Power of Sound

You can count yourself lucky if you enjoy your job, if you are passionate about your job, if you can earn a living doing what you love. This is especially true in the arts. I know many people who studied one thing, just to get a degree and then got a job in a completely different field because it pays well. And in the cases where they dislike or even hate their job, they are not willing to pursue what they really want to do, due mainly to the loss of income.

So, even though my job, freelancing as a singer, actor and voiceover artist is precarious and uncertain at times, I have found a way to make it work, up until now. For me, the old adage ‘if you love what you do, you don’t work a day in your life’ is nice enough, but not really helpful, or true for that matter. There will, of course, be times when you doubt whether what you’re doing is right, whether you are reaching anyone with what you put out into the world, be that digitally or in person. Recently, despite working regularly, I have had these thoughts/emotions following me around almost constantly: an invisible entourage that you can’t outrun, even if you want to. (And it only helps to tell others about them when you feel you’re able to grab hold of them and see them clearly yourself). I have worried about every reaction to my ideas, to my artistic expression, even being sceptical of the positive feedback I have received. I have not really talked a tremendous amount about this with many people. You don’t want to come across as a whinger. Carrying this baggage with me has been ok, as long as there has been work coming along that is so new or different from everything else, that it distracts me, and my mind and body shift all the energy to where it is really needed and wanted.

This shift in body and mind has happened a couple of times in the last couple of years, since early 2020. Sometimes this has been initiated through ‘old’ work (‘old’ because of individuals I work with more often) or through new projects and people. And now I come to the point of why I broke off my reading session before going to sleep (2 am) and decided to spontaneously write down some of my thoughts.

I came to think about the power of music, but more specifically the power of sound, of producing sound. First, however, a little backstory: Late 2021 I was asked to jump in for a small concert with the incredible vocal ensemble Auditivvokal Dresden, singing a mass by Josquin du Prez (Which mass it was eludes me right now). I had a week to learn the whole thing and even though I had experience with this composer and the style, I really wanted to get it right, thinking that I could work with the group more, were this gig to be a success. [Spoiler alert: I am still working with them 18 months later… so, we can assume, that I can assume, that they see me as being good enough to be involved].

Since Christmas 2022, I have been working with Auditivvokal on a project which requires overtone singing.  We have been having group workshops and individual lessons with one of the top European Overtone singers, Wolfgang Saus.

Today, working in a group and singing in front of the others on your own was incredibly revealing. More so than if you sing an ordinary vocal line on your own. With the overtone technique, everything you present is far more authentic, because you’re using a different part of the brain than you usually would whilst singing and you are producing sound on two different planes, at the same time. There were exercises we did, where the correct technical application allowed me to feel in my body a separate third note, that neither I nor my partner was singing. Another time, I felt a warmth around my head and upper body, as the resonances slid to where they ‘should be.’ This is also sometimes described as a chord ‘clicking into place’ (where all the notes in a chord fit together like puzzle pieces). These small steps forward together meant that, today alone, we had progressed leaps and bounds.

At the end of the session, we did an improvisation round that ran for about 10 minutes. Being in the room with the other singers, surrounded by a ring of sound that I was also contributing to was one of the most moving musical experiences of the last couple of years. I felt the sounds, moving from person to person. It appeared as though there were multiple games of catch being played with the ordinary notes and overtones. If one person decided to go a certain way with a note, with a vowel, others would go with it too, or against it and these individual ‘conversations’ all happened parallel to one another, without anyone leading or controlling the situation. The session also went through different natural stages, with everyone reacting as they sang. It began with everyone starting quietly, some people singing overtones, some, not. Having my eyes closed through most of the session, I felt I could be totally focused on myself and on what everyone else was doing, at the same time. The harmonies at the beginning were quite dissonant, we tended to hold the sounds that most would consider to be clashing and sit with them a few seconds longer. Then, as other notes, overtones and vowels were changed, the dissonances dissipated and all 10 of us came together in the middle of the sound being produced. The tonal progressions seemed to then be passed along, higher and higher. I felt no pre-judgement, and once again, no control over what I was contributing. I was just reacting, as we all were, to every other individual. As the sound, as a whole, grew, I started to inwardly step away from where I was sitting. I began to see images in my mind, caused by the sounds being made. The landscapes of the highlands, of the Finnish and Irish west coast played out in my head, waves crashing against the cliffs of Moher, the strong wind but relatively still waters of the coast near Rauma, Finland, and the frozen lakes in the highlands. These are places I have visited several times. The music automatically played these memories back to me.  I cannot quite remember how long these memories played out for and which other specific pictures were relayed to me. For a moment, it made the sounds we were producing feel as though they could hold up against some of the best and most well-known film music of today. There was then a short moment that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end, just as the orchestral chord progression does in ‘The Lark Ascending’ by Vaughan-Williams, that comes in after the first big solo at the opening of the work. The last images conjured up were of my late father. I first of all saw him in the air, not flying, or angelic, just in the air, with the sound being produced. Then, replays based on old homes videos from when I was a child came through and played in front of my closed eyes. During all of these images playing out, I was still listening, I was still right by and with everyone else in the room. Once a certain point had been reached by all, the music began to fade away, seemingly, as naturally as you would breathe out or sigh.

There was then a good 60 seconds of silence.

The session was a perfect example of musical intuition and knowledge and different experiences coming together. Those minutes were so incredibly freeing. The power of the sound being produced, I felt, had in that moment, removed hinderances. The warmth I had felt earlier during one of the exercises, I then felt once more. I cried briefly.

Working with Wolfgang, Olaf Katzer and the other Auditiv singers on this completely different style of singing and how it can be applied to almost all other types of vocal music has allowed me to generally observe my singing in a completely new light. A fresh and critically positive perspective. I cannot wait to explore further.