Richard Bona

Bellatrix is genius

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!
   ?

At last

It's the last ten minutes of the last voice class on the last day of the course.

Lee, who's been fantastic all week, steps forward. "Shall we do some free Jazz?"

She prepares us beautifully. Shut your eyes. Only do what you feel. Listen. Feel free. You don't have to make noises. It'll have a life of its own.

Silence. Someone starts making the noise of the wind. Gradually, tenderly, we join in. Over the next five or ten minutes we have crazy rhythms, farmyard noises, laughter, delicacy, and harmonic smokerings that would make a contemporary composer drool.

Silence re descends.

We open our eyes. Two people have tears running down their cheeks.

We burst out into the corridoor. That was like yoga, someone says. It was like the wind, says another. My course friend Nicky turns to me. "I liked the honesty," she said. "I have felt a lot of dishonesty this week."

So did I.

I have never tried starting from complete silence. That's next! :)

Amazing Human Beatbox

My Way

OK so if I'm a pioneer of a “new” approach to singing, (it can't be new, what are it's roots? Anywhere in space and time?) it's about:


honesty


playfulness


The pleasure of the people present in that moment


It's not about recording. Is it about performance? Hummm, performance is a sticky one I have yet to untangle, and I've got a love-hate relationship with it. What is the cross-cultural history of performance? In campfire jams, prima donnas and domineers are not tolerated.


The course director is on stage right now singing his interpretation of a Maya Angelou poem. “Nobody can make it on their own,” he sings. 


Yes! Who are my playmates?


More... On singing courses, we'll learn 'theory' with our ears and bodies and tummies. We'll do yoga and dance and drum. We'll sleep well and eat well, sing for the trees and slugs, amplify the soul with clowning and quieten the ego. We'll sing with our bodies in dance, sing with our hands on the drums, dance our voices, dance our hands, drum our voices, drum our bodies.

Anth is sitting next to me in the theatre while I'm scribbling away. “I've always found jazz like this kind of self important noodling,” she says in a low voice. “Is that OK?”

“Yes!” We cackle. “Sorry, I just have to quote you.” I pick up my notebook. 

She leans over again. “Is it a coincidence they're all men?”

Head. Science. Rationality. Control. Individualism. Showing off. No! :)

notes get wilder

• start a choir. Audition.
• Try things at the Fun Fed.
• Create a performance troupe: a) musical – vocal performance: b) variety
• JAM SESSIONS RULE. What can I offer?
• Structures for improvised pieces. Segments. Rules, eg, note boundaries, tempo, rhythm, accompaniment
• Not a pro! Just a student. And a player :)
• NO ONE TEACHER. MANY INFLUENCES.
• :)
• What are the limits to whale song? In terms of group size?
• Audience – set them up as a backing track, and impro over them: a) write it, b) impro it
• Invite audience members who want a bigger role to come forwards; if you want an easier life, go to the back. Concentric circles: inner circles, harder, middle circle, easier, outer circle, listeners (really? Is that allowed on participatory things? They could click, clap... ). Free: can everyone get here?
• Sing for artists and dancers at play. Sing with friends – singers, musicians, neither, but still somehow participants. Sing alone
• Weekly jam sessions – a different key signature each week, instrumentalists get to know them. Post them before so people could familiarise themselves in practice if they want.

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.