Experimental Voices
I began running workshops on the voice through a module in my final year at Goldsmiths University. In this original workshops, I used the concepts of gestures as an accompaniment to experimenting with the voice. The idea of gestures helps to create movement and explore the different regions of the vocal anatomy, not usually used (so predominantly) in speech and music. In our every day lives, movements are very closely connected to sounds, especially involuntary ones. For example, yawning and stretching, coughing and hunching, gasping and moving the hands to mouth. The sounds we make in these movements, although simple and intuitive in the moment, can be very interesting. A vast library of sonic timbres exists in the human vocal anatomy, so rarely used outside of beatboxing.
The workshop was filmed on DV tape, however I encouraged everyone to be in a circle as this was important for the activities. Therefore the footage was not very revealing and not worth uploading. The audio, coming from the in-built mic on the video recorder was not high quality. So I have treated the audio with noise reduction and compression. You can hear some of the singing rehearsals taking place in the nearby rooms, but this wasn’t a hinderance to the workshop, perhaps the contrary. Laughter is a frequent sound throughout. It’s very rare that we have the opportunity to connect our bodies, voices and imaginations so creatively. When we do, it is surprisingly easy to lose oneself in the process and experience all kinds of hilarious imagined situations unfolding!