On Group Singing

The passing of David Crosby made me think about vocal harmony.

Years ago, an opera singer that I knew talked about "apartment singing", or singing into pillows so as to not disturb the neighbors. "Apartment singing" is also the feeble and shameful pushing of air over the vocal chords, again, so as to not disturb something. I wonder how anyone that lives in apartments can develop a voice of any kind and consequently we become "phonophobic" in all parts of our lives. Group singing (even tracking multiple vocal parts in a studio) lets us take the pillow off as well.

Otis Gibbs did a nice video as a Crosby elegy.

Bits I liked:

"Hearing those imperfect voices soaring together [is impressive]. They weren't like Freddie Mercury type singers--these are people that are closer to Bob Dylan, but when they sing together it just creates something so much more than if they were apart."

"A buddy of mine used to tell me about [male vocal groups in churches in rural America] who would sing together. You haven't heard anything like this. I went once and it was amazing hearing them sing together."

"There will be another generation doing it but it'll be different because technology changes they're influenced by all the things that they heard along the way it's [inherently] different [than 60s and 70s vocal groups]. Alan Lomax found them singing like that in the prison." 

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Other gleanings from my notes:

Tahitian Choir. Very unique. At the end of each phrase the voices descend as if the batteries were running out on a tape machine. There is probably some practical ritualistic purpose of this, such as a sequence of phrases in different keys.

Speaking of male group singing, the Star Spangled Banner, formerly known as “To Anacreon in Heaven,” was done after a formal orchestral concert for participatory group singing. The society’s president wrote the original lyrics, an ode to the jovial Greek poet Anacreon. A trained vocalist would first perform it then the group would sing it.

From the book The Fourth Turning: "In pop music, Millennials will resurrect the old ritual of happy group singing, from old campfire favorites to new tunes with simple melodies and upbeat lyrics." 

The Lutherans were the first to introduce group singing to religious ritual. So it is consistent that Evangelicals would have appropriated it 500 years later and commingled it with politics. In many ways the US is built on this. Our secular inclinations however drive its patent hypocrisy. (See Book: Living With the Gods)

From Brian Eno's diary 12/6/1995:

"Unfortunately people don’t recognize the importance of call and-response. This is because most songs are now written by the people who plan to sing them, and for them the picture is normally complete when they’re in it (and uninteresting to them if they’re not). But a listener likes more than this. The backing vocals, the response, are the voices of society: whether gossiping (as in ‘Is she really going out with him?’ ‘I don’t know - let’s ask her!’) or affirming (as in ‘Amen!’ and ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah’) or warning (‘Foolish little girl ...’). Even songs that are ‘personal’ - where one doesn’t want to invoke the conspiracy implied by group singing - can use the voices of conscience or of the various alter-egos. They turn monologue into conversation. Interesting to speculate on what other roles backing vocals could play...: the voice of speculation (‘what would happen I f ...’)? of precise measurement? of disagreement? of doubt? of alternative ways of saying something (like shadow possibilities, parallel stories)? I would like to do a systematic study of hit songs over the last 30 years. I am sure that at least 80% of them have second vocals in some form or another. But I would bet that not 30% of all recorded songs use backing vocals."

[Otis Gibbs touched on this in regards to Jackson Browne's rebuttal of Wooden Ships, as a kind  of"call and response"].

“If I were asked to redesign the British educational system, I would start by insisting that group singing become a central part of the daily routine. I believe it builds character and, more than anything else, encourages a taste for co-operation with others. This seems to be about the most important thing a school could do for you.” (Eno)

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Interesting that there is possible connection with geography and the sound of language: dry air can have an effect on how easy it is to control your vocal cords, suggesting that in dry air it would be harder to make yourself understood in a tone language. There was already some evidence for this, based on medical literature on sore throats. Roberts agreed to help out with the statistical controls. The group found that in cold climates, tone languages were more likely to be found where there’s humidity. In warm climates, humidity doesn’t seem to make that much of a difference. Misophonia, where some people have aversions to certain types of sounds, that may include the sound and textures of the spoken word. The sounds of words, even without knowing the meaning have a certain power to affect emotion.