Find out about Bristol Feral Choir leader,
Mel McCree, including blog musings, artistic practice, research, other workshops and events.
2012 Schedule
Bristol Feral Choir
monthly on 3rd Wednesdays 7.30pm
Feb 22nd / March 21st / April 18th /
May 16th / June 20th / July 18th
Sept 19th / Oct 17th / Nov 21st
Going Feral
Woodland Workshops, near Bristol
Sunday April 22nd
Sat 13th and Sun 14th October
Other summer Going Feral dates in Bristol, Stroud, the Lakes and elsewhere tbc. Watch this space….
new term: back to sqwhooowwl
Autumnal Wednesday howls in Brizzle town have started! For 2011 ’til Crassmass:
Sept 21st, Oct 26th, Nov 16th & Dec 7th.
If you haven’t been and need to find us -
We practice in Bristol Greenhouse Studio at the bottom of the garden at 292 Ashley Down Road (the one with the palm tree). You go through the wooden gate at the side of the house and follow the beautiful path down.
We start at 7.30pm and finish around 9.45pm. Fee £5. We have a nice tea break. There is parking on Ashley Down Road. and you can lock your bike in the garden out of sight of the road.
If you want to know what we do….check this film and this too
GOING FERAL is still going for Oct 1st and Nov 5th – details in the previous post with booking form and flyer attached. Come enjoy & explore the autumn woods.
Winter Wondersong is having a sabbatical but the seasonal songs seem to want to pop up somewhere. We will keep you posted. There are exciting new plans afoot for 2012 also…..
Remember, we love to collaborate so call on us if you want some ferality for your event or work of art. We’d love to play with a wordsmith or two or anyone who wants / needs some strange howlers to film or record. It all comes free of course. We are spreading the love.
Return to Feral
What are you doing this Saturday?
Autumn is sneaking up and tickling our toes, blowing through our hair and dropping ripe fruits into our happy eager mouths. With all the delicate seasonal changes rustling around us, it’s a blissful time of year to hang out in the woods. A great time to make the most of the outdoors while ye may before the weather sends us scurrying for the safety of roofs and walls.
We invite you to come and join us going feral for the day this Saturday Sept 3rd 2011 (also Oct 1st and Nov 5th). The final three of the series this year, so seize the day while you can. Our feral adventures have proved a delight, bringing us back to our bodies, inspired and refreshed, buzzing with natural awareness and creativity.
We’re looking forward to sharing a picnic round the fire with you soon
with wild wishes,
Mel and Itta
Contact us if you have any questions or download and send your booking form in.
NB We send out the final info once we receive the booking – the location is kept secret.
Chakra Toning: a few sound minutes of beauty…
This is a guide to help you enjoy vocalising sound, for its own sake or with the intention of improving your health, your voice, your peace of mind, your life and other’s.
It’s great to do first thing in morning or last thing at night, anywhere. I like a lovely natural spot with fresh air and the weather on my face : )
Here’s some info so you can try it at home. Yes indeed, do try it at home…. *
Different people do it differently. Basically if it feels right, that’s great, so go with what works for you, adapt and adjust accordingly. They are your chakras after all, so don’t let anyone tell you (including me!) what sound goes with your body. It’s a case of trial and error from suggestions and exploration. For those who have been coming to the Bristol Feral Choir sessions, you’ll know what to do from experience and how you can adapt it for your own needs.
Having said all that, I find that using specific vowels helps. I’ve noted some here but feel free to adjust, try them for a while and then experiment. The fact that they’ve remained remarkably similar across many different traditions for millennia is an indicator that there is something going for these systems.
In time, I’ve built up a personal relationship with each vowel and body location, so it feels right to me and the connections are all mine. Yours are all yours.
This is the vowel system I follow, from the bottom up:
……Base – UHH ………… Sacral – OOH ……….. Solar plexus – OH …… Heart – AAH ….. Throat – EH …….. Third eye – EYE ……… Crown – EEE
1) Toning can be done ANYWHERE *** Ideally get comfy & prepare as you would for meditation;
- minimise extraneous noise and distractions
- wear something loose fitting and warm
- have drinking water to hand
- switch off phone
- ask people to leave you in peace if needs be.
That’s it. You’re ready.
2) Decide how long you have or let it be what it will be. I recommend toning each chakra vowel for at least 2 mins, up to about 5 mins. However, 30 seconds on each chakra sound is so much better than nothing. Simply sound each sound for as long as feels comfortable and extend with practice. Take some nice deep breaths and enjoy the silence between each one if you feel like it.
3) Close your eyes. Locate your consciousness in your base chakra area and visualise whatever helps. (really try and move the focus so that you feel are actually in the base of your spine, rather than in the front brain area where we often tend to locate ourselves).
4) Start toning ‘uhhhhh’ at the bottom, softly and as low as is comfortable. Note that the chosen pitch is fluid and up to you. I find it’s good to keep a steady note so you can enter it deeply. Try sliding into all the notes from a lower pitch, it feels nice and is in keeping with the Indian singing tradition and other feral voices. It gives you more leeway to stop when you’ve found ‘your’ note.
You may really get into each sound experience. Try playing with the shape of your mouth and tongue to move the harmonics around. Your breathing, brain activity, metabolism and heart rate may steady. While you are there, stay with the image, the feeling and location of the chakra that you’ve chosen, let it resonate.
As you tone, reflect on how each tone feels – some will be murkier, some will feel stronger than others. With practice this can help you to scan your body for places of tension and help them to relax, amongst other things. Some may bring up body memories, let these be and accept them for what they are, so too any floating thoughts. It may help at another time to read a bit about the chakras and reflect on your own connections to these different aspects of your body and soul.
5) Move on up. Gently slide the pitch up with your consciousness to the next chakra and vowel (from uhhh, ooo, oh, aah, eh, eye, eee). The pitch can go up successively for each chakra until the last one which is as high as you like. The last sound on the crown chakra can be visualised as being located all over your skin and auric energy field. This is lovely.
6) Take a nice deep breath and in one breath, slide down from that high vowel sound all the way down through all the different vowel sounds until you come to rest in the base chakra uuuhhhh sound again. This is for grounding your energy so you don’t wibble off and space out, wasting all that good effort.
7) Finally sit in silence for a few minutes, take solace in the stillness and clarity. Another tip – conserve the raised energy and peace of mind you have just generated. Focus it as healing where you feel it is needed, in you or elsewhere. As a form of prayer, you can use the energy and intention for good.
I hope that helps you to find a practice you enjoy that is of benefit : )
Your body
knows best.
A trembling in the bones may carry a more convincing testimony than the dry documented deductions of the brain.
~Llewelyn Powers
There is deep wisdom within our very flesh, if we can only come to our senses and feel it.
~Elizabeth A. Behnke
Finally
here’s one
I particularly enjoy:
I think we may safely trust a good deal more than we do.
~Henry David Thoreau
Further lovely chakra quotes for inspiration here.
A further note on using sound for personal healing
I strongly feel that there is not a prescribed system of certain notes or types of sound and music that ‘match’ different chakras. This is counter-intuitive. Instead, trust your own judgement and your abillity to find your own healing. Beware of bogus recordings or practices that claim to have a piece of music designated for a specific chakra. A dose of skepticism is useful here – trust me, I’m a music therapist ; )
It may feel good, it certainly won’t do any harm, but only you can assess if it is really helping to balance your solar plexus for example. However the placebo is a wonderful thing. I once witnessed a Western yogic cult in Rishikesh being told to dance to techno to get in touch with their base chakras, then to several other pieces of godawful music that had been prescribed for their benefit by their loving guru.
I couldn’t get out the ashram fast enough ; )
At first I taught myself to tone, obsessively reading books about yoga and sound healing as a teenager (geeky even then). Since then I’ve used it as a daily morning practice for years. I’ve attended plenty of different vocal workshops and trainings that have incorporated elements of toning. Good people whose work on this subject I know and endorse – Jonathon Goldman, James D’Angelo, Susan Hale, Frankie Armstrong, Noah Pikes, Pete Hamel, Theo Gimbel. Go check ‘em out if you want to know more.
You might want to look at Hans Jenny’s Cymatics, yogic and Tibetan traditions too.
This is a Cymatics image, a physical pattern made by sound vibrating, originally by sand on metal plates.
Not just a pretty picture, it’s the kind of pattern you make when you tone.
Mmmmmmmm.
Life is amazing isn’t it?
* Unlike some pundits I’ve seen on the web, this is a completely free giveaway, in respect of the ancient global wisdom it contains. I’ve read one can be charged $150 / hour to have your chakras toned, or £500 a weekend. Well that is new age robbery IMHO yet you have to admire the cheek of those who sell it as such and the stupidity of those who pay for it.
** If you want to pay for something, go to a reasonably priced workshop, get a cd or download to tone along to. I recommend Jonathan Goldman, from reading his work I feel he is an honourable guy who has been doing it in a spirit I approve of. Of course, if local you can come to the Bristol Feral Choir too!
*** It’s nice to find a place you feel relaxed about toning in without embarrassment, but at the end of the day, just do it! You’re not exactly breaking the record for freaky behaviour. Others can live with it and may even be enjoy hearing it and be impressed! With practice, the self-conscious feelings lessen. Park benches in lunch hours, on the bus, random locations; I dare you! I particularly like stair wells (great for high frequency acoustics) or the inbetweeny ‘vestibules’ on train carriages, if alone i.e. not rush hour. The noise of the train on the tracks can drown out your sound and you can get quite loud. A great travel pep-me-up. It’s great to add your beautiful vocal sounds to all that industrial jibber-jabber. The world needs more oooh and aaaaah.
**** Nice info re chakras here – again ignore the pitch prescriptions eg base chakra is C etc. For my further argument on resisting tempered scales in the industrial age, you’ll have to wait : ) Find your own free range feral notes!
Go Feral for the day this summer 2011
GOING FERAL – new course starts in April
Singing and playing in the woods! This is a Bristol Feral Choir playful investigation. We are curious as to what being a feral artist really means. Do you dare join us? We’d love you to. We’ll provide friends and fun with tea and cake around a cosy campfire at regular intervals.
Welcome to our feral world in 2011….
Hello friends old and new,
We’ve had a lot of enquiries in the last week or so – seems like getting your voice out is on the new year’s resolutions list. Good luck – go for it! Singing keeps you happy, healthy and sexy (we have proof, he he he). Whilst improvising keeps you present, expressive and responsive : ) Put them both together and you’re a radiant ninja, ready for anything!
Here’s a brief update to let you know what’s in store this year. 2011 sees wild adventures in all things feral:
Weekly Wednesday sessions are now MONTHLY on every 3rd Wednesday starting from Feb 16th in the GreenHouse Studio as before (292 Ashley Down Rd BS7 9BQ). 7.30 – 9.30pm.
March 16th, April 27th, May 18th, June 15th, July 20th, dates in Autumn tbc.
In these sessions, we welcome newcomers and people who want to drop in and say hi. Mel leads a warm up and jam. We practice techniques and rehearse for any upcoming gigs.
On that subject, our next gig is with our mentor Phil Minton at a spooky all-nighter at the British Museum to celebrate the Egyptian Book of the Dead, Feb 17th. Come for a feral ride to London with us if you dare.
We’ve changed the schedule to make room for new developments…..
“If you go down to the woods today….”
Feral Funday Skools in the woods of Bristol
7 Saturdays from April 9th – November 5th (with summer break)
Enchanted days where we go out to play in the woods, exploring, improvising and playing with our voices and bodies to find out what it means to truly be a feral vocalist. With cosy fire, base camp, hot snacks and loads of fun! With Mel McCree and guest tutor movement artist Itta Howie.
Contact Mel for further info and booking form.
June 17 – 20th: Singing paddles course. Come to the beautiful Fowey estuary and have a singing canoeing adventure! Learn to canoe and sing water-based songs while paddling through startlingly beautiful countryside in glorious midsummer. Bring out your inner Amazon, improvise along with the birds and the lapping water as you drift along. Campfires, yummy food, sea shanty pub crawls and great company. Co-led with Adventure Cornwall. All in for under £200 and concs available. Cheap group camping in week beforehand if you want to extend your break and a midsummer’s nights dream on the way home. More details coming soon.
When we have demand, we run occasional Saturday TASTER SESSIONS at Green House Studio in VOCAL PLAY & IMPROVISATION. This, like the Wednesday sessions, is a great introduction to our niche genre. Can be arranged very cheaply for private groups – contact Mel to discuss.
Ferals roar in the Bear Pit, Festival of Desperation 2010
Bristol’s chocka full of vocal and artistic life – here’s a few things run by people we heartily recommend:
Join in with Itta’s monthly cross-arts impro jam @ DMAC, Hamilton House.
Caroline Pringle’s monthly Sunday voice workshops, Self build Wild Goose Space.
Caroline Gil’s occasional voice and movement workshops, YogaSara Studios
Jan Castle’s Voicing your Purpose’ workshops with Helen Chadwick.
Winter Wondersong virtual workshop – listen & learn songs
I’ve posted some rough edits of some of the songs to my soundcloud page and on Facebook at the event page. These are more of the less well known traditional numbers, rather than carols you may be familiar with. There are different parts to learn so you can enjoy singing them on Tuesday at the gig. The winter weather means the workshop has to be virtual as I’m snowed in!
What’s it like to collaborate with the choir? A view from an artist.
The Bristol Feral Choir are brilliant people to start a collaboration with: I like the way they devise their own work from an almost infinite potential. I like their openness to new ideas and the way they can activate other people’s ideas without being restricted to any one discipline.
I could not believe my luck when I met the Bristol Feral Choir. IDST!’s show CATNAP was about the loss of language at the busiest part of the city, the M32. It followed a trajectory along the motorway route from over-production of language to no-language at all. Mel and the choir knew how to create something for the outdoor space that was perfect. They seamlessly adapted their skills as non-linguists and non-verbalists to transform a derelict urban riverside under the M32. They filled the underbelly of the highway so that it became a place of spectacle and one where words got lost.
People who chanced upon it were spellbound. Happily for me their sound-songs quite literally left me speechless. Their performance helped us achieve our aim of engaging people in a relationship with the sounds of the space and it’s inhabitants. I saw people straining to hear and coming closer, and at others moments looking about them as if consuming the choir’s sounds. They were both a soundtrack to the motorway and created a potent visual symbol of the end of language. People have been asking me all about the choir ever since.
I am hoping to work with them in the future. Their versatility means that I feel I could approach them about any number of shows I am involved in.
Neil Puttick, CATNAP director, IDST, Sedated by a Brick,
