Long Tone Choir: Music & Meditation
"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." - Buckminster Fuller
monthly gatherings
The Long Tone Choir practices once a month in the East Bay. Once singers have some facility with the specific tunings and vocal techniques we employ, they are welcome to join the performance group. Contact Rae if you'd like to join us. An email is sent out with the date and themes of our practices. Please subscribe below.
What we do:
Each gathering begins with breath, voice, and intonation warm ups. Then we usually develop one longer practice, and conclude with either a "free tone" or other simple toning meditation. Occasionally we workshop a new LTC composition or technique. We meet for about 90 minutes, sometimes with light socializing afterwards.
What it's like:
These events are calming, centering and fun. The community that's built up over the years is welcoming and kind. Each composition-meditation and/or practice stimulates different mental states, ranging from peaceful to profound to playful.
Philosophies:
Listening attentively to the sounds around us and to the promptings of our body introduces otherwise unnoticed information that enhances insight and understanding.
Shifting one's measurement of time from the mechanical regularity of a clock to the organic pulse of one's own breath creates a biotic and responsive experience of time, which relaxes the body, and thus increases breath capacity and voice quality.
All people are inherently musical (human infants cry in perfect intervals), and therefore all people can access musicality by approaching listening and sounding from a relaxed and mindful state.
Humans are social animals, reliant on group participation and acceptance for psychological health. Mindfully listening, breathing and sounding together as a community creates an atmosphere of conscious communication and a comforting experience of interconnectedness.
"I know what the greatest cure is: it is to give up, to relinquish, to surrender, so that our little hearts may beat in unison with the great heart of the world." - Henry Miller