This was to be the final workshop from the ‘devising’ part of the project.. ! I felt like we hadn’t really spent enough time with the voice using electronics. Matt came with me to set the devices up, so I could concentrate more on the workshop. I also met with Roger before and went over the workshop plan, so he could take the lead going through the sections I’d planned. For this session I had put together a ‘score’ – ( still with many open elements ), but with scored parts too – also specifying which settings the device is using… here’s a summary…

Section 1 – Navigating Dense Woodland
For this, most of the choir are stationary acting as ‘reflectors’ whilst 2 members of the choir navigate around them with the boxes – with sung tones as samples. I scored short fragments for the stationary singers to sing quietly (under their breath, as if singing to themselves). This section is to work with the preset that increases the ‘harmonics’ present when you get close to someone else. Choir members can switch between being stationary and being active – through negotiating, by making sure there are 1 to 3 active members during this section.

Section 2 – Navigating in a group
Work with the ‘target’ piece we had previously tried out acoustically. This section is to work with the preset that starts to add in microtonal shifts to the vocal sample as you get closer to someone else. This means as the sung notes start to converge on the same note, the electronics will begin to add these microtonal harmonies – to generate a cloud or cluster of hovering, shimmering and shifting sounds. 

Section 3 – Sounds around a circle
Most of the choir are in a circle – passing a sound around, working with extended vocal techniques and also with semitone changes to the previous tone. I then scored a duet for 2 ‘active’ singers using the devices in the centre of the circle – using the preset ‘echo delay’ – which simply alters the repeat rate of the recorded vocal sample. I designed this to be an ‘explicit moment of echo location’.

Section 4 – a repeat of the target piece – but in a different key.

Section 5 – Using Bridges
Inspired by a programme I heard on the radio talking about a conservation project that was researching how bridges might give Bats more opportunities to fly over roads, as the noise of the traffic tends to put them off – so they don’t travel so far. This section has the choir in 2 rows, working in pairs passing past each other – using vocal samples on the devices. Starting with notes I have specified (similar to section 1)  - to then get sparser. This section works with the ‘note bending’ preset – modeled on how horseshoe bats account for Doppler shift by shifting the pitch of their echo location call.

We tried to go through all the sections – which went quite well, but we still had a few tech-problems, and also, some of the music I had scored was quite difficult to sing and was a bit over-demanding on the voices of the choirs (I hadn’t built in enough gaps!!). The other realization was that there was too much happening at one time, so it was very useful to try out a structured score, but it lead me to decide to reduce it down to something much simpler and sparser.

Again – the choir were really up for trying things out – and extremely patient with the technical hiccups… which was much appreciated.