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.

HOW SINGING CAN STRESS YOU OUT

Is singing good for stress? Yes, it can actually stress you out a bit...

1. By rushing to rehearsals, trying to park the car and not finding a space, or getting stuck in public transport at peak times (I really wish there were more morning choirs)
2. By loosing your sheet music, or having it disorganized or arranged in a complicated way. (Unless you learn music by ear).
3. By trying to reach notes you are not ready for or you simply haven't got in your vocal range
4. By singing in a group that tries to perform too many songs for the rehearsal time they have
5. By singing in a group that works at a faster pace than you can cope with
6. When your singing teacher expresses his or her frustration as you feel unable to do what they are asking you to do (I have even witnessed teachers shouting to students, in what is supposed to be professional training)
7. When rehearsals are focused more on quantity than on quality
8. When you don't warm up properly
9. When your fellow choir singer tries to correct you
10. When all the energy in rehearsals is directed towards an upcoming concert

… and even then... you most probably still got something good out of it!

HEALTH? WHAT HEALTH?

It takes a long time to decide a name that summarizes what you are doing and a second to realize that you got the right name for it. Nevertheless, I can see that sometimes the “Singing4health” name can convey too narrow an idea of what it is about, as it can be easily associated with disease (dis-ease) as opposed to “health” or with “healing”. Friends have automatically imagined that I am doing singing activities only for people with specific health problems, especially since it's well known that singing is particularly good for people with breathing, postural or stress related problems. But health is actually about everybody. We all relate to it in every possible way.

According to the WHO “Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not

merely the absence of disease or infirmity” so in this respect Singing4health is addressing a wide range of people. It is not about having or not having a health problem, it's about the approach taken. And it includes not just physical and mental health, but another not less important one, the social well being of individuals, and we could even talk about healthy societies as societies that structurally will promote all these three for individuals.

In this respect, a choir is a little society in itself, that reflects common issues and the same complexities as bigger structures. We want to focus on the way things are dealt with in the choir, and not just in the contents. We want to address the reasons why we are singing, and continuously evaluate whether what we are doing is meeting our aims or we need readjustment. We can address individuals with different capacities, heterogeneous and multi-level groups, skilful singers and beginners, and many of the core activities are actually going to be equally addressing skills from which everybody will benefit.

How does this translate into practice? We want a group of people who will feel confident singing together, who won't feel under pressure of their peers to follow at a specific speed, who will find in the choir a space for self expression and at the same time feeling of belonging to a friendly group and connection to others, a group that won't stress them and will make people feel good and positive about singing, in every aspect of what belonging to a vocal group entails. A group that can integrate and take in the creativity of the individuals, and that without leaving aside important aspects of performance (if the group decides to perform) will give equally importance to the fact that we can contribute to the group's achievements without need to impose, that will help people realize that as important as the fact of singing, is singing and been able to look into other people's eyes.

So if the group has basic skills, we want to embrace all capacities and help them get into a positive exchange. If the group is more skilful, we want to explore their creativity and take in as much of people's abilities, never forgetting that achievements like singing at a time, smiling or having a good posture are never simple and need a deep an enjoyable work process. And it's all about health.

Breathing is health, expressing feelings is health, good posture is health, rhythm is health and a good communication is so healthy that it will transcend and apply to other parts of life.

WELCOME TO SINGING4HEALTH

Welcome to Singing4Health blog.
It's been some time since I felt that appart from a description of the work that is being done, I wanted to dedicate some space to publish my personal reflections, ideas and experiences about what music, singing and health means to me, so this blog is going to be about it.
So while the Singing4Health website is going to give news of future workshops, explains what is it about and informs about projects and activities, this blog is Maria Soriano's blog on thoughts and experiences with for and about singing. Willing to inspire, but also to express so many facts and thoughts that during lessons or practice do happen and provoke smiles, thoughts or further investigation, and that I was feeling I was missing in the descriptive website.
 It will be great to have your feedback and exchange with all music lovers, with all people who believe that singing is much more than singing, that our voice being heard is a powerful tool for ourselves and the others. I very much look forward to this. 

Maria