Choral singing, chorality1 and ethics

Over the years I keep being fascinated by what generates the gathering of different voices, the intertwining of their timbres, their colors, their textures, and for the way each singular palette participates in a sonorous mass, just as a landscape in constant recomposition through the tiniest movements which successively animate all the individual voices. And I have the impression that this echoes the feeling, which arose rather early in me, that practicing singing in a group also concerns a form of ethics regarding what it is to be and to function all together : the sound of the group is not only the sum of each individual’s vocal presence ; something else is happening than a simple juxtaposition or addition ; one can feel at stake, within the space between the singers and/or within the space between the singers and their conductor, a combination, a material composition of the sound which exists beside, in addition to, or amongst the individual voices. It’s this material composition of the sound which is the object of an ethics of chorality. To allow this combination to operate, I have felt for a long time the importance of the role of the conductor : they somehow have to "hold" this sonorous mass of the choir, or rather give it a direction, which means give it a shape. This implies that their body takes in charge with its presence, its energy, its vibration, the sensible and sensitive requests they’re addressing the choir. This is channeled through their gestures, the quality of their presence, but also through the kind of connections they create and adjust with the choir. Their physical tension, the specifc relation their body has with the ground, with the air, the way their imaginary and emotivity accompany their gesture generate so many signs which inform the choir and call for a specifc answer. This yet doesn’t mean that the conductor is a necessary element for the emergence of such a common sound : certain groups, since they have practiced for a long time or intensively, go without this external ear. I think I can however point, in this physical way of being in a relationship to the choir, a frst relational loop which is to me decisive, if not for the emergence of a common sound, at least for the emergence of a certain type, a certain quality of common sound. But the ethics of chorality appear maybe even more in the necessity for the choir, as a mirror, to also embody, to give a shape for the sonorous mass that they produce to become common, to become a common sound. And this seems to be channeled through a certain way of making one’s body sound, resonate, of making one’s body vibrate through the voice, of embodying the vibratory wave of the vocal line which one performs. I believe that this vocal corporeity is one of the essential conditions to the emergence of this "plastic" combination of the voices that the choir can make come out. But it is not enough to vibrate and to sing all together for this common sound to appear : this, not supra-individual, but rather inter-individual composite of voices is to a great extent dependent on a certain level of listening. For the conjunction of the voices to operate and to potentiate into a common sound, each singer needs to be in a double listening of both their own voice and the ones with which they produce ans shape the common sound. It is thus a certain level of presence to this in-between sound that determines the apparition of this common vocal sound. Each singer thus cannot really give in on the place their own voice has to take in the composition of the sonorous ensemble which the whole group aims for. Their own voice comes to support the whole group, each one gives, offers their own voice, their own vibrations to nourish the group sound, to nourish the relations in between the voices. This doesn’t mean that every voice is necessary and must provide sound constantly, like one supplies coal to the engine of a locomotive to have it move. The vocal presence of each one is not required every second, but each presence 1

With "chorality" I’m trying to render the French word "choralité", which is used to speak about all kinds of works which involve different voices speaking, singing, playing at the same time.

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and each absence shapes this common sonorous sound differently, gives it another consistency. In that respect the continuity of the common sound is also ensured by the individual intakes of breath inside the sonorous mass. The sound turns into a common sound not because each one is required to be vocally present each second, but because each one, on the other hand, renews each second — even when breathing in — their commitment to the production of this in-common space, in-common sound. Each one maintains their presence to this in-common, which allows to have it emerge and be pursued. Each singer thus provides their own voice as a support to the emergence of a common vocal sound, and this common vocal sound itself, as if in a relay, provides with a base for the emergence of each voice inside of it. We are then facing here a second relational loop which will allow this choral in-common to occur. And, eventually, through this doubly-oriented listening, the sound gains in volume. Not this volume linearly identifable as rising or lowering the sound, but this volume which informs of a certain density, and I would even say of a tridimensionality of the sound : I often have the sensation that, once the common sound has occurred, it takes space and settles in it, to become a common body. As if from the diversity of voices, of timbres, of presences, we were transiting to a cohesive consistency, admittedly soft and fugitive, but resolutely present, as one would say of a body, of a person that they "have presence". This sonorous body doesn’t settle in space as a fxed body, but it sits in it, installs itself in it with the conviction of a resolutely moving vibrating presence. The singers and their conductor tend then, in their relations, or rather through their relations, to make appear this body, this density that I would characterize as tactile. For tactile it does become, at least to me as a conductor : I’m launching an invitation for sonorous convergence by calling the choir to sing all together, and then, since the sound is made by us all, and since I let myself being touched by the quality of the sound that the choir produces, my gesture, according to the moment, maintains, accompanies or even re-solicits this presence, this intention in us all to shape this body and reshape it constantly, to pursue it, to prolong it, to give it a temporal extension. This sonorous mass has a certain weight that the individual intentions — including the one from the conductor — seem to carry. Thus is being created, in and through the intention, a third relational loop which opens up a space where the common sound can exist, take shape, get a body, and persist without, as far as possible, having to contain it neither hold it back, but rather letting it fow and live. There is an intentionality of the vocal gesture, and this intentionality rolls out the forces for an upsurging body. The choral sound is not the metaphor for the emergence of a common voice, it lies more in a common intention, in an agreement to all together aim at making this body exist and be pursued. And this body can only appear, and has eventually no other purpose than inside – and within – the community which shapes it, and inside – and within – the material conditions in which the sound is produced (room, resonance, state of the singers and conductor…). That is why I speak about ethics of chorality, or rather ethics in chorality. The common sound, this specifc color of the "sound" of each choir — as musicians sometimes say —, arises in conditions of exchange and ways of relating which are carried by a constant presence : a vocal presence of course, but a fully, and even frst of all, intentional presence which has to do with the way each one engages in a relation to their own voice, to the ones of the others, and to this in-common. It is here, to me, about reporting the effort inherent to the practice of choral singing, which is to gather to make this vibrating body appear. The ethics of chorality seem to me to lie in the conditions of emergence of this sonorous common body, in the specifc care one needs to have towards the relations that one weaves within the vocal production, so that the emergence of this composite sonorous body is made possible. Jean-Baptiste Veyret-Logerias December 2017 – February 2018

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