Wherever you are these days, I hope you have access to deep rest and enjoyment, reconnecting with people and things close to your heart. So much of what makes in-person reunions pleasurable consists of those long, boring, unmeditated stretches of time together where flashes of life break through to surprise or delight (or annoy, let’s be real).
Lately I’ve been enjoying those silent moments at the dinner table when everyone is looking at their phones, taking a break from each other, yet with each other. I sometimes look up from my phone and take the opportunity to observe my oblivious seatmates, smiling to myself. Or the weird fun of sitting in the middle of a raucous conversation, darting in and out of multiple narratives from different tables and corners of the room.
It’s all a nice break from the careful intensity of Zoom intimacies, where the back-and-forth of dialogue is confined to a “narrow corridor” in which only one person can pass at a time (as my colleague Juhee described it). Being in person, with people, reminds me that the singular now is many-voiced and many-roomed. Sometimes a meeting should be unchained from schedule and purpose and be left to wander, in order to mean something.
I’m thinking specifically of two nights ago at Tago Jazz Café, currently one of the few live music venues in Manila open these days. My good friend Ryan Villamor performed a couple of sets there with his trio (Gerald Flores on double bass and Nelson Gonzales on drums), and invited me to sing a couple of tunes with them in their second set. Even pre-pandemic, I’ve not performed frequently enough at live events to feel comfortable calling myself a “gig” singer of any genre. Because of that it’s taken me a while to even feel comfortable calling myself a musician. It always feels a bit miraculous to be on stage, trying to keep pace with seasoned jazz adepts whose knowledge runs deep and whose instincts are sharp and bright.
My anxiety always comes along for the ride, clutching at my throat when I sing the wrong note, say the wrong line, or miss my entrance. Sometimes my fear will seek to save me by fragmenting the moment, so that my consciousness detaches and floats above my body, tethering itself only through the thin line of my sounding voice. This is why all traditions of singing prescribe a discipline of breathwork to counter-engage this self-protective instinct activated by the deep vulnerability of self-exposure—not to repress it so much as to return it to enfleshment, in the larger form of the collective musical present.
It is important to stay in this present. That’s where love meets us, surprising us with its maverick generosity. Part of healing myself as a musician consists of staying steadfast enough to register the benevolence in the shared space of listening: in bandmates whose flow deftly makes room for error and folds me back into a ever-renewing pattern; in audience members who expand the event of the music through their own creative and embodied receptivity. It’s to Tago’s great credit as a jazz venue that it attracts so many impressive creative spirits while remaining welcoming and nurturing.
Illustration of the Ryan Villamor Trio in performance by @sketchbok00. 27 December 2021, Tago Jazz Cafe.
Part of my work in maturing as a performer is forming a relationship to the spaces and communities of my choosing. My own path is in cross-pollinating different improvisatory performance contexts. For instance, there is a wealth of wisdom to gain from the specific space of a live jazz performance that isn’t available in the space of a meditation session.
I’ll be honest and say that holding space for meditative sound sessions is incredibly relaxing for me as a musician—because no one is looking at me! I’ll close my eyes, and my participants will close their eyes, and we trust that somehow my sounding and their listening will meet in the simple structure of a 40-minute session. Although I need to do a fair amount of regulation as I chant (especially when I’m online and monitoring the tech set-up), it’s low-barrier entry to the “zone”: my main concern is to produce responsive vibrations, almost like massage strokes, rather than articulate predetermined lyrics; and the pace is slow enough to dispense with the work of polyphonic intricacy. It’s a different kind of sonic labor for sure.
This is a world away from the multiple visualities imposed by the live gig. I’m looking at the lyrics, I’m looking at Ryan’s face as my bandleader, I’m looking at the audience looking at me. This can be terrifying, but once again, this is where all the cool stuff happens that could never have been anticipated. There was an artist present in the audience; the morning after she shared pictures of live watercolor sketches she drew during our set. I can’t look at her drawings without feeling a humbling sense of awe. This is a hearing so skillful and vibrant in its presencing, that it becomes color and form. A work becomes a world of its own, generously co-existent with the inner world I struggle to inhabit and offer.
Illustration of Ryan Villamor (harp) and Anjeline de Dios (vocals) performing Leonard Cohen’s '“Hallelujah” by @sketchbok00. 27 December 2021, Tago Jazz Cafe.
As is our usual practice with Tago gigs, Ryan and I did a short harp-vocal improvisation, a little sonic palate-cleanser. There’s a certain level of comfort-with-discomfort required with the concentrated hush this improv casts over the room, especially after a good chunk of time washed in a full-band sound. I could feel the audience leaning in and going in there with us—until a certain point, when Nelson’s dog started barking insistently, unseen, from the kitchen.
This felt like a gift from the present! I had to laugh. The jazz stage became my meditation cushion. Cross-listening to Ryan’s harp and to the tone in my inner ear that was presenting itself to my song for sounding, I stretched my listening to include the dog’s voice. Sometimes, when I’m trying to fold in a found sound into the improvisation, I can’t catch the pitch right away, so I land on the rhythm first. I sing three short notes, mirroring the bark, the pitch somewhere in between Ryan’s line and the doggie’s line. Then I repeat it, creating a tentative pattern. (This is my favorite part of improv, always: getting to know a pattern as it unfolds.) Then the words come to me, partly a joke and partly a challenge. I issue it to the audience. What is it that you will not hear?
The flow of liveness is different, many-voiced and many-roomed. What a gift it is to be an audience to it once again: the surprising release of applause and cheers after a taut silence held in place by an attentive collective, the spontaneous emergence of fully-formed sonic narratives (ah, to be witness to the gleeful engine of open jams!) or the sometimes-hilarious tangents of chaos that interrupt a moment of composure.
If we will not hear, life will interrupt us. It will fold us into a larger music of living.
I am holding my final free sound journey on Zoom on Thursday, December 30, from 8:00-9:15 pm GMT+8. RSVP only. Please message me if you want to join so I can send you the Zoom link.
It’s been wonderful learning to hold space for listeners’ inner journeys through my offering of improvised chants. From January 10th onwards, I’ll only be holding sessions for private bookings (individuals or groups: over Zoom or in-person if you’re in Manila). Thank you for your support and interest. I wish you good health, love, and creative energy in 2022.