The Print Room - Artist in Residence 2011
The original concept for SOUND AND SPACE was devised at The Print Room Theatre, London. Invited by theatre Director Lucy Bailey & Creative Director Anda Winters as an Associate Artist. My vision was to present a Cross Arts Immersive Sound Healing experience for a theatre crowd. Combining the basic principles of a Musical Interval Treatment, a safe comforting space, intense coloured lighting & the Mongolian Animist tradition of Over/Undertone Singing. The idea was to create Art that could really change your life !
Together with Michael Orminston, UK's Mongolian Throat singing expert, we took the simple structure of a normal western scale & combined it with the complex sound of Khoomi singing. We took the natural scale as our basis & recorded a root drone track in C. From here we continued to climb the natural scale, employing the fascinating & complex Khoomii techniques beginning with Candida's remarkable Kharkhiraa undertone note. We continued layering Michael's sounds of Khorekteer, Khomii, Sygt, Chylandyk, Kargyraa, Chylandyk.
composition Mongolian Chakra Balance. Guest Vocals were provided by Candida Valentino & Matthew Hopwood. We also recorded a variation of ancient Singing bowl sounds, a little Gong & Murin Kur ( Mongolian mono string instrument). All the sounds you will hear are Acoustic
The term "Interval Healing" is the application of a Musical Interval & is used widely in Sound Healing practices. Within this work I had an interest to combine Western musical theory to the Eastern philosophy & practice of Khoomi Singing to test out weather the results would be the same as just using simple clean notes or tones sung.
The Mongolian Chakra system inspired the structure of the composition. I became fascinated with the idea that we could sing into balance, unblock & tune our vibration to avoid or prevent illness. physical space developed with the wonderfully enthusiastic designer Rhiannon Newman Brown. Lighting was masterfully executed by Sally Ferguson.
chakra corresponding colours. To flood the white space with light & run the corresponding chakra colour alongside the chakra note.
With this colour flooding in mind our audience were invited to don white paper suits & enter our cushioned tent like space. This proved great fun on Saturday night sittings with 80 people wedged into our muslin tent. Head to toe, back to back and some propped upright around the edges, we crammed in excited participants. With occasional raucous pillow throwing outbreaks everyone rapidly settled as the lights dipped into a silent black.
Our crowd lay in curiosity. The lights, almost static, fade from blackness to a dark dark soil-like red. Candida Valentino's Kargyraa undertone provided a deep resonant purr, cutting through the silence & creating the bedrock of our composition and unique atmosphere. Pitched in C this is our root note. It is our blanket for all other notes to be laid upon. This earthy resonance introduces the composition as well as closes our session. It's main function is grounding. Its note in the western scale is C. Each further increment gently travels up the Natural scale to D. Then E. F.G.A.B.C Then back down to the low C to ground & complete the cycle of the Octave.
As light slowly builds to full luminosity, standard red bled into orange through to yellow on to green, blue, purple, violet to rest once again in soil-red. An earthy grounding finish. All the while the sound track throbbed alongside of it each note, punctuated by the corresponding Chakra.
Michael Orminston has an informative website with a collection of expert papers & references that provide an in depth look at the complexities of Tuvan Throat singing. For further insight please click here.
as an interval healing included Khoomi Overtone singing,A guest appearance from Candida Valentino provided our essential opening & closing grounding note. This spectacular undertone style is called Kargyraa. Sounding lioness like in her growl.