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

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

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.

"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