Notes and Reflections from our Thursday Night Sing

A group of women come together to sing each Thursday night at the Freight & Salvage in Berkeley, California. These are our notes and reflections.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Singing Together

I had really been missing singing with women and it was such a pleasure to begin our circle last week.
Here is the link to our first bunch of songs.  Some we got to, some we didn't, but this songbook will keep growing as we go along:
Women's Circle Songbook

I thought I would post some videos of different styles of  singers who are singing from different centers of their body. We worked a bit with getting our voices to resonate from the depths of our guts to the tops of our heads.  We are all able to make such diverse sounds with our voices.  It is interesting how different cultures tend to favor and develop vocal styles using their instruments in such unique ways.

Eastern European womens choirs belt out their vocals from with a nasal head voice:



Luzmila Carpio is from the mountains of Bolivia where the air is thin.  She sings so high up in her head voice that it is difficult at times to differentiate her voice from the flute.  If you are short on time, skip to around 1:07 to hear her reach great heights.  Incredible:




These women in the Congo are using chest voices:



Tuvan throat singers:



RIP Odetta:  A woman who knew how to sing from the depths of her belly:


3 comments:

  1. Sarita, this is great! I wish I didn't have to work Thursday nights--I'd totally join your class. Are you all going to learn Tuvan throat singing?

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  2. We will experiment with throat singing and harmonics. If you ever have a moment, pop in!

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  3. I totally need the large print Rise Up Singing!!! Thank you for the gift of this class!

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