In the same vein as tribal hocketing, a musical form called Song Circle is being exercised in Bobby McFerrin’s (http://bobbymcferrin.com/) concerts. As he calls for audience participation, resulting in about 30 people embarking the stage, he assigns each vocal grouping a part to sing. Each member of the circle watches and listens as Bobby adds melodies, harmonies or rhythms that would help support the music most beautifully. Singers sustain this sound as parts come and go throughout the expanse of the timeless tune. Solos ensue adding long buoyant, intricately woven melodies and rhythms that carry away all other thoughts than these...caught in the flow. I’m still trying to decide if the magic of Song Circle lays in its musical form or in the extraordinary people performing it.
72. Debby at Hale Kai, Hawaii workshop with Rhiannon[1]
http://www.rhiannonmusic.com/pages/shows.html
Rhiannon's 2008 Improvisation Workshop was held in Hale Kai, not far from Kona, on the big Island of Hawaii. Rhiannon sings with Bobby McFerrin's 12-piece vocal orchestra called "Voicestra" and teaches vocal jazz at the Berklee College of Music. For these seven days and nights she led 12 women from around the world in improvisational exercises designed to free the voice and spirit, enabling free-form compositions based on organic, instinctive, and spontaneous inspiration.
Important musical structures such as melody, harmony, rhythm, tempo, meter, language, and story telling where continually considered within new contexts; creating inspiring new experiences. Through this improvisational journey our collective "musical stream of consciousness" awoke...allowing for limitless sonority, freedom of expression and brave experimentation that encouraged the emergence of our own unique voice.
Within this celebration of spontaneity, we were given the time and means to articulate and express our culture, gender and femaleness within a neutral and supportive environment; opening me up to experience the freedom and honesty required to truly connect. This entirely improvised music, presented everything one would expect within the context of a performance environment. Melodies became endangered as they traversed from singer to singer, perpetually morphing in reaction to each new development. Individual instinct, whim and sense of play were all coveted.
73. Danc’in Improv
My experience at Hale Kai forever altered the way I think about music and sound. I now consider sound as a healing process, as well as a vehicle for self-expression, entertainment, and (her)story telling. Learning to trust vocal instincts; fulfilling an unknown part of me that can only be accessed through this improvisational “in the moment” approach.
I’m passionate about improvisation as spontaneous composition. Summoning all of ones self, while on your feet and having the musical skills to keep you standing. I now want my performances to be totally improvised. During performance, I will face the expanse of freedom, as an open vessel...with no preset plans, without notation, instrumentation or leader, presenting a complex story that can only be revealed by every-woman.
“Improvisational music, as well as composition, appears to remain the province of men.
Perhaps in a field that is already difficult for men, women don’t see any future for themselves as improvisers or composers.
Women see few if any role models or mentors, few performance opportunities in the field, and relatively no financial support to launch or sustain a career.
The socialization of women continues to reinforce the role for them of spectators, supporters, and administrators where men hold forth as participants in the art.” [2]
[1] Photo taken by Hale Kai resident, 2008 (http://www.rhiannonmusic.com/pages/shows.html)
[2] The Other Side of Nowhere: Jazz, Improvisation and Communities in Dialogue, Editors: Fischlin, D. & Heble, A. (2004), Wesleyan University Press. Middletown. CT., Chapter: Pauline Oliveros. Harmonic Anatomy - Women in Improvisation. pg. 57
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