SINGWALK
If you ever want to go singing in unusual places and are looking for a companion, please contact me! I’m always—always thrilled to join in!
Singwalk was installed at Fieldwork in Brooke Valley, Ontario
May 2017 – Fall 2018
Singwalk was designed by Nicola to express her love of interacting with the environment through the voice. Her background as a music therapist helps her to see each musical experience as a significant musical event rather than as a passing sensory moment. She is passionate about exploring the sound of the voice in as many different environments as possible, both in the context of an acoustic exploration and as a way to deepen her experience of the space itself. During her seven-week walk on the Cornish coast in spring 2017, she sang to the caves, the waves, and the structures created by humans to further this understanding. She returned there in Sept. 2019, to further her experiences of Environmental Vocal Exploration
Singwalk was an installation as a guided trail. There were 8 ‘singpoints’ on the trail and at each stop there was signage, which invited and encouraged people to stop and make sound in various ways. The stops took full advantage of the site, making use of the woods, the pond, and the field. Some examples were:
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- to sing quietly to the self while leaning on the nearby tree.
- to sing in a full operatic voice over the pond
- to sing facing companions
- to sing to the sky
- to sing with the sounds in the forest. Ideas of what to sing, and of how to release self-consciousness were included.
Participants were encouraged to rise to the permission to sing fully. Ideas of how to experience a deeper discovery of your relationship to the environment were included
During ‘Singwalk’, participants purposefully explored vocal sound in relationship with the environment in the following ways:
Our voices in relationship with the environment
We experienced our relationship to the environment through sound, by singing in and interacting vocally with the different environments offered by the site: in the woods, on the path, in the meadow and by the water.
In the environment within ourselves
We opened up the voice to a full sound, sing meditatively, sing to the self in the trees and interact vocally with the sounds around us. We explored these various levels of sound and the vocal textures in between.
Our voices in relationship with others
We sang together and felt what it is to experience community from this unusual vantage point.
The Singwalk logo you see on this page was designed by Annie Dalton at https://www.anniedalton.com. Thank you, Annie!