I.II Contextualisation……………………………………………………..
In this research, I am intending to use the voice as an instrument, singing without words. Using the voice as an instrument isn’t something new in its principle. By scatting, the instrument was being used as an instrument from the beginning of jazz history onward. The vocaleses, in which the singer provided instrumental (mostly windplayers’) solo’s with lyrics, is also a good example of a more instrumental way of thinking about jazz vocals. In bigband settings the voice would sometimes take an instrumental role by doubling a tutti part. In this light, we should also mention Close harmony vocal groups, whom at times completely replaced the horn sections. Among others, their lint harmonizations and voicings can be seen as a direct overlay of arrangements made for horn sections.
I think these examples resemble the first manners in which the singers were mimicking horn players.
When contemporary jazz music hit in the early 1960’s, with pioneers like Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny and Wayne Shorter, the compositional boundaries of the traditional songs of the American Songbook were being stretched.
The feel of the music shifted from a swing feel to a more “even eights” feel, and original compositions were being written to express individuality. 1
The voice was starting to get other more instrumental roles. Mostly, the voice was used for doubling of the melody.
There are some examples when it comes to using the voice in contemporary jazz music in an instrumental way. For example:
- In 1984, Pat Metheny came with the album “First Circle” which predominately uses voice as an extra colour. Metheny had already been experimenting with this a bit on for example “Offroad”. This continued to be an often used practice in his work. The vocals were mainly used to wordlessly double melody’s.
- In 1990, Kenny Wheeler includes vocalist Norma Winstone on his famous album “Music for Large & Small Ensembles”. Kenny Wheeler goes a stem further, and writes a part for Norma in his larger ensembles, in which she mainly doubles leading parts. Later on, Kenny also wrote instrumental lines in smaller settings for Norma, for example on the album “Live at Roccella Jonica”. Here she does not double any part, but really has a part as an entity.
- More recently, in 2014, Rufus Reis wrote instrumental parts for Charenee Wae on his album “Quiet Pride”. Charenee is also doubling the toppart of largely orchestrated songs.
Wordless singing in a contemporary style has not yet been very widely used, except for scatting. This concept resembles being a solo instrument, where I am talking about using the voice for it’s colour, being equal in a horn section.
However, there are some singers of this generation who are using this to be more of a side man, like Jo Lawry, Thana Alexa, Charenee Wae, Sissel Vera Petterson and in the Netherlands Anna Serierse.
In terms of research there has not yet been a lot researched in this area. There is a research about singing as a sidemen, which is about doubling instruments and adding that additional colour like Norma Winstone does.
Singing inside a horn section is a fairly new concept. It hasn’t been done a lot, and of course contemporary jazz music has been alive only for about 60/70 years now.
An example of what I mean when I talk about singing in an instrumental horn section can be found in Kenny Wheeler’s Fox y trot. In Figure 1 you will find a transcription of the tenor-, trumpet- and vocal part.
In this example Norma Winstone gets to explore a different role. At first she does double the lead, but from the B part she is singing a backing/ guideline. This fascinated me and made me think even more about the role a vocalist could take within a horn section.
It brought me to the following research question:
How can I use voice to complement 3 part horn arrangements?
It also led me to some subquestions.
How does the choice of my vowels influence the balance of the group?
What kind of consequences does the choice of the instruments have?
What are other roles I could take upon me except doubling a leading part?
How could I take an autonomous part in a 3 part horn section?
I will use the following framework:
1. I will use 3 part horn sections
My main goal is to find out how it feels and sounds to sing inside a horn section. The voice is most commonly used as an addition to the leading part, the 1st part. I want to experience how it feels and sounds to use the middle and low part(s) in the section for singers. I only need 3 parts to experience this.
2. I will use the most common horns in jazz
- C Flute
- Bb Clarinet
- Bass Clarinet
- Soprano Sax
- Alto Sax
- Tenor Sax
- Baritone Sax
- Trumpet
- Flugelhorn
- Trombone
4. I will use no lyrics
In this way, I can experiment with my own sound, finding the right ways to blend with the different instruments. For this to succeed, in part III (Execution), chapter 5 I will mimic horn instruments, and the horn pairs to search for better ways to blend in these sections.
NOTE: when I’m talking about pitches, I am talking about the sounding pitch.
1Rushka, Paul. (March 2014 ) The compositional language of Kenny Wheeler. Paper, page 2. McGill University
I.IV Limitations to this research………………………………………………
Besides the restrictions I set myself too, which can count as limitations to this research, there are of course some other limitations to this research.
- I will not provide a basic knowledge about music theory in this thesis. This can be seen as a limitation to this research.
- I myself will be a factor of limitation, since I am still not the world’s greatest arranger/composer.
- The use of “just” 2 arrangements is a factor of limitations. Options that have fallen in the fight of phase I (range), may still be possible in some form or arrangement. For example, the option Bass clarinet/ Baritone/voice, may not be possible in my arrangements, even after transposing down. But for sure, I could make an arrangement where this would indeed be an option. This would decrease the lead range in such a way that in a live setting this would not be a very durable for multiple pieces. Because of this, I will not take this into consideration.
- I will use one instrument to kind of “represent” the instruments with the lower range, but of course these instruments don’t have entirely the same range. Some options may actually be possible, but by using this method I have already discarded them.
- I will also not be playing with a rhythm section. This may make it more difficult to play the parts, but it will be easier for me to listen to the sound of the whole.
I.I Why I choose this topic……………………………………………………..
When I was 14 years old my then neighbor brought me along to his bigband. I Immediately fell in love with the music, the style and the sound of these horns. I started singing the vocal lead parts, and soon I knew all the tutti’s and the specials by heart. It was an amazing feeling to be singing in the midst of the wind players.
Following my bachelor at the conservatoire, I started to get familiar with the more typical role a jazz singer would take in a band setting. Although I still loved the music, I sometimes had the feeling that the music really started after the theme was sung and the solos started in which everybody created their own story within the song.
I started looking for other ways to insert my voice. At that time I was singing in the band ‘Startas Orkester’, and they gave me the opportunity to sing the viola part in the string section. Later that year, I sang backing vocals in an American reggae band, which was more an instrumental part, soloing wordless lines behind the lead vocalist. This backing part led to an improvisation, and this solo gave me an amazing sense of being a part of the band. I felt amazing! The fact that I was standing on one of the outside stages of Montreux Jazz Festival, perhaps helped too. But for that moment, I wasn’t “just” the vocalist, singing her theme, maybe do a scat solo, then to disappear, I was an instrumentalist.
The last couple of years I got another option to use my voice in a different way, when I became a part of the Kika Sprangers Large Ensemble. Together with two other singers, we were handed parts that looked more like violin parts, wordless and with a high level of virtuosity and complexity. It was yet another inspiring job in which I learned that the voice is so much more versatile than I had yet discovered.
I set up my own band, the ‘Marit van der Lei Nextet’, and I started writing for a band starring a horn section with 3 horns. I decided that I wanted to sing one of the parts myself, and the journey began.
I learned a more about arranging and composing, and asked friends who played soprano saxophone and trumpet to join the band. I tried this combination and I tried to play the same arrangements with other instruments and people, and noticed that this would gave the arrangement a totally different feel and sound.
This research project is my search for another approach to jazz vocals, a more instrumental way. I narrow it down to the option of singing in a three part horn section, in contemporary jazz music.
I.III Methodology…………………………………………………….
For this research I will aim for the following step-by-step plan.
1. Skill & knowledge improvement.
In my first year of researching, I will be mainly focussing on polishing my skills in arranging techniques I am already familiar with. For this, I will be taking arranging lessons with Henk Huizinga, and Harmony lessons with Eric Gieben.
By doing literature research I hope to gain more knowledge about instrumentation and instrument information. Literature research in the direction of theory and arranging will also be a good addition to the lessons I will have with Eric and Henk. There are a lot of books available on this topic, but I choose the ones below.
- Persichetti, Vincent. (1961) Twentieth-Century Harmony. New York, USA: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
- Naus, J. Wayne. (1998) Beyond Functional Harmony. Advance Music.
- Thompson, Bob. (1997). Modern Jazz Voicings/ Arranging for Large & Small Ensembles (first edition). Edited by Fred Sturm.
- Thompson, Bob. (1997) Kenny Wheeler Collected Works on ECM. Edited by Fred Sturm. UE Publishing Musikverlags GmbH
- Levine, Mark. (1989) The Jazz Piano Book. Petaluna, USA: Sher Music Co
- Adler, Samuel. (2016) (Fourth International Student Edition) Study of Orchestration. New York, USA: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
2. Composing.
After gathering the skills needed, I will compose 2 songs in which all types of arranging matters (discussed in Part II of this research) will surface. I will compose them myself, because I am a composing and arranging singer. This is relevant for my profession.
3. Arranging.
I will make arrangements of these songs for a horn section with 3 horns, and sing one part myself. There are different arranging techniques I will use. I try to put as much as possible in these 2 arrangements, to see if certain voicings or techniques are more suitable than others. Right now I am familiar with the following arranging techniques, and I intent to deepen the knowledge about these particular techniques. My main aim is to have the arrangements function as a framework in which I can experiment with the different roles my voice could then adapt to. The arrangements on themself are not a main goal, but for my profession I obviously want them to be of the highest quality I possible could get.
- 1 lead vs. 2 backings (most common is to have the 1st part be leading, but maybe the 2nd or 3rd could also have a leading role)
- Polyphony
- Unisono
- In octaves
- Lint
- pitched/ non pitched (for example by extended techniques, for instance percussive)
4. Reducing the options. - Phase I
Because I am using 10 different types of horns to form groups with, ánd I want to sing all possible parts within these groups, there are a lot of possible groups and devisions to make. I will try to reduce these options in two phases.
Horn sections most commonly exist of horns of different ranges. This given I will use to reduce the options in this phase. I picked a representative for every range (high ranged instruments- Soprano sax, mid ranges instruments- Alto sax, low ranges instruments- bass clarinet). I will go to a studio with a friend of mine who can play these three instruments. He will then record every part with every instrument (if possible), so that I can see if there are are possible combination that does not work based on range.
I will put the audio files together in all the remaining possible combination, and draw my conclusions to what options I will furthermore explore in fase II.
7. Reducing the options. - Phase II
In this phase I will experiment more with possible options. First I will draw my conclusions from instrument theory and make possible groups of instruments, then I will organize a live rehearsal with these instruments and try these options. The outcome I will then analyze based on the following parameters:
- Sound color of the group
- Instrument specifics
- Playability/ complexity of execution
- Expectations/ result.
By following these steps I hope to get an overview of the possible options, how they sound, and how I/we feel playing them.
I.V Summary………………………………………………
In the end I would like to have an overview of possibilities of how the voice can be incorporated best in an instrumental horn section. So, that if people want to use the voice as an extra color in their horn arrangements, I can hand a step by step “how to”, with an overview of sounds to expect and things to take into consideration.
I hope to be having various options in orchestration and devision of the parts, that lead to different ways of expressing the music. And of course I would like to have an answer to the questions:
How can I use voice to complement 3 part horn arrangements?
How does the choice of my vowels influence the balance of the group?
What kind of consequences does the choice of the instruments have?
What are other roles I could take upon me except doubling a leading part?
How could I take an autonomous part in a 3 part horn section?
