8.6.1 Communication and intonation
When the singers of the vocal ensemble read the score, they not only read their own part and determine how to sing it, they also imagine their voice as part of the whole ensemble, deciding how it relates to the others. This involves making decisions about the functions of their individual notes in the series of chords, as they try to discover in which pitch system they should produce their pitches. In figure 16 the singer from nvs said that his voice should be regarded as a part of a C major chord. In performance he will
naturally pay more attention to these voices, directing his communication towards the singers who are a part of this chord. To reach a common musical goal, ensemble performance requires of the musicians that they coordinate their actions.461 Visual communication through gestures, eye contact, body
sway and so on is important to this coordination,462 because it strengthens
the musical message, giving viewers (whether it is the audience or another performer) knowledge about the performer’s intentions.463 Considering how
important intonation work is for a vocal ensemble, it is chord production, deciding which voices to sing together with and how one singer’s pitch relates to these other pitches, above all else, that has an influence on internal communication within the ensemble. I will say more in Chapter 9 about vocal ensembles and communication in the music-making process.
8.6.2 Voice technique
Intonation work means more than finding the concrete pitch to produce within the sum of pitches produced by the other singers in the ensemble. It also means, as one of the singers in nvs said, finding the right formant quality, the right dynamics and the right timbre. To match these demands, singers need both control and flexibility to move between the horizontal approach to intonation and the vertical one, which means singers hear themselves within the overall harmonic context of the ensemble. The way of producing the voice is different if the singers define themselves within a soloistic mode or in a more accompanying mode. The timing, timbre and vocal effects of the phrase (for instance the amount of air on the voice), and especially the amount of vibrato changes from one mode to the other, as one of the singers in nvs put it.
Vibrato is one of the elements of voice technique that is most often affected by intonation work. I discuss the use of vibrato within vocal ensemble voice techniques more fully in Chapter 7.2.2. Here I want to address the intonation aspect of vibrato control. With vertical intonation, pitch production will usually accord with just tuning, wherein the interval between two tones gives a ratio of their frequencies in small integers.464 Vibrato corresponds 461 Goebl and Palmer 2008, p. 427.
462 Ibid. p. 427. 463 Ibid. p. 427.
Frank Havrøy: Alone Together
to a small periodic variation of the fundamental frequency produced by the voice, and will eliminate the beating that results in slightly mistuned intervals.465 In my observations and experience, this beating is one of the
elements that vocal ensemble singers listen to when trying to set just intervals. Therefore, being able to control vibrato, helps the singer produce exactly the pitch needed to eliminate beats, and thus contribute to a just interval or chord with the other singers.
8.7
Conclusions
Historical writings show us that intonation work has always been a
necessary skill for singers. Pitch production is a very complex task, involving a very intricate system of muscle control in the voice production system of the throat and in the respiratory system. The auditory system we use to control pitch does not give us a clear picture of how we sound, making it very difficult to find out whether what we produce is correct or not. All the members of a vocal ensemble face the same challenges, bringing intonation work right to the centre of the vocal ensemble’s attention. Singers have always had to deal with various tuning systems in their attempt to deal with intonation challenges, and researchers and theorists have helped to find pitch systems and scales that would lead the way out of the pitch system jungle. There seems to be a clear line between the pitch systems a vocal ensemble uses when singing in a horizontal, melodic, more soloistic way, and when singing in a vertical mode as part of a harmony. The former horizontal mode is characterized by complex pitch systems that defy identifying anyone mode of intonation. On the other hand, when in vertical intonation mode, singers define their pitches much more in terms of just intonation. This urge is so strong that even within complex, non-tonal music they construct local tonal structures to help stabilize their pitch production. The processes involved in producing the desired pitches are quite complex, and the voice is not always the most accurate intonation instrument. The singers of nvs and other ensembles seek a way to produce predictability within this rather unpredictable world, and do so by giving horizontal melodic intonation more freedom, and by locking vertical intonation into more clearly defined systems. In this way they reduce the part luck can play
in pitch production, and provide a stable result they can produce over and over again.
The audience, who saw them presented on stage as if they were a projection from far away, knew no better than that they were a closely-knitted clan, and this allowed them to behave as one...
W
henever we interact with other people, we have to signal our intentions to them. These signals or intentions are received and interpreted by them before they begin the same process towards us. This model of communication was first described in 1948 by Harold D. Lasswell and further refined ten years later by Robert Braddock, who said that communication is all about who says what through which medium to whom under which circumstances and with what effect. We use both verbal and non-verbal signals to communicate with others, but the non-verbal signals, often also connected to the non-voluntary nervous system, often gain more significance in the process than the verbal signals.466So if I sing alone in front of an audience, I communicate with them, and they communicate with me, and our communication will be altered and driven forward by the continuous stream of signals going back and forth between us. When I sing together with other musicians, I still communicate with my audience, of course, but at the same time my fellow musicians are doing the same. When I make music together with other musicians, I also have to show them what I intend to do, one way or the other, and they have to show me what they intend to do. It means that we have to give signals to each other regarding tempos, musical intentions, dynamics while we at the same time communicate with our audience. So, when a vocal ensemble like nvs
Frank Havrøy: Alone Together
performs, there is communication going on in every direction, between the singers and between the singers and the audience.
When solo musicians perform in front of an audience, they are quite free in terms of interpretation and their communication with the audience; but as soon as more musicians join in, they have to synchronize their performances somehow, so that the plans they have agreed upon during rehearsals come forward in their music making. When six or seven people are performing at the same time, I believe it is impossible for every signal or musical intention to be completely synchronized, no matter how much discussion the group has done before the performance.
This chapter will deal with these processes of communication. We will look first at the nature of the communication between the performer (singer) and the audience, and the challenges for a vocal ensemble communicating with an audience. Next we turn to communication between performers, and the challenges with which a vocal ensemble has to deal. These sections are based upon interview material, primarily from nvs but also from I Fagiolini and The Hilliard Ensemble, together with my own experience of the work of Nordic Voices, as well as with relevant literature on the subject.
The division between performer–audience communication and performer– performer communication is suggested in a study by Davidson and Good (2002). In the introduction to this study, they draw a line between the content to be shared by the performers and communicated to the audience, and the process of co-operation between the performers.467 My empirical
data confirms this division, and I have chosen to divide this chapter about communication in this way.
There is an interesting study analyzing communication processes in performance, conducted by Jane Davidson (2002). It is a case study of a performance by the English singer Annie Lennox, and it provides a reasonable framework that can be used in analyzing a performer’s way of communicating during a performance. With Davidson’s movement categories as a framework, I conducted a small study of a part of a
performance by nvs, looking into the performer–audience and performer– performer communication, and examining whether this approach can give an insight into the performance choices the group has taken. To compare my findings I also conducted similar studies of two solo performances by
two of the members of nvs. I also examined whether this gesture category framework might be used in future, in more detailed studies on the subject.