Listen- a thought on Prosody inspired by Migisi Bineshii

2009-02-02T08:41:00.000-08:00

I Love the word "listen". I love the whole concept. Even the word itself, in english, the phonetics, the prosodic value of it, evokes a sense of quiet, or anticipatatory silence, like a "hush."

Li-(sssss)-eh-(nnnnn)

The (sss) is like a snake- and you know, if you are walking along a wooded path, and you hear "ssss", it is a sign to stop, look and, of course, listen. It also recalls the hissing of a leak in an inflatable device, or a leak in a seal of any kind where valuable air is being lost.

The (nnnn) sound is the phonemic expression of quiet focus and attention.

"Listen" is a word that is itself , a word that phonetically and true to its prosody is the action it represents.

When I Hear the Singer's Flesh

2009-01-27T06:42:00.000-08:00

Soul Singers

The Singing Body is Soul
Soul is the Substance of Sound

Soul singers
More than entertainment

More Earth than ground
Circular and round

They rally the paintbrush,
dabbing palette of soul.

They sing the bushel full
with ripe grains

they sing the cabinets
emptying

the tensions of chains

they sing the stone
fade
into blushing

they sing
the rich stock made
from next to nothing

~~~~~~~~~

When I hear a good singer, I am hearing their flesh.

Sound is made up of more than what one can hear. Sound is made up of what one can feel, and what one can feel is the resonance of intent, meaning of; history of the artist. The soul of the artist.

Singing and soul are the same thing. There is no such singing other than soul singing. Any singing that is not soul singing is not singing at all.

Finding your voice through the body- your instrument. You can feel it come out- your soul.

Your soul = resonance of physical memory vibrations in your flesh and bone and cartilage and blood and sinew. The vibrations (the soul) that your body, the instrument, has picked up over the years- the conflicts, the graces, the ecstasy, the joys, the sadnesses, the brutalities, the violence, the despair- it is all vibrating in the singer’s body pool and it is what comes out when you find your voice- All this combined with your flesh, sinew, blood, bone and cartilage is what constitutes your voice, and your voice is the textures of your being.

You can sing through your shoulder blades, clavicles, jowels, face plate, eye sockets, ear canals, sinus cavities, forehead, crown, chest cavity, chest meat, shoulders, hips, thighs, and haunches. When you find your voice, you cleanse your body; you find your body clear for the release and congress of the vibrations that shimmer and resonate. Splashing, when you sing your soul, casting one pail of water at another pail of water, thrown towards each other like two children in swimsuits on the grass. One douses his older brother and the older lets it pass. A water balloon in the face. Singing is the collision of your water with the water of a water wall. Singing should be wet, projected in a stream, like a thumb tip over the end of a garden hose knocking fireflies off their dandelions. Singing, wet like a shower falling into the surface of a stream. The word for this is new: “Spratter.” Singing should be wet in pulse, like the fireman handling sizzling blasts of on/off/on/off bursts of cold water to steam, where it meets the black, hot carbon of a disaster.

The vibrations that you have apprehended and absorbed over time are free to vibrate again and be released.

Warm wind. Beach breezes. The shadow of a cumulus cloud thrown down to remind us of silence, raking the beach of light, quieting bright swimsuit mayhem. Beyond the soaking strand, the black band, the low ocean roar makes for opening of lower register chest and gut.

The sparkling and waving of orange yellow Autumn fire leaves of a sugar maple make for singing through your eyes and resonance of sinus and face-plate structures, the ocular titillation of a note sung on a cool Northern October morning.

May rain on the skin at seven a.m. makes for a texture like low hanging stratus showers that saturate the throat like a projection of the quiet, cool puddling of sidewalks.

The vibration of people, lovers, make for soft cheek and jowel vocal projections through wet spongy flesh. A centered and fixed soft-lock stereo gaze makes for kiss vocals through the flesh of relaxed lips. A halo of sound and light emanating from the orbit of the face and lips like a cone of yellow reading light on the round page of her face.

All vibrations; even violence; upbubblings through marrow and mud pots race channels into gas jets of rage and violence. The packed cartridge of the nail gun. Rocketing from the wall behind the heart, a nail through a stud, the thing that holds the house up, cracking under stress, a split gable, a busting joist, splintering, collapsing outward. Projected from the heart through the teeth and palate like bullets of sound firing straight through the frontal plate of the skull.

Ancient Oaks and Redwoods

The original impulse to sing is not an impulse to mastery of form or language itself; the original impulse is for projection of the utterance, which is the body leaping forward in response to the pure stimulus. As chaotic and as spasmodic as the contents of that bleat, roar, groan, or cawl may initially be expressed, we do well to shed the intellect.

Young singers should begin as animals and forget about words. The twelve tone scale should not interfere; the body knows placement of tone and its scale is in increments finer than semi-demi-tones. The impulse to mastery of form comes later, perhaps right on the heels of the original impulse, as a need recognized by the singer to meet the inspiration of his utterances with a projection specific in form and shape which approximates his inspiration’s gift to him. Singing is imitation to this extent; not the imitating of others, rather the imitation akin to any gestural exchange between two beings, which is mirrored. It may be that the singer is compelled to mirror nature, as with the shaman, who will bark and crow, and roar, or split shrieks through his glottis in imitation of the lightning bolt that freed him from his automation. Or one may be compelled to mirror the broad face of a lover, to sing the flesh rich flushed beneath the eyes, glowing with yes. Or the singer may be compelled to vocalize the pounce of a cat, or the profound terror of an antelope’s head being crushed between the jaws of a lion.

The impulse to mastery of form then, is the recognition of the charge to return a sound of equal value to the gift originally given by the inspiration, or impulse, to the singer’s body.

That inspiration may be beauty. That inspiration may be terror. In this case, one might be tempted to refer to the source of the terror as an impression, rather than an inspiration; However, inspiration is an in breath, and though, at the point of terror, breathing often momentarily ceases, it is still ceased on the cusp of the inspiring, or taking in the spirit of the witnessed, terrifying thing.

There are car tires screeching toward the thump of impacting steel and glass, really sounding more like a metallic punch into a sandbag than a catastrophic event. The singer is impressed by this, and will one day return the analogue, which is vocally, a compressed approximation of an auto accident, perhaps, infused with the oily tea of confusion, disorientation, or grief.

A scream contains blue notes like cerulean losing its linseed oil as it drips down a canvas.

A recoil of pain is a stack of pure frequencies unrecognizable to the staff, but exactly music. Shouting out the name of a loved one that has become lost, the body takes over the voice, broadcasting the chill of bone with operatic clarity.

The orgasm, a moment of terror- the terror of overwhelming, pure ego dissolving pleasure, is the Neolithic forest shadowboxed, the green, overgrown diorama in your belly; the moan is the deep physical memory imprint of the sound of ancient oaks, tall redwoods felled by roaring time, crashing down and snapping, splintering through the canopy and turning to coal. This is the utterance of the flesh, and this is where singing starts.

We yelled into each others eyes, a shared name, one syllable, ejected repeatedly like a punch. We accused each other of ecstasy, bellowing the indictment into the ribbed cave of each the other’s throat.

The singing body is an instrument that is formed and shaped by all physical experience. (All emotional experience is also physical.) The singing body is an ever changing instrument, the master craftsman of which, is experience, the bristles of the brush, the nerve endings.

Sing in full, rich, agonizingly true soul: Open up! Even on the quiet passages, PROJECT! Breathe in that phrase. Take it down deep, deep down between your hips, so as you have the sensation of straddling a huge rubber ball between your legs, bounding and balancing and floating on a “hippity-hop” of breath. Open that jaw. Drop those jowls. Give it to us in full consonance; snap that “t” and pop that “p”. Those vowels- yawn those vowels like you are giving big, bouncy, beach ball birth to them through your gaping mouth.

Genies: Being the Inner Voice

Listen- a thought on Prosody inspired by Migisi Bineshii

When I Hear the Singer's Flesh