Non-commoditised music

I had a nice time in the British Library yesterday. Here's one thing I read:

“In our own society, creative symbolic play tends to be closely associated with a class of specialists we call “artists”, and the results of their activities are treated as “works of art” having (for better or worse) value as commodities.” (Basso 1985:2-3) 

I read it again. Exactly. And that's reasonably specific to our culture, not so to some other cultures.

So I don't do "creative symbolic play", I do "creative musical play" - and I think I want to keep the creative play, but drop the commoditization.

So the first thing in my mind when I woke up today were some rules to try playing by.

1. Love what you are doing. 

It's for your joy. It's about now, not outcomes. If it feels wrong, or bad or tight or forced, take a break, step back, rethink if necessary. You'll find your way back.

2. Play

Play in your practice, play in your sharing

3. When it's time to share, share

There is no performance. There is only sharing. In various forms.

- playing with others

eg a jam, a choir, a band, a quartet

- helping others play

eg, leading campfire singalongs, knowing the chords and words, helping it feel good

- an extended listening

when you feel you've got something long and beautiful to share, invite people to an extended listening where they lie and listen, and you give them something rich to listen to

ok a fourth rule has just come to me

4. It's not yours, it's God's

I don't mind what God means to you: alternative names may include Nature/Geist/Allah/Life/Buddha/Tao/that general sense of some kind of 'higher power'/Music itself - why not.

A musician is like one dancer in a partner dance. Our partner is Music, mysterious music, this immaterial landscape we've been given to get lost in like some enchanted woods.

I think what we are doing when we make music, when we practice, when we take care of the music we are able to 'make'

oo there's a problematic word.

I don't think we make music.

I think music is made through us.

My Indian singing teacher Atul says that he's like a track maker and God is the train. He has to lay really good tracks and take care of them so that when the train comes it can go whenever it wants. He's a violin player. He's incredible.

Right now, my tracks are quite shit. Whatever instrument I'm playing, voice included my body cannot keep up with the music in my mind. I can dance with music a bit but it's not great.

A really great dancer does what Atul does.

A really great dancer takes really good care of the material elements - what the fingers / body can do - so that that immaterial enchanted wood can come into the material world.

But we didn't 'make' that wood. No-one did.

...

I do a lot of yoga. At the end of every class we sit in crossed legs with our hands in prayer position, and every single class for the last four years at least, Alaric has said, softly, "lift your heart and bow your head."

Finally last month he explained why he says that. It's so you don't take personal credit for your successes, he said. That's really important. You have to dedicate your successes to something else. Otherwise you get fucked up like Amy Winehouse.

Ok. I think that's my manifesto of the moment.

Let's see how that goes.

From service of power/fame/money/ego to service of life/joy/community

My friend Luke emailed me. Luke's ace, and a singer. You might remember his old band, Nizlopi, who got Christmas number 1 a few years ago with the JCB song.

Reading your singing blog: new paradigm idea.

Yes i really feel this is clear that the new edge of art in an age of increasing crisis must be service to community, life, love, truth, healing. That service to Money and Fame/power/ego is on it's way out. So to really lead as a singer really serving is the key. But artistic skill and depth serve hugely along with bringing music back to the folk.

Bobby Mcferrin documentary

"If you're in an African village, you're dancing and singing all the time but you're not performing, it's just a part of your day... I try not to think I'm performing."

"Music should be made in the moment and then left behind."

"Artists are the architects of heaven. Our job is to bring a little bit of heaven down to earth."

The artist in Dagara, Burkina Faso

"Community can create a container for natural abilities that can find no place in a world defined by economics and consumerism - abilities such as artistic talent or shamanic gifts, healing skills and clairvoyance. These talents are widely recognised in indigenous communities because indigenous people assume that the artist is a priest or a priestess through whom the Other World finds an entrance into this world. If the priest or the priestess regards with reverence and humility the world where his or her art originates, then the work done becomes lasting and impressive. If not, the artist does not last very long. The artist as an artisan of the sacred can cooperate in bringing the sacred to birth in this world. Indigenous people believe that without artists, the tribal psyche would wither into death. Carvers and painters produce their things for ritual purposes, which are enjoyed by the entire village. Storytellers act like the repository of the village genealogical memory.

"Artistic ability, the capacity to heal, and the vision to see into the Other World are connected for indigenous people. In my village there is only a thin line between the artist and the healer. In fact, there is no word in the Dagara language for art. The closest term to it would be the same word as sacred. It is as if there is an intrinsic sacredness to artistic symbolism. This is perhaps why art objects do not go on show. This is also perhaps why the artist does not think about how to gain public stature. In the village the ability to birth art is a sign of approval by the Spirit World.

...

"... collecting art objects in one place, to indigenous people, would be a sign that people want something from the Other World that is not being supplied adequately; they would be experiencing a thirst that is not being quenched. And, even more important, it would mean that the community is in struggle, is experiencing a longing for the sacred. In such a place of struggle, the longing for the sacred is so enhanced that people are collecting art objects. From an indigenous point of view, the isolation of self and community from Spirit appears to have translated into the imprisonment of art. The museums of the West, from an indigenous perspective, speak poignantly of the sharply felt longing for Spirit experienced by modern people."

Malidoma Some, the healing wisdom of africa, p96-7

Music and work in Dagara, Burkina Faso

"Villagers are interested not in accumulation but in a sense of fullness. Abundance means a sense of fullness, which cannot be measured by a yardstick of the material goods we possess or the amount of money in a bank account...

"Most work done in the village is done collectively. The purpose is not so much the desire to get the job done but to raise enough energy for people to feel nourished by what they do. The nourishment does not come after the job, it comes before the job and during the job. The notion that you should do something so that you get paid so that then you can nourish yourself disappears. You are nourished first, and then the work flows out of your fullness.

"Many areas of work among villagers, including farming, are accompanied by music. Music is meant to maintain a certain state of fullness. People recognise that even if you are full before the work, you can't take that fullness for granted. You have to keep feeding it so that the feeling of fullness continues, so that the work you are doing constantly reflects that fullness in you. It is as if the output of work takes a toll on your fullness, even it if is an expression of your fullness, and you have to be filled again before you can continue. Music and rhythm are the things that feed someone who is producing something."

Malidoma Some, The Healing Wisdom of Africa, p68

Ghana: music

London: tea and biscuits.

Does music work too for heady, screen based work?

What a musician might need

There are some things I need as a musician. That I think anyone needs in order to practice something when they're alone. It starts with not being alone any more.

1. An Elder. Doesn't have to be older. Has to be someone to inspire and guide and help you: someone who wants to do that and is interested in your development.
2. A community. Loads of functions there. To make it fun. To make it social. Not lonely.
3. A point. In yoga the point is to feel and look good. Later it's to pass a difficult exam and gain a qualification, to further ends. What is it for this art? Joy! Pleasure! Your pleasure, and the pleasure of the community. So, you need opportunities to share what you're doing with the community. Like, Lucy's 'Little Show-Offs' community cabaret.
4. A sense of development path. A sense that there are people further advanced than you – and people less advanced than you perhaps – that you have a collaborative and supportive relationship with people at every stage – and a feeling that you are able to progress.

   
   

   On performance

   I've been quite anti performance for a while. I prefer things where everyone is a participant.

   
   

   I've been gently playing with the idea that there might be an interesting middle ground.

   
   

   I'm thinking of a performers playground, a place to practice. My music – a music of honest, heart led improvisation – has more in common with the Clowns and the Fools than with the jazz singers and open mic kids.

   
   

   So it would be a performers playground for all those working on honest, partly or totally improvised, heart led performance where the relationship with the audience is messed up.

   
   

   In Jonathan Kay's Fooling performance, he had the audience forming a vagina and someone from the back being born onto the stage through us. He had us facing each other and pulling faces and hurling insults. And he had us crying with laughter with some straight forward standup. Perfect.
   Bobby Mcferrin: same. Solo performance and playing with the audience.
   So. How would I do it? What would I do? That's the thing to play with.
   Why perform?
   
   
   I'd like to perform for people who are also doing stuff. I loved performing with the scratch band at Findhorn when everyone else was either dancing or singing. I loved that! I'd like to perform for people life drawing or dancing or something. I'd like to improvise with and for them. I'd like it to be woven into an activity; part of it but not the central focus.
   So why claim a stage all for yourself?
   Partly it's to show off, right? What experience does Bobby Mcferrin give people when he stands up and does Opportunity? We're impressed! We see what a human can be capable of. We're entertained I guess. We enjoy it! Do we? I get a little intimidated too sometimes. But only by musicians. Not by dancers or comedians, because I'm not in their game. I just watch / listen / laugh with delight.
   Is there something about... sharing?
   “You made the whole room feel like being inside honey”
   “Listening to you sing is taking an asthma inhaler. It slows and calms you down and makes you breathe.”
   “We were having an intellectual and aggressive conversation. Then you came in the room and started playing and the atmosphere totally changed, became gentle.”
   That's good, isn't it? Isn't that something worth sharing if you can?
   When we see hearts on stage are we reminded of our own?
   When we're rushing and then we see someone being slow, are we reminded we can slow down too?
   If we are fretful and we see someone at peace, can that help us find our own peace?
   ..
   I watched a Bobby workshop on Youtube and all the people he was working with were coming to the front and basically copying him, with quite boastful performances.
   Bobby spent four years not listening to other music, finding his own sound.
   What is your own music? Your true music?
   What is mine?
   What are the status of our performances? Are they to help launch our professional careers? Are they events in and of themselves – for the joy of the performer and the community present?
   So, after any performance, the question will be: was it joyful for you? Was it joyful for them? Yes? Then it was a success!
   ?

We're already here

“I could live for 100 years. I could live for 200 years!” said Brian, “and I would never learn one tenth of all the music in this world.”

I realised in that moment that there is no endpoint in this journey to hurry towards. No acceptable standard that we do not yet meet and that we must strive for.

We are as we are and our music is within us.

The human voice, honest and well cared for, is one of the most beautiful things I know.

Tiny singing

In The Tent in the evenings of Mbira camp, I play the first two easy songs on the Mbira and then put it down and sing along for the rest. I don't know the parts so I copy people and make it up. One time I was singing along on a self-created part, thinking, god, why do I often feel so tense when I'm singing?

Maybe it's because what I'm singing doesn't feel right, I think. So I listen for what might feel more right. I imagine a far simpler line. So so simple, a modest repetitive part of just two notes to fit in the whole. I start singing it. It feels right. I relax. And ever, ever so slightly, so does the whole room, it seems.

A lot of what I'm singing I hear a fraction of a moment before I sing it. It's as if there's another singer I'm copying. I just listen. And when I hear it I follow it.

It's funny that I'm always a little fraction behind the timing of the first voice. Though if the first voice is a good leader, maybe it comes in a fraction early to leave the audible voice right on beat.

Sometimes I'm following the voice note by note, rhythm by rhythm, but often I'm following more of a general sense of the kind of sound to be making now, whether a presence or absence of sound, a slow low and fat sound or a sound like a butterfly.

“When I get the feeling in my tummy,” Chartwell said, “I just sing.”

“I can feel tense and insecure about singing in a jam”, I once told a stoned dreadlocked Israeli during a jam session on a moonlit Indian rooftop. “Well,” he replied, “you have a beautiful voice and you contribute great stuff. So just do it when you feel it and don't do it when you don't.”

I liked that advice.

“Briony?” My writing is disturbed by a voice in the night. It's Chartwell. I'm surprised. I lean out and unzip the front of my tent. He's standing a few feet away in the moonlight. “I brought your Mbira.” He'd been playing it with everyone in the main tent. “I didn't want you to go to sleep without it. It's got a bit of Vaseline on it, I'm sorry about that. What are you doing in your tent not sleeping?” He chuckles.

“I'm on my way to going to sleep! Thank you so much.” I take the Mbira and he bids me farewell and walks his slow swaying walk back to The Tent.

He's amazingly humble and generous. And also something of a great man. Often the two go together I've noticed. There's a documentary crew here this evening, they're making a film about him. He wrote and performed the music for Breakfast with Mugabe, a play that started on a six week run at Soho theatre and was moved to one of the biggies in the West End where it stayed for 42 weeks. He played Mbira day and night, Matinee and evening show, until his fingers were blistered and raw and he kept going. He's taught at Soas and been interviewed on the BBC World Service, according to Sebastian the Mbira maker who was making an Mbira for the man before he met him, turned on the radio in his workshop in Germany and there was Chartwell talking away.

And he has gathered us to him. There's something like 35 of us on this camp. We're all sorts. Rich, poor, young, old, fat, thin, men, women, hippies and regular folk. We've got an Oxford University student and a care worker. We've got two pop stars – well, professional singers with signed bands – some first timers who play no other instrument, and a handfull of people who have made Mbira their lives, and who hold the core thrust of the sound in the tent. And we all take a week off work, pay £180, pack up our tents and sleeping bags and gather to him, to the Mbira and to each other sure but more than that, to Chartwell.

I lie and listen to the music from the main tent. This music is not about the soloist or musical gymnastics, showing off. It seems to be about tiny, repetitive sounds that fit cohesively into the overall sound, with the occasional spontaneous moments of ad libbing up and over the sound when the feeling takes you.

It's like a metaphor for behaviour in a community, I guess. Mostly small humble, generous and considerate acts that fit cohesively into the community, with the occasional moments of wildness, free self expression, when the feeling takes you.

Denise once said that in the Baka tribes of Cameroon, which the band she's in - Baka Beyond - have collaborated with for years and years, when singing together you can error in two ways. You can error by not contributing enough sound, and you can error by stealing the limelight all for yourself with endless Diva moments. The thing to do is to sing loud enough for the person opposite to hear you, and quiet enough so that you can hear them.

I like this way. The way of Baka, the way of Shona.

Now it's 2.40am and I can hear Chartwell in the main tent yodelling a soft tired yodel over the musicians. It's beautiful. He must be feeling it in his tummy.

Why sing?

Twice in the last six months I've had conversations with Guru type people. They've asked me why I sing. 'I don't know,' I've replied. 'I'm just compelled to sing.' They've looked deep into my eyes and told me to find an answer to that question. “It will be a vulnerable journey,” said yesterday's man.

He was Richard 'Quantum Light Breath' Bock.

I'm searching for the source and community around my singing practice of singing long long notes up and down the scale and paying close and subtle attention to the nature of the breath and the source of the vibrations in the body. I was taught it 8 years ago by a woman named Kim who'd learnt it in Varanassi, India. I finally went there in February and I found some great things, but not the source and community of this practice.

I asked Richard if he knew of anything or anyone.

“No,” he said simply. His singing teacher in India had been asked to sing nothing but Sa (a single note) for a year. The teacher was an old man. They'd met him at a concert where he'd been in the audience. A 90 year old renound local singer, he'd been asked to come to the stage and sing. So he did, and he sang a single note, the Sa.

Within moments, Richard recalled, he and his partner wept.

They were speared by the experience. How can it be that a single note can touch their hearts so directly and instantly, melting the casing away? The voice wasn't perfect, he recalled, but it was human and deeply honest and raw.

Kim, my source of this practice, had been told to sing Sa for three months. Mercifully, we'd only sung Sa for half an hour in her workshops and then sung the other notes for about five minutes each. This was in 2001 and I've kept up the practice on and off ever since.

And now this is what people say about my voice. Not perfect. Not well trained. But honest, and raw, and touching. “I could listen to you sing endlessly”, said a woman at dance camp after hearing a song around the fire one night.

As I'd been singing Sa for about 8 years by the time I got to India, my two singing teachers there got me straight onto the vocal acrobatics. So I never found the people who sit together and simply sing Sa for, maybe, an hour.

I feel like I'm sniffing around the edges of a mystery.

This is a beautiful, profound practice. It has awesome effects on the voice. It is beautiful to do, particularly in a group; a profoundly calming practice. I've called it my singing meditation, though in truth when I'm alone I rarely concentrate sufficiently to get a meditative quality to it. But that happens very easily in a group, I find.

And if you buy into the Eastern ideas, it's very good for your 'energy' too. Prushant Iyengar, son of BKS Iyengar, big daddy of Iyengar yoga, says that the whole biscuit is to keep the 'chakras' well and healthy. There are seven chakras going from the base of the spine to just above the top of the head, they say. In my singing practice, you breathe into each chakra area in turn and then let the sound resonate from that area of your body. After you've done all seven in seven long breaths, you take a few breaths where you're trying to balance the resonance from all parts of your body, or each 'chakra'. Then you move on to the next note and start again.

From my point of view it's less about the chakras and more about using the full resonant capacity of your body. Usually our voices are tightly tied up in our noses, throats, shoulders and upper chest. Move the source down and up from there and the beauty and comfort of the sound and experience increases. Simple.

In the practice you focus on relaxing and letting the sound come out of your body, rather than forcing any sound onto it, so you're developing and strengthening your body's own true sound.

“Your voice is the sound of your soul,” said Tim Buckley. That might be why people find the raw honesty of the sounds that come from this practice so beautiful.

So, the idea is that Chakras are part of the energy body and deal with your psycho-spiritual wellbeing. Each chakra has a different department, like one is fear, and another is communication/expression, and so on. Exercising them energetically, like by singing in and from them, keeps them healthy.

I don't know about all this stuff. Some people take it very seriously.

All I know is that I find the practice yummy and great for the voice and leaves me feeling really good.

So it's quite strange that there's not an architecture around it the way there's an architecture around other things that are yummy and great for you and leave you feeling really good, like yoga.

I will keep searching. There must be people who share the practice.

The Nada yogis do something similar, with the difference that they focus on different chakras for different notes.

I've been wondering if that's what I should do too. I put the question to Richard. “It seems to me,” he said, “that you need all the types of resonance in each note. You need the base chakras in the high notes, otherwise they're too flighty, and vice versa.” Ha! I felt vilified. Great. I agree. I'll continue with what I'm doing.

So. I started writing this morning because I was thinking about their question of why I sing.

It's been niggling at me all year.

OK here goes.

1. 
   
   I sing because I can't help it. I am a singer. I was singing as a small child. When I am an old woman I will be singing, and I will have the voice of someone who has been singing her whole life. While everything in my life changes, including what I am singing, this never does: I am a singer.
   
   
   
2. 
   
   I love to sing in groups. I love the sound of a group of voices. It makes me feel at home wherever I am.
   
   
   
3. 
   
   So, singing is a kind of an act of primal aliveness. I hear the sound of my being. It is true. I am real. I am alive. It's affirming. There's something very core about it.
   
   
   
4. 
   
   Singing is the sound of that 50-50 relationship with life you've got, where you do 50% and life does 50%, give or take. I sing. I am sung. I am given a voice. I take care of it and sing with it. Sometimes life takes me back and sings me. It's great when that happens. Rare.
   
   
   
5. 
   
   I don't want to do this on the computer. I want to figure it out in conversation and squiggles in my note book.