Before starting the workshops in Bedford with a choir who will perform a ‘work in progress’ piece in December,  I organized 2 sessions to try out some vocal ideas to help me plan best for the workshops.

First of all I went along to the feral choir session, in Bristol, run by Mel McCree. I spent the first part of the evening taking part in their usual session – which was great as it was using the voice in different ways, and also involved quite a lot of gesture and movement. I tried out 2 ideas that related to Bats and Sonar – the first was to wander around the room with closed eyes, each person making a vocal sound – the idea being not to bump into each other and to navigate by listening.

We then experimented with working with concentric circles. The idea being that you moved within a circle, but followed an ‘open score’ based on how close to the cenre of the circle you were.  The ‘rules’ were – the centre was to make a ‘major chord’ or something ‘harmonious’ with other people in the centre (up for interpretation) – then as you move away from the centre, you can become more chromatic and discordant, until at the very peripheries of the circle, you could explore extended vocal techniques.  This really worked well, and was a very creative exercise. We also took it in turns to sit in the middle to listen  (on a chair that spins around… fun!) – which was great – a choir piece for one audience member ! ...  A few days later, I had the opportunity to try out some choir workshop ideas out on the BCA  (Bedford Creative Arts) staff. I made a detailed plan – involving quite a lot of the vocal exercises from lessons with Victoria, plus a slightly developed version of the concentric circle piece. It was good to see how people responded, and had some very useful feedback.