VOCAL IMPROV ENSEMBLE

Spring 2002

Kitty Brazelton
Jennings 101
Tuesdays 8:30-10pm
2 credits

This course meets once a week for an hour and a half. Please come ready to sing. [N.B. It is expected that you already know enough about vocal production to distinguish what is healthy for your instrument and what is not. Even so, you should plan to check in with a vocal coach periodically through the term.]

Between meetings you will be asked to:

listen to singers and singing, and think about the how and why of what you’re hearing
plan and create your own semi-improvised vocal performances.

You will be evaluated on the effective expression, clarity of design, open-minded technical & conceptual expansion and overall artistic growth demonstrated by these performances.

Week 1–2/26/2

Meet. Experiment. Dream. Plan.

HW: Listen to:

David Moss Together Before Jumping (1989) [3:39]
BCML (Bennington College Music Library) CD 104–"EAR Magazine Presents: ABSOLUT #3"–Selection #4
Cathy Berberian Sequenza III for solo voice (c. 1960) and Visage composed for her by her husband composer Luciano Berio
BCML CD 502–"BERIO"–Selection #3–Seq. III–[8:55]
BCML CT 408–Visage and Seq. III
Shu-De Throat-Singing. Five Styles [6:54]
BCML CD 717–"One Voice: Vocal Music from Around the World"–Selection #16
Also "Huun-Huur-Tu: 60 Horses in My Herd"–BCML CD 721
Bobby McFerrin–"Best of Bobby McFerrin"–BCML CD 859–Selection #1-3
Also (optional)–"Paper Music"– with Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra–J. S. Bach, 1^st movement from Concerto for Violins, Strings and Continuo in A minor–BCML CD 556–Selection #9
Monkey Chant Ketjak–BCML CD 898–"Music from the Morning of the World"–Selection #1 [4:17] (or #10 [22:08] optional)–and look at picture inside CD case
Yma Sumac "Voices of the Xtabay"–BCML LP 4084 (DW 684)–Selection #1

Week 2–3/5/2

Discuss listening. Experiment. Model solo a cappella improvisation assignment.

HW: Create a solo a cappella improvisation on a single word, short phrase or your own name, to perform for the class at our next meeting. One minute or less. Extend your vocal technique.

Week 3–3/12/2

Perform solo a cappella improvisations. Discuss as we go.

HW: Listen to:

Bessie Smith--- get a feel for

her style
the times
the lingo

BCML CD 750
"The Essential Bessie Smith"–Disc Two--- all 18 cuts!---

Read Kings of Jazz: Bessie Smith, by Paul Oliver
Crossett Library: MAIN / ML420.S65 O4 1959

Week 4–3/19/2

Finish solo a cappella improv’s. Talk about Bessie Smith. Reënact her. Model HW assignment. Choose trio partners.

HW: Create a trio improvisation based on cut(s) of your choice from the CD, where one singer plays Bessie and echoes her pretty literally, and the other two imitate the band and make a convincing context---do not echo the instruments literally---use your imagination---and stretch ours. As you prepare this, comment on and assist each others’ interpretations of both Bessie and band---you can trade roles if you like. Perform for the trio for the class.
Listen to Ella/ Betty Carter

Week 5–3/26/2

Perform Bessie Smith trio improv’s. Discuss. Possible preparation for performance at Musical Gathering the following week.

HW: Learn about Joan LaBarbara and her role in the shaping voice in the 20^th century avant-garde. Listen to (all in BCML):

CD 522 "Joan LaBarbara Singing Through John Cage" Selections #1, 5, 7, 8-11
CD 523 "Three Voices, by Morton Feldman, for Joan LaBarbara" Selections #1-6, "opening" — "whispers"
CT 403 An interview with Joan LaBarbara when she visited Bennington in 1996---listen to her discussions of extended techniques (multiphonics, circular singing) and the role of the "new voice"
CD 524 "Sound Paintings" compositions by Joan LaBarbara, Selections #3 and #6

Week 6–4/2/2

Discuss Joan LaBarbara. Discuss & experiment w/ homogeneous vs. heterogeneous vocal blends/textures. John Cage and the musical revolutions of the 60s in New York.

HW: Prepare a "score" using graphic notation and verbal directions for vocal quartet or quintet, selecting voices from the class. Use limited or no text. Include extended techniques which can be explained simply and quickly to others.
Read

Conversing with Cage / Richard Kostelanetz
Crossett Library: MAIN / ML410.C24 K68 1994
Silence: Lectures and Writings by John Cage, Wesleyan University Press, 1961.
BCML ML 60 .C13 S5 1969
AND find and look at any John Cage score in BCML

Week 7–4/9/2

Sight-sing "scores". Discuss and make any necessary adaptations. Prepare for performance at next Musical Gathering.

HW: Rehearse "scores" without me.

Week 8-10

No class meetings. Individual meetings with me to plan large semi-improvisational group work.

Research group vocal improvisations/non-traditional compositions/innovations in several genres:

Lambert, Hendricks & Ross–BCML LP J381 + LP J382

Swingle Singers — Berio’s Sinfonia, BCML LP 1330

Primeaux, Mike & Attson–get music from me

George Crumb (scores)–Madrigals Books I-IV– BCML 784.1–Vocal + Instruments–listen to it on LP4049–also Dawn Upshaw "White Moon: Songs to Morpheus" CD336 Selection #8-11

Krzysztof Penderecki, "The Passion according to St. Luke"– BCML LP 1091–and vocal score oversize P

Karlheinz Stockhausen, "Stimmung"–BCML CD 258

Organum & Early European vocal music

The Notre Dame School: Organa of Leonin and Perotin, BCML LP 14 and BCML LP 420 or better Hilliard Ensemble "Perotin"–BCML CD563
Origins of organum: example of contrary and parallel organum "Alleluia: Iustus et ut palma" in Norton Anthology of Western Music: Ancient to Baroque, edited by Claude V. Palisca, 3^rd edition, Vol. 1, p. 50 (score)–example 14–on CD 1 of collection, Selection #30–use by permission, on reserve shelf for Stephen Siegel
12^th c. monophonic chant–"Monastic Song"–Paul Hillier et al.–BCML CD 623
13^th c. Montpellier Codex–"Love’s Illusion"–Anonymous 4–BCML CD 108
Hildegard von Bingen–"Canticles of Ecstasy"–Sequentia–BCML CD 486

Meredith Monk’s "Atlas: an opera in three parts"– BCML CD 474 {CD 1 (CD 2 optional)}

"The Music of Islam"– Celestial Harmonies LC 7869 ISBN: 0-1371-13159-2–BCML CD 860

Weeks 11-14

Rehearsal, construction, testing of sketches and ideas towards large semi-improvisational group works culminating in FINAL PERFORMANCE

If you feel you need to solidify your basic musicianship, please use:

Elementary training for musicians by Paul Hindemith, B. Schott’s Söhne, Mainz, 1946, 2^nd edition revised 1949, 1974.
BCML: MT 35 .H6 1974

If you feel you need to solidify your basic understanding of Western harmony, please use:

Basics of Music: Opus 1 by Michael Zinn and Robert Hogenson, Schirmer Books, 1987, 2^nd edition 1994.
BCML: MT 7 .Z75 1994