By popular demand, the workshop to sing your heart is back, in the same place in Central Taiwan where we have plenty of space to sing to and with and from the mountains, and a unique chance to go to the Bunun from XinYi and sing with them!
In three days we dive deep into the Ocean of Sound, Mark’s equivalent for the repository for musical sounds and spoken words humanity has produced across time and space. We uncover unknown traditions from around the globe, listen to examples and try out our own versions. You also learn how to create a traditional song (A lullaby? An invocation? A cheerful greeting song?) by yourself, or together, on the go. You already love to sing and already know your voice has so many shades. But only some of these shades find expression in everyday life, and now we expand this creative, sonic potential.
Join us for a celebration of the power of the human voice and of creative imagination lurking underneath the surface. Surely your ancestors knew folk songs, religious hymns, ceremonial chants: let them come back to the surface again, in a new guise. As the highlight of our exploration, the Bunun from XinYi are so kind to welcome us during their weekly singing session. You will have a chance to sing with them, up-close, and in this way you learn how they create their polyphonic songs and can try to join in with them. A first-hand immersion in one of the many living traditions of this beautiful island and a unique chance very few people have ever had!
DATES AND TIMES
Friday evening January 27 (6/8 PM) – Monday January 30 (2 PM).
Launch of a new series of performances I have been thinking about for some years already. It will be me plus one local musician each time, alternating our own music and looking on the spot for overlaps in our pieces or creating a new improvised bridge. I call it Two in One.
At the end of 2019, in fact around the Winter Solstice on December 21, we did the first Voice Yoga Retreat here in Taiwan. A wonderful recollection of the best stuff I have done during my 7 seven years of weekly Voice Yoga classes. It was beyond expectation: fantastic weather, great location, wonderful students, and a great three-person-strong core team (Sunny Chen, Jackal Mei, me) to take care of everything.
Most of all, we all experienced a nice flow between yogic and other exercises, sound and body improvisations, eating cakes and drinking Jackal’s homebrewn coffee, meditating, listening, chanting, learning about my methods and ‘vision.’ People came from all over the place and all walks of life, and most were new to Voice Yoga.
One student, Guang Guang, wrote an excellent report in Chinese about everything we did, in Chinese. I reproduce it here, with an autotranslation at the bottom of this page. Jackal Mei made some great photos, and there’s a couple of myself too. Many thanks to Guang Guang and Jackal for the words and images, and to Sunny !
We’ll do another Voice Yoga Retreat later this year on the beautiful, relaxed East Coast of Taiwan, where the pace is slow, weather seems to be nearly always good, birds sing loudly and the ocean is never far away. Get on the maillinglist for updates.
Because there are always many good friends around me, then put into a path. at the beginning, the leaves share the voice with me, and let me plant seeds in my heart…
So recently, I went to experience a sound yoga,
The teacher who taught is the mark of the pan-Yin.
I love his selfless and loving sharing
And take care and feel every one of us
When the first class said
The voices made here are all about the moment.
There is no bad right or wrong, every voice is right…
Let me feel free to feel at ease
First night
Mark is very natural to mix everyone’s voices together in space, let each other’s strange partner, quickly flowing, just two hours, my whole body is dancing.
/ breathing practice
A lot of things to feel in this practice,
I am also practicing to practice the feeling
Where to breathe, where to go, expand or shrink…
Never thought about what happened so naturally,
But these two recent courses are reminding this thing, that is the moment.
/ vowel triangle
Love to play with the vowel triangle
But I will find myself very short in this,
Will also want to work with other people
Make your own rhythm between perfection and coordination
Oh ~ suck ~
Oh ~ Ah ~ one
/ the ocean of sound
With the imitation of a natural voice,
Let your voice be thrown into the ocean
The Forest, the pond, the water, the swamp, the swamp, the sky, everything, the sound of the earth.
Who likes to share quietly, she feels like she’s shiny, so let the voice come out on her own…
So conscious body, I’m still on my way to practice
/ deep listening
Voice together in the outdoors,
Listen to the sound of the space and follow
Listen to the sound of not, create
In the way.
Made a contemporary music
I love this fusion melody.
/ surprise
Surround a circle and make a few voices with Mark,
Close your eyes and close your eyes
A few sounds without rules
Then slowly,
Mark puts the nissan into the circle
Close your eyes in the circle and enjoy the melody
Mark is singing faster and faster
Getting more and more specific
Starting to find something wrong
Open your eyes and look at mark
He smiled at me
She has already learned it early.
Yes, it’s really what I thought
The students laugh at one after one.
Mulberry finally realized the chú le of this party
I am in tears to accept everyone’s singing
This moment is so touching
So beautiful ~ so beautiful ~
/ Winter Solstice Lights out
Surround the candles with a peaceful night, close your eyes with the feeling of stars, the sound of nature that surround us, like the stars that have fallen in the grass, the sound of everything.
/ sana ceremony
Classmate Blues on the night for you all the night
First experience ceremony, the sana drum burst out my whole body current, under the protection of the guardian spirit, I felt the process, the jungle, the speed, the dark spin, then the snake that came out, finally let myself slowly pull away, see one Deer stop
Lithuania was called by the drum of the drum to run
It also dance, the whole field, sitting or moving.
Every world, fantasy world ~
/ vowel
I am deeply aware of my voice.
Where did the sound go in the resonance body?
Mark said
Where the body and the sound will be resonance
But but
Ideas can also let the voice go where you want him to go
At the end everyone’s voice shakes,
All have different discoveries
This makes me think the voice is so funny
Everyone’s body feels so unique
/ breathing rhythm
The difference in the length of breathing,
Can also be a beautiful song
I’m enjoying this chapter too
The sum of each instrument
It’s a movement of life.
/ Pan-voice solo
One afternoon mark singing for everyone
Sitting and lying free
It was a cloudy afternoon.
While a pan-Tone Melody keeps on the these
All I hear is the voice of an angel
Right now
The Golden sunshine outside the window goes through the pink curtains
Angel Light gentle on mark
I didn’t have time to take pictures of that one
But in my mind
My whole body is dancing
/ eight sound
Everyone’s voice is so unique and nice
There is the singing of the old soul in the voice of the old soul
Thinking of her guardian spirit grandma and love
It’s my turn to kick the card.
Is the flower God singing!!!
Clear and beautiful, so touching
When it was my turn, my head wanted to work
Later I told myself to forget it
What makes the voice is what is
Even though I know my voice is not even where I’m going
My Voice God is helping me find the level
Went for a couple of semitone
I just went to the place where I should go.
I can say too
That’s my precision in control of my semitone (allocated ~
After three days of playing
Very Loose, slow and amazing body all kinds of sour
I didn’t expect it. It was just a voice.
The body has all kinds of pull
But remember that Xin Xin said very well
(but I forgot what she said XD)
But after she said, I just had a moment.
Lala also shared mark in mechanical noise
Find out the rhythm of its regular rhythm
Make noise not just noise
Harvest a lot in three days,
Maybe I’m still in the aftershocks and feel slowly
The only part that knows what I know most
Probably I’m not that relaxing myself yet
The voice is too strange to me after all
But after these process
It’s better to lose the established impression of the voice in my childhood
The Color of the voice is so wide and infinite
Tell yourself, it’s just to play, go play!
Sound Yoga is yoga and impromptu
He is more than a voice,
Is the one that makes the heart, spirit and body
Thank you Yu Chih Lin for taking me on the pool
Thank you Xiaoying Ye for the link
Thank you Jackal Mei for the invitation XD
Thanks Mark Van Tongeren
Leading the experience of my experience
Had me so much fun on this sound tour…
I began a new class: Shruti Nights, and ran No. I-VIII throughout the year, each with a different theme.
Listen to a nice duet I did with Sunny, translator, co-producer of many of my events, and talented singing student.
RADIOGARDEN BROADCAST
MUSHIMARU’s PHYSICAL POETS
I joined a Butoh workshop and performance by the huge family of Butoh dancer Mushimaru Fujieda and his regular students and collaborators, twenty in total. They came flying in to Taiwan from Japan, Hong Kong and other places, paying from their own pockets. Very dedicated and truly inspiring!
With Hiroyuki Matsuhisa (moham-veena), Shree Katsura (voice and suwarmandar), Mikio Kawasaki (photographer); Sogyu Fukumura, a very famous monk who quit Buddhism decades ago and became activist; Himeko Narumi, whom I visited in her bar in Kyoto a few weeks later; Vinci Mok from Hong Kong, not to mention lots of interesting old and new friends from Taiwan. Our performance UNDER THE TREE OF LIFE is on Youtube, beginning here with the entry of Mushimaru himself.
Recently many Taiwanese repaid the visit to Japan to collaborate with the same people, and one commented that the same performance turned into a rather hard-edged, noisy, radical performance, completely different from the soft version here in Taiwan. More true to the Butoh spirit, for sure, but I was still impressed with Mushimaru and all the kids who joined the event in Taiwan as very narural, innocent performers.
SANGPUY live IN TAIPEI
LUGANG and its AUTOMATED SONIC SURPRISES
Trip to Lugang, where we were deeply impressed by the Longshan Temple. It is not as famous as some other old temples in Lugang, which are more centra. But by far our favorite. Major reasons: little modernization, no entertainment, quite silent (no tourgroups with amplified guides). However, in both temples I encountered automated percussion devices. There was a procession leading to the very noisy and central Mazu Temple or Tian Hou Temple. I had to get away at some point because of the incredibly loud firecrackers, which I found unbearable, and our dog really got shocked from it.
There was no smoke anywhere, and it turned out the noise was produced by a firecracker machine, which you see at the end of this video.
A little later, in Lungshan Temple, I noticed a drum was playing all the time but I saw no one beating it. It turned out to be another automatic device producing percussive sounds, just like the firecracking machine.
PULI, CENTRAL TAIWAN: WORKSHOP
In April I was off to Puli, central Taiwan, for a workshop and another one with Canjune, exploring herbs and plants in the forests. From the roof of a cinnamon producer, a panorama of Puli’s iconic Chung Tai Chan (= Zen) Temple.
After the workshop, re-connect with a nun I got to know in 2004, with a fantastic voice: Guanzu Shi. For all these years she is studying the performance of a specific song in the Huayen Buddhist tradition, for which the way to pronounce many syllables is not exactly known.
SAINKHO and KAZHUHISA ICHIHASHI in JAPAN
First trip to Japan. Too many impression so share, but here’s a few. Basically a family tour but, lucky me, I ran into Sainkho one or two days before she launched her new CD with Kazuhisa Uchihashi in Beijing. Great show together!
What a lovely guy, and what a great show he pulled off. The most astounding thing was that after the ‘normal’ stage show, which already featured lots of people from his village Jrben, some girls began singing and dancing in the lobby. The men joined and sure enough hundreds of people began to join the line after a while. The whole thing lasted at least another 45 minutes, with the last part (not in this video) some very high-energy indigenous male dancers/singers promoting their upcoming hot dance show.
TAIWAN EASTCOAST TOUR
To Mud Studio in Yilan, Zhishan for workshop in Poco a Poco, my first houseconcert in Taiwan, near Hualien, and another concert in Hualien. See my special blogpost.
Bernard produced a dozen or so throat singing CDS and many other interesting titles from around the world. All from this modest office.
EXCHANGE OF NEW TIBTEAN MUSIC PUBLICATIONS
I bring Pan Records’ new CD Phursang Kelak Lama to Ricardo Canzio on behalf of Bernard Kleikamp. Ricardo gave me his precious new book Sakya Pandita’s Treatise on Music.
Het is al weer jaren geleden dat Mark van Tongeren in Nederland een workshop heeft gegeven. In juli is er weer een kans om 1 of 2 dagen aan je stem te werken en zelf te ervaren hoe je boventonen in je stem hoorbaar kunt maken.
In deze workshop maak je kennis met de methode die Mark ontwikkeld heeft om op een natuurlijk manier de mogelijkheden van je stem te verkennen.
Je begint met de adem, meditatie en opwarmoefeningen, waardoor je ‘in je lichaam’ komt. Vandaaruit laat je de klank van je stem in allerlei vormen tevoorschijn komen. We richten ons vervolgens vooral op resonantie/boventonen en op improviseren, en leren hoe die twee beide al gegeven zijn in hoe we dagelijks geluid maken.
De workshop wordt deels gehouden in de geweldige akoestiek van de Dokzaal, een lust voor oog en oor.
Ben je beginner, kom dan dag 1 en ga door met dag 2 als je dat wilt. Als je al ruime ervaring hebt met de stem en boventonen kan je eventueel alleen de tweede dag komen.
We houden twee korte en twee langere pauzes. In de Dokzaal, waar we overdag ook al eens gaan zingen, sluiten we na het avondeten af met een slotsessie. Geheel opgeladen weer naar huis!
Kosten: 1 dag €75, 2 dagen €130. Je krijgt € 5 euro per-dag korting (€70 1 dag, €120 twee dagen) als je je deze week aanmeldt (uiterlijk vrijdag).
Schrijf naar info@fusica.nl om je aan te melden of voor vragen.
Je kan het bedrag overmaken naar NL89INGB0006301187, t.n.v. M.C. van Tongeren, in Bennebroek.
In principe is de workshop in het Nederlands, mochten er veel niet-nederlandstalige aanmeldingen zijn en wordt het engels, dan hoor je dat.
Workshop Voice Yoga & Overtones
Saturday July 8 juli (beginners), Sunday 9 juli (advanced)
10:00 – 20:00 (met 2 pauzes)
Dokzaal, Plantage Doklaan 10-12, Amsterdam (nabij Artis)
In this workshop you get to know Mark van Tongeren’s method to explore the possibilities of your voice in a natural way. You start with breathing, meditation and warming-up exercises, bringing you ‘into your body’.From there you allow the sounds of your voice to appear in many different forms. We continue to focus on resonance/overtones and om improvising and learn how these two are already there in the way in which we make sound in our daily life. The workshop is partly conducted in the amazing acoustics of the Dokzaal. Are you a beginner, join for day 1 and go on to day 2 if you like. If you have ample experience with the voice and overtone singing you could come only on day 2, though following the 2 days is better.
Price: one day €75, 2 days €130. There is a 5 euro per-day euro discount (€65 one day, €120 two days) for early-bird registrars (no later than Friday June 23).
In principle the workshop is in Dutch, but let me know if Dutch is a problem, I’ll let you know if it can be in English. Write an email to info@fusica.nl to register or ask questions.
You can make your payment to NL89INGB0006301187, M.C. van Tongeren, in Bennebroek.
Sunday May 24 at Canjune’s Training Center in the Daan area, Taipei, from 10-12: an introduction to next year’s RESONANCE course. With information about the course, some exercises and a small concert by Mark to round it up.
Canjune Training Centre, 4th Floor, number 3 , Lane 151, Fuxing South Road, Section 2, (this is about 20 meters from the corner of FuXing South Road, go up the stairs to the hairdresser and take the elevator to 4F; if you’re early the streetdoor may be closed). Nearest MRT: Technology Building (10 min. walk). Phone 09 – 10 38 27 49.
Voice Yoga consists of a series of exercises that gives pride of place to the voice as a central, creative force in our lifes. Our existence depends in important ways on our speaking, listening, sounding and singing abilities. The class promotes awareness of the many roles of the voice in our daily lives. It expands our creative vocabulary, without necessarily talking about music, the singing voice or any musical style. The point is not so much to learn any specific new technique: we play with the voice in a lot of different ways and listen with fresh ears to the hidden potential of our voices.
In Voice Yoga, sound, silence and resonance become a mirror for the self. The sounds produced by ourselves, allows us to ‘see’ ourselves more clearly, to hear what’s living deep inside us. In ever-growing cycles of creating and perceiving we learn about music and sound, about ourselves and about the environment.
Structure of the classes
We usually start with silence, breath and body movements to turn away from our busy mind into the body and to the sensations we actually experience. We let the voice come out of a natural breath flow. We listen to and follow its natural resonances. We do not try to sing in an artful way, but to experience how body-mind-voice are intimately connected, and how voice and resonance can serve as a bridge to overcome the dualistic notion of body <> mind. From then on, all kinds of styles and genres of vocalising and musicking may happen, some structured, some wild, some giving insight in your voice, some therapeutic. Exercises are based on yoga, musical and theatrical techniques, vipassana meditation and our innate love to play like children.
The idea behind Voice Yoga is comparable to yoga and tai-chi: the effect of the exercises is gradual. We believe that only with repeated classes you can really learn to connect the energies of voice & sound with the whole of your body and mind. You slowly become more and more familiar with your voice and its powers; you will begin to hear and feel things you did not hear and feel before. That’s why we suggest you to sign up for four classes a time after your trial class.
The teacher
Voice Yoga is designed and taught by Mark van Tongeren, who brings with him 25 years of experience in working with sound, music and theatre and many different cultures.
For whom
For those seeking to enrich their voices, let off steam and unlock their hidden creative potential. For singers and those who are afraid to sing. For actors, musicians and other artists and professionals who work with sound. Perhaps more than anyone else, people who want to experience and learn about the therapeutical effects of sound seem to benefit from Voice Yoga. The human voice is a tool that assists human beings to produce a mirror-like reflection of the world around them in their minds. By gaining a deeper understanding and experience of the mechanisms of making sounds, words and music, and of listening, we gradually deepen the connections within ourselves (our body-minds) and with others and the world around us.
Prices
Every class lasts two hours. The price is 400 NT$ for a single class, and 1500 NT$ for four classes (375 NT$ per class). You do not have to attend four classes in a row; we’ll just tick off your presence four times and then you can sign up again for four times. Students and others with limited financial resources can get a reduced price: just send a message.
How to register
Feel free to join the Voice Yoga class any time. It is best to send a message every time you want to come, then we prepare a place for you. Write to mark at fusica dot nl or send a text-message to 09 10 48 27 49.
Place
Canjune Training Centre, 4th Floor, number 3 , Lane 151, Fuxing South Road, Section 2, (this is about 20 meters from the corner of FuXing South Road, go up the stairs to the hairdresser and take the elevator to 4F; if you’re early the streetdoor may be closed). Nearest MRT: Technology Building (10 min. walk). Telephone training centre: 02 – 27 00 72 91.
2014 was a great year for the Voice Yoga class. Some old students came back, and many new enthusiastic students joined for a first time, some of them also coming back.
The outline of the formula was the same: start with silence, breath and ‘body-work’ (which is always also mind-work). Then a first exploration of our unused potential to make sound, with simple, and sometimes primitive, raw sounds and movements. Then a structured part with more warming-up of ‘body-speech-mind’ (to use the Buddhist three-fold scheme of the human being), the ‘vowel triad‘ and the ‘ocean exercise’. Depending on the particular dynamic of the day (and the duration of the preceding parts), I add two or three of a large pool of rotating exercises that let us listen, feel and (re)sound in different ways. In the end, I often sing with the sruti-box, and students lie down on the mats in the Canjune Training Center.
Some of the new students of this year got really hooked on our weekly session, saying they missed it a lot when I was travelling, for example. Every student’s input changes the way things turn out, and the recent sessions have become true adventures of body, mind and sound. One time, right after a particularly powerful session of vocal noises, chants, screams, rhythms, I asked each student what (s)he had just experienced. I had decided not to interrupt the sound-making, and it had lasted longer than ever, about 45 minutes without a break. It was amazing to hear their deeply personal, moving accounts. Every student had gone through powerful experiences. One re-lived her pain from the past by letting the sounds follow the beating of her foot, which felt like a great relief. Another mainly listened, which worried me a little; but she was extremely grateful to what she heard and was crying at some point. A therapist told us she used her lessons from Voice Yoga to help others relief their pain, by adding sounds to the massage treatment and inviting her client to make sounds too. Another could hardly find the words to describe her feelings, but said she felt completely enveloped by the other voices and also merged them, while singing or just listening. One student’s first response, after we had just stopped our sound-making, was: ‘Ahh, this is better than sex!’
I usually try to limit my own talking and do not ask students to talk about their experience either. So I was amazed to learn about their feelings and impressions, and felt encouraged to develop this path further. I thank all those who have attended the Voice Yoga class in the last two years, whether it is one or ten or twenty times, for their courage, their input, their creativity. This class is so interesting because of you all! And I thank Canjune for the wonderful and inspiring space, which was renovated early 2014.
Want to join? The dates for 2015 you can find here.
In this class we use the voice in its immense richness, not only as a musical instrument, but as our primary tool to communicate and exist through/with/for/from sound. In Voice Yoga, sound, silence and resonance become a mirror for the self. The sounds produced by ourselves, allows us to ‘see’ ourselves more clearly, to hear what’s living deep inside us. In ever-growing cycles of creating and perceiving we learn about music and sound, about ourselves and about the environment. A ‘quintessence of science, sound and self’ as I called it in my book Overtone Singing.
DATES AND TIME FOR 2014
EVERY THURSDAY, 10-12 AM
[table colwidth=”100″ ]
JANUARY,9/ 16/ 23/ 28
FEBRUARY,13/ 20/ 27
MARCH,6/ 13/ 27
APRIL,3/ 10/ 17/ 24
MAY,1/ 8/ 15/ 22/ 29
JUNE,5/ 12/ 19
AUGUST,21/ 28
SEPTEMBER,4/ 11/ 18/ 25
OCTOBER,2/ 9/ 16/ 23/ 30
NOVEMBER,6/ 13/ 27 [no class on November 20]
DECEMBER,4/ 11/ 18/ 25
[/table]
PLACE
Canjune Training Centre, 4th Floor, number 3 , Lane 151, Fuxing South Road, Section 2, (this is about 20 meters from the corner of FuXing South Road, go up the stairs to the hairdresser and take the elevator to 4F; if you’re early the streetdoor may be closed). Nearest MRT: Technology Building (10 min. walk). Telephone training centre: 02 – 27 00 72 91.
RESERVATION
Please notify us of your intention to join the class, by sending a text-message (SMS) with your name to 09-10 38 27 49.
For those unfamiliar with Voice Yoga, the information about Voice of Dao posted earlier still stands.
