Phil Minton Feral Choir Presented by Frakture 2006
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The Giving Voice Festival 2006.In April of this year Frakture funded and supported my trip to 'The Giving Voice Festival' in Aberystwyth to take part in Phil Minton's Feral choir experience. The following is a brief description of the workshop content and experience had by myself in Aberystwyth. -Anne Marie Howard (see footer if you wish to download or print-out this review)
Workshop content - Phil Minton and the Feral Choir. Wednesday 5th April.
In the afternoon after a light lunch break we returned to do more call and response work. "Do what you think I mean" was a well used phrase from Phil in regards to his conducting instruction. By contorting his body and using facial expressions Phil would silently express the types of intention behind sounds that he was looking for, leaving us as participants to respond with our own definitive ideas. Clear hand signals for starting, stopping, getting quieter, louder or for a change in pitch; framed these more obscure instruction techniques. Our confidence and tool kit of techniques grew very quickly. Again in a voice circle, Phil would get the whole group producing a wave of sound and would then go up to smaller groups of two or three and without stopping the piece, introduce new sounds and textures, repeating this process. He described this as planting seeds and either encouraging them to grow or cutting them off according to the overall sound collage he was producing with us. This first afternoon was completed with a new exercise for us in attentive listening and response. Three participants would stand in the centre of the circle, standing back to back with eyes closed.( Phil-"This exercise works best in a trio, if there's more than this number it becomes very difficult to hear the voices independently.") Compositions of 3-5 minutes in length were created, allowing us to try out the different vocal sounds that we had become familiar with, add our own, and most importantly listen and react to other group members. This process was repeated so that everyone had a turn, which gave us an opportunity to observe as well as participate. Thursday 6th April. We began our second session with vocal warm ups and preparation. In a call and response way, we journeyed through a spectrum of different sounds that the human voice could make, with Phil Minton giving us ideas and encouragement to explore these in more detail. An example of these vocal exercises are; yodelling, whispering, vocal delivery in short quick blasts, blowing and making 'brrr' noises with our lips, experimenting with notes low in pitch letting hardly any breath out- then building volume and texture with them, and very erratic loud notes delivered with a sense of urgency. We were asked to look at our voices individually and as a complete essence as a whole group. What textures were we making? What possibilities were there in a piece? Phil also began to introduce the notion of rhythm. Keeping a steady beat as a group repeating "mm, ha, mm, ha.." within the voice circle we began to experiment with more intricate rhythms using our voices in a 'beat-box' style. This opened further opportunity to experiment with sounds that the mouth could produce, sounds without pitch such as clicking, lip smacking, and emulating the sound of a machine gun, helicopter or a drum kit. As we experimented using all the techniques mentioned; the energy and cohesion of the group became solid and vibrant. We began to play vocally for 30-45 minutes at a time, and the results were the production of some excellent vocal sound sculptures that had focus, sincerity and intention behind them. In the afternoon session, Phil introduced a workshop game called 'count to twenty'. Standing again in a circle but with our eyes closed, we were asked to count to twenty together, but we were not allowed to say a number at the same time as somebody else. If we did, those that had spoken at the same time had to create a short improvisation using the word of that number, e.g " seven, seeevveeeen, sevennnnn,.." and so on. We then had to start back at number one, and the goal was to reach twenty without having to stop. This game served as a tool to sharpen our skills of listening and anticipation. A second exercise involved humming. We had humming conversations in pairs and trios and emphasis was put on eye contact and communication. We were then asked to huddle closely in a circle, and with eyes closed. The framework for the exercise was that we would create a sound piece but only three people could 'play' at once. I became frustrated during this exercise because more than five or six people could be heard at any time and Phil did not intervene, nor did any other workshop member. This led me to consider the notion of intervention within workshop situations and its validity and importance. Our next exercise asked for us to wander around the room improvising with eyes closed; when we came into contact with another individual to 'merge' in a small improvisation before setting off again around the room and meeting a different person to partner with.
Our last morning working together began with warming our voices using the sounds and techniques that we had been experimenting with over the last couple of days. Phil Minton went through different call and response exercises as before, but with the difference of added energy. We were asked to send sounds around the circle, but more quickly than we had before. Phil then concentrated on conduction and getting us familiar with how we would be led in our choir performance later on in the day. His focus was also that of sharpening the many skills that we had built up. We were led through a practice run of the type of performance that we would be giving, a piece that would be about 40 minutes in length and demonstrated all that we had learnt; and our confidence and enthusiasm was very apparent. Phil had guided us through a kaleidoscope of material, his working methods were that of getting deeply involved in the vocal ideas and trying them out, questions about improvisation on the whole were met with a response of "I just do what I do" and therefore I was keen to hear what he had to say in the question and answer session that would follow the performance later. Our performance was held in one of the performance halls at Penglais University campus and was attended by around 150 people. Phil very unconventionally introduced the choir in a feral voice, improvising alone for ten minutes before he turned around- and facing the choir, led us through a sensational vocal soundscape that met great applause from the audience when we had finished.
Q.1 What is your role within the choir? Phil M. "I plant seeds of ideas, that's really my role and it is as vague as that. I can pitch things sometimes as well, and I think little riffs and motifs- I'll encourage people to explore them. If there are people that want to make up things themselves that's ok, but within the group improvisation others become leaders so it's not as if I'm directing all the time. I suppose I edit, it's like mixing, I set up patterns, ideas and different colours and different textures, and then I sit back and mix it."
Phil M. "I started to experiment with my voice, I should think as young as three. I used to impersonate my mother and father, my uncle. I was born in the war, and where we lived, it was bombed a lot actually, I think the sounds I made were drawn from sounds and influences around me. And the choir, it just became a natural progression of what I was doing as a musician as I grew older."
Phil. M. "Yes they do. Some seeds I don't like, they feel like weeds so I extinguish them, well maybe weeds is the wrong expression, but yes, when something is working and is repeated, it all adds to the overall texture of the piece".
Phil. M. "I know. I suppose the individual knows, the participant, or the listener, it's all perhaps a matter of taste. Do you have problems with it? Maybe some you can listen to and some you cannot. I guess you know it's right when you get something from it."
Phil. M. "I like both- audible and dissident actually. The standard of western harmony I like, I was brought up as a Methodist and used to sing 'all things bright and beautiful' you know, I come from a Welsh Methodist consciousness, so I don't mind at all. I started to listen to John Coltrane, he was definitely an inspiration to me".
Phil. M. "Not very far I think is the answer, (laughter from audience) I mean it already is what it is. The powers that be, I mean they'll step on it. It's about getting involved. In a number of situations, I see participants looking younger, free, losing they're preconceptions as they get involved, it's an individual journey I think". Q.7 Who are you working with at the moment? Phil. M. "I've been working with homeless people in Tokyo, I've been working in prisons in England and America, I've been doing some outreach work in the borough of Hammersmith. Basically I start the same way, with laughter.. I'm working with some homeless people here in Aberystwyth on Monday, and I'm also working in a college in France with opera singers, so each setting is different, there's different ideas every time". Click the RIGHT MOUSE button, and use "save target as"
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