvadours...

As soon as I finished... (traffick still being awful).

- That was nice. Can you sing another one?

So I went for another medieval tune... and another, and then for a melody from a Schumman's lied... and then for a popular tune in provençal... as for some years I had been almost exclusively doing medieval repertoire... before starting to learn sephardit songs. Oh, sephardit songs! How many and how much interesting melodies they have!

I went for “Yo m'enamori d'un aire, un aire d'una mujer; D'una mujer mui hermoza, linda de mi coracon.” (I fell in love with an air.. with the air of a woman/ of a very beautiful woman/ beauty of my heart) and that took me to Avrix Mi Galanica (Let me in, my love), another traditional sephardit, where the boy asks the girl to open the door for him and let him in... and she gives all possible excuses for not doing so: my mother is sewing, she will hear us, my brother is writing, he will hear us... I was loud enough, my body opening up and recreating in melismas.

So it was a bright night somewhere in Turkey, where this song was being sung, and in my mind it was summer too... I was really unaware of what was happening.

- You know what? -said Jean. -Singing calms you down. I always knew it.
- So that's why you have been asking me to sing one after another song! -I laughed, and noticed we where already close to the Hotel to deliver the music. I hadn't notice the jam for a long time.

We finally made it and it was very special to hear.
Still thankful for that.