So often, we just stand and sing. But your voice lives in your body. So it’s no wonder that, when you focus on moving your body in new ways, new music comes out of it.

Teaching a class on “Improvising from Folk Songs & Dances” this summer, with my wonderful co-teacher Diana Yourke, I have seen how much music is liberated when the body is invited to move in its own way.

So this week, let’s experiment with moving and singing at the same time. Let’s see how deeply movement and vocalization are connected.

Options

Option A: Audio. Here’s a chance to explore the liberating potential of movement, in the safety and privacy of your own home. The goal is to record a short improvised piece. But instead of just standing and delivering, you should find a movement for every sound. It might be subtle and continuous, with your hands or your face. Or it might be bold and rhythmic, with arms and legs moving every which way. See how connected you can make the body & voice: every movement has a sound, and every sound has a movement. With this option, in the end, all you’ll be sharing is the audio. But if you’d like to go further …

Option B: Video. Same as above: as you begin to sing, let each sound you make have an expression in movement, and every movement some expression in the voice. The only difference, with this option, is that you will be taking video, and uploading it to YouTube or Vimeo (instead of SoundCloud). This is the time to liberate yourself from any pretense to normalcy. Who needs it? Move how you gotta move. Who knows what you might discover.

To Contribute

The steps are as follows:
       • Step 1: Record yourself singing and moving, either audio or video.

• Step 2: Upload to SoundCloud or YouTube/Vimeo and post the track to the SSS group (as well as the FB group).
• Step 3: Listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow singers.

Deadline: Your tracks should be uploaded by midnight wherever you are on Monday, July 4, 2016.

Length: The length of your finished work should be about as long as it takes you to get a move on.

Description: It would be awesome to include a short description of where and when you sang your piece.

Title/Tag: When uploading to SoundCloud, put “[sss-move]” in the title of your track. Also include the term “sss-move” as a tag. This will help us find it.

Linking: You are welcome to include this info in your description:

This track is a reply to “SSS Prompt 75: Move and sing.”  More on the Society for Spontaneous Singing at http://singthis.org .

Thank you, sweet singers!

Yours,
Jascha & Amado