harmonic singing

zhao

there are no accidents
we just had an amazing harmonic singing session for the good part of an hour. i feel all elated and relaxed now, like i just did yoga or smoked a big fatty.

what started out as just being silly in the kitchen got more serious when we realized we really enjoyed doing this, so we went into the studio and put on Alvin Lucier's Still And Moving Lines Of Silence In Families Of Hyperbolas, which is a 2CD of pure tones made with single instruments, and we tried to match the pitch of the steady drones with our voices, sitting cross legged on the floor, like

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

or

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

really fucking amazing when 2 or all 3 droned match up, and everything in the room is just.............. vibrating............. !!! if i had hair it would have been standing up... at times it felt like we were levitating.

highly recommended for everyone!

anyone else done this? been a part of a singing circle?

i think Pauline Oliveros regularly holds these improvised singing circle things open for all to join, whether you are professional or amateur.
 

3 Body No Problem

Well-known member
really fucking amazing when 2 or all 3 droned match up, and everything in the room is just.............. vibrating............. !!!

Word. Singing in tune is awesome, regarding of seating arrangements. That feeling in the lungs when you know everybody is hitting their notes ... The civilised world is really missing out by having contracted out singing to trained specialists.
 

zhao

there are no accidents
The civilised world is really missing out by having contracted out singing to trained specialists.

so true... to us music is spectacle, is entertainment, is commodity... so sad as it has been a part of life and ritual for so long and in such intimate ways that the idea of recording it would have probably been absurd even if the means were there.

technology... giveth, and taketh away. everyone is so focused on how it has given, and i think with time more will realize the fundamental ways with which it has impoverished human life.
 

muser

Well-known member
^what about in a religious context? even in the west you'll find people singing together on a regular basis and I'm sure it will continue indefinitely, or people at a football game or just pissed up people singing oasis. It is clearly an innate thing and still happens just in different (and probably overall a lot less spiritual) ways.
 
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3 Body No Problem

Well-known member
^what about in a religious context? even in the west you'll find people singing together on a regular basis and I'm sure it will continue indefinitely, or people at a football game or just pissed up people singing oasis.

Typically they don't sing in tune in such contexts. This is probably because being able to sing in tune requires a bit of practise, which one tended to acquire as part of growing up in environments where singing is not farmed out to specialists.
 

3 Body No Problem

Well-known member
so true... to us music is spectacle, is entertainment, is commodity... so sad as it has been a part of life and ritual for so long and in such intimate ways that the idea of recording it would have probably been absurd even if the means were there.

technology... giveth, and taketh away. everyone is so focused on how it has given, and i think with time more will realize the fundamental ways with which it has impoverished human life.

The dialictics of modernisation. On the positive side, specialising in music making leads to more and quicker progress.
 
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