About The Singing Village

Spontaneous Collective Song

Vocal Improvisation in Community

The Singing Village is a term that emerged through my experiences with groups of vocal improvisers, describing the many ways to relate, co-create, and access what I call spontaneous collective song.

Spontaneous Collective Song (SCS) is at the center of the Singing Village concept and can inform the collective mindset of any community of vocal improvisers. It reimagines, in a short time span, the origins of a folkloric song as a living process of co-creation, mirroring the emergence of music in a community of humans and its oral transmission.

SCS is an approach to making music focused on creating a musical core that is relatable—an invitation for everyone to take part. The SCS mindset can be a starting point for circlesinging or small-group collaborative vocal improvisation. It can also be an arrival point for an improvisation that starts from a different context: movement, spatial configurations, free-form improvisation, existing song material, nature connection, and landscape...

The Singing Village can include circlesinging, collaborative vocal improvisation, and other body- and movement-based forms currently shared by vocal improvisation communities. It also includes the multiplicity of voices embodied by a vocal improviser: the archetypal and the ancestral.

The Singing Village is an invitation to reclaim the transcultural roots of folklore through vocal improvisation. Making fresh, collaborative, spontaneous music, here and now.

The Singing Village recognizes everyone’s innate musicality and capacity to take part in a musical experience. It acknowledges that the origins of what we now call ‘vocal improvisation’ lie in the cellular memory of humanity and the diverse ancestral musical practices that were part of the fabric of human life on Earth for thousands of years.

The Singing Village encompasses my vocal improvisation pedagogy and philosophy of work. It describes the processes of participants in collective gatherings and serves as a metaphor for how I understand the potential of voice and vocal improvisation as a social practice and technology of being—from individual research to working with communities.

At the Singing Village:

  • every voice is valued and honoured, anyone can belong regardless of their skill level or confidence

  • everyone contributes to the flow and shares responsibility for the outcome 

  • the music rises and falls away, just like life itself

  • anyone can start a musical idea, offering it as a gift and sharing part of themselves

  • being part of the musical core, the structure that supports and sustains the music,

    is as essential as adding your strong personal expression

  • no one takes sole credit for the music, and no one is above those who follow their ideas 

  • if a musical proposition doesn’t echo, it fades away and the music keeps moving

Circlesinging

Circlesinging is related to ancestral ways of music making.

Circlesinging is a process-experience-artform where a group sings together, creating music spontaneously led by a conductor. A circlesong is a choral piece composed in the moment, layering melodies, harmonies and rhythms. Its complexity can be adjusted to the participants' skills and the conductor's inspiration. Circlesongs can also be co-created by multiple leaders through collaboration.

I see circlesinging as related to ancestral music-making, making it accessible to everyone, regardless of musical ability. In community experiences, parts are simple but come together to form complex and exciting music, offering a powerful experience for beginners, even those who believe they can't sing.

When practised by experienced singers, circlesinging can reach high levels of vocal and musical complexity. It can evolve organically with the group's needs and capacities.

The term 'circlesongs' was popularized by Bobby McFerrin, who introduced this art form to the Western world. I’m grateful for his influence and for inspiring all the singers and teachers who are spreading circlesinging worldwide.

CVI:
Collaborative
Vocal Improvisation

I understand CVI as all the ways in which a group of singers come together and create music in the moment, each person generating their own sounds and patterns spontaneously and in response to others. Sometimes starting from an agreed prompt or idea, sometimes unfolding from shared silence, or from one person breaking into impromptu song.

In these forms of collective singing, each person is responsible for their part in the whole. A tapestry of sound or an improvised song is built by multiple voices. Alongside creativity and the courage to sing, mutual listening, responsiveness, flexibility, and a willingness and capacity to collaborate are essential.

CVI can take many forms across different genres, from groove-based vocal music to free improvisation or soundscapes. It can range from unison to polyphony, with sounds that can feel ancient or modern.

In these forms of collective singing, each person is responsible for their part in the whole.

These musical interactions are developed through games and exercises where singers build imagination, musicianship, self-confidence, and sound, while learning to work as a team, support each other, and develop musical ideas with structure.

Collaborative Vocal Improvisation can become instant collective composition. Some models involve a conductor shaping the piece, while others rely on agreed-upon gestures to share the conductor’s role. In some cases, there is no conductor, and everyone is free to follow their impulses, equally responsible for the collective outcome.

Rhiannon is one of my biggest inspirations in CVI. A celebrated vocal improviser and pioneering pedagogue, she has created Vocal River, the first published methodology of CVI available for singers worldwide.

Singing Village Offerings

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