Bringing fully improvised music into a health setting

Some reflections after the experience of Anthropos: Songs of Humanity residency

As an a cappella vocal quartet we have been researching and practicing what we call CVI (collaborative vocal improvisation). For this project we chose to bring CVI, to explore how music fully made in the moment, by voices sounding and moving in space, was received and what kind of impact it had. 

No known repertoire nor sheet music was involved. No accompaniment apart from some hand percussion. A kind of vocal music that cannot be pinned to any particular musical tradition but draws from the universal, utilising mostly invented language and rhythm. Our music is participatory, emergent, responsive to the listeners’ attitude, relational and process-based. 

For many of us, who had worked previously in health settings, the question also challenged some current Arts in Health stereotypes of musical interventions as performances of repertoire with entertaining or soothing purposes, or at the other extreme, music therapy sessions, client-focused and not necessarily an artistic event. 

For the hospital settings, this project consisted of our vocal quartet or trio visiting wards and individual rooms and singing around those spaces for short ‘sets ‘of 15-30 minutes. For the retirement home, a series of one-hour immersive flows of music and movement sessions for the residents, staff and families, led by the vocal quartet plus other 5-10 people including dance-movement therapists and other singers. 

Some of our objectives were:

-To make vocal music that was fresh in every moment, in response to what and how we were experiencing the environments and the residents/patients, and to tune into each other.

-To keep to the minimum or suspend the use of speech and explanations, inviting a more intuitive, body- centered space and offering a more immersive, resonant experience to the listeners- participants. 

-To sing with everyone, rather than ‘to’ or ‘for’. That includes patients, family visitors, staff. Also, to ‘sing with the environment’ as in to focus upon the atmosphere of the shared space and include the ‘soundtrack’ of what’s occurring, rather than expecting a more conventional performative silence - applause dynamic. 

-To remain vulnerable, open, curious and responsive as the music and the responses unfolded, to celebrate the magic moments and equally to accept that in some occasions we might not be welcome or celebrated by some units or individuals.

-To suspend any assumptions about our role and how we were received, and learn as much as we could from each experience.

-To focus intensely, both in the quality of the  collective experience and in the deep, ever changing one-to-one interactions and connections.

Some of what we learned through this process:

-That being adaptable and responsive are a must in these environments, and sometimes this involves changing plans or sacrificing some of our basic tenets, like avoiding the use of language. 

-To be patient and spacious and not eager for quick responses, and that there is a timing to how this music is received that can be different from how known material is received. 

-To become very sensitive when reading and receiving every kind of response, cue or sign from the listeners, and to include those gestures, encouraging and noticing them, however small and subtle they are, as ways of participation. 

-To be accepting and lighthearted when ‘it doesn’t flow’. To develop a sense of timing: when to persevere and when to move on. 

-To keep the music simple, use rhythm, sometimes focus on the resonance and intention, in the mood and atmosphere of the music, more than on the musical content and complexity per se. 

-To trust our individual and collective bodily intuition and follow it. This sometimes involved ‘changing the music’ quite rapidly.   

-To honour and respect everybody, each of the bodies present in the spaces whatever their condition, whether awake, asleep, accompanying, caring, suffering, at work. 

-To keep humble, remembering that our musical intervention is an experiment, and ultimately something non-essential in the high-stakes context of the health setting.