“Like Ringing Bells & Howling Wolves” Ancient Diaphonic Vocal Systems from Bulgaria
It was an absolute delight to be present to the glory of Tui and her gentle but very firm leadership of Bulgarian Singing at Newtown Community Centre.
I'm looking and trying to find the appropriate collective noun to describe the experience. “A sisterhood of women singing collectively together” captures it more for me. There was a wonderful invitation, a calling to being present right at the beginning of the day, a welcoming to the space and to each other.
We began to see the ways in which our threads of possibility could connect, across the room, and interweaving through each other experience. We are women and we carry our individual stories and our collective experience with us, and it is told through our singing, and sometimes we need to be able to have space to speak it out, to then create the room to be able to sing freely - and these are the parameters that Tui created for us in the morning.
Next was a very thorough warm up. I did enjoy this part so immensely. I think I'm probably inclined to be a slow process person and so for me this idea of taking our time and being embodied, of becoming aware of what we need and of what levels/layers needed to be warmed and readied for the vocal practice that we were there to learn.
There was something in the way that we grounded our bodies - we focused on our upper torso and head, shoulders, our face, the upper mask, the lip, the Botox zone, that allowed me to view singing in a way that was joyous and precious.
On writing this, I am reminded to do these things for daily practice because they truly are good for your health practice.
There were multiple golden nuggets gifted to us from Tui in the duration of the song leading. I don’t want to give too many away because I really want for you to experience this for yourself. (There is another workshop on Saturday 8th June, at Dom Polski)
We discovered contrasts and questions outside our typical Western singing paradigms. The Bulgarian Folklore tone of voice was quite a different provocation. This shed light on myself as an artist and the way I like to communicate through music and theatre. Over the years I have come a long way from being a drama queen - I was an accent and body expression addict, picking up on how to communicate using my body. I consider myself quite good now at being flexible with shifting roles for purpose and intention, rather than for play and being silly. During this workshop, I enjoyed the challenge of letting my mouth and face do the work, not my body.
We have some audio to share - a fragment of the song “Slwntse Na Visoko, Libe Na Daleko” which was taught to Tui by the kind Dina Koleva, who is the leader of the current Bistrishkite Babi (Grannies of the Clear Water Village), in Bistritsa, Bulgaria. It involved long phrases and exquisite ornamentation, somewhat blurred by the power of the 24 voices joining together in diaphonic celebration.
As we were raising our voices in this song, we had a spontaneous visitor. One of the glorious things about music is that it kind of calls people in, and to the beauty of what we were doing - standing in two lines facing each other, so the sound curved and shaped beautifully. I noticed this woman absolutely drawn in by this magical sound we were creating. I could see her face filled with wonder and delight at the sound we were making, nearly like she was asking herself, “how can I join this wonderful thing happening here?”
“Closer, says Tui, shoulder to shoulder”. The closer we stood, the more the intimacy increased our intention, and the more vibrant and interwoven the sound, as if the voices became more than the sum of their parts. I think you can hear this in this sound captured below.
It was a wonderful rich day of singing, song leading and cake! Thanks to our gorgeous spontaneous cake baker.
The keywords I think I'm left with when I think about the workshop is vocal placement, cohesion of warm up, trust of others, fall into line, still your body from expression, shoulder to shoulder, moon singing, ancient diaphonic vocal systems and the power of women being together.
There is another glorious event coming up soon.
Like Ringing Bells & Howling Wolves _ Part 2
Saturday 8th June (10am-4pm)
REGISTER tuimamaki@gmail.com
So do go and get your own Bulgarian Singing Experience!
Check out our event section for more details.
Claire Hewitt