Ep. 5 Getting Free | Rhiannon

Few singers or teachers have done more to illuminate singing, and specifically improvisational singing as a tool in liberation, than Rhiannon. As a long time collaborator of Bobby McFerrin and a seasoned singer, performer and teacher, Rhiannon is a wealth of wisdom and wonder. In this beautiful conversation, she generously offers the story of her own path toward freedom with insights from the women’s movement, singing with Voicestra and sharing with singers around the globe the gift of improvisational singing.

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Davin Youngs 3:23

Okay, so I wanted to begin by indulging a curiosity I have. I wanted to do it by imagining a hypothetical situation where you and I were seated on an airplane next to each other, and we didn't know each other. But we struck up a conversation, and eventually I asked you what it is that you do. I'm really curious what your answer would be?

Rhiannon 3:49

Oh, yeah. Well, I have actually been asked this question on airplanes. I say I'm a singer.

Davin Youngs 3:59

Okay, well, that's what I was hoping you would say. But then I'm wondering what happens if the conversation goes a little bit further and I ask, Well, what kind of music do you sing? Do you immediately open the can of worms that is improvisational singing?

Rhiannon 4:16

Well, the thing is, Davin, I try not to say the word improvisation right away because then the conversation is going to stop. They're gonna go, Oh, what's that? And then I have to try to talk about what improvisational music is. So then I say, well, I'm teaching myself and helping other people learn how to invent music in the moment. And then I see their minds go like, "Oh, all that really weird stuff with no tonal center." And then I go, "but I'm trying to do that, while observing the language of music, which is melody, harmony, rhythm and various genres." It's just that we're doing it spontaneously, then if the conversation goes on from there, then we end up having a really in depth, beautiful conversation. And somewhere in there, they say, "Wow, I would really love to do that."

The word improvisation has got so much negative context, and not very much positive context. And I would say a lot of people don't even know what that means in music, so I get a chance to just talk to them about it as normal music which is has become a deep goal of mine in life. Improvisational music, it's not separate from song form, it's not in some corner somewhere, it's a way of learning how to, to open up any kind of song you touch, and sometimes to not have any song at all in mind. Now, if I, if I get to that point, and talk about walking to a microphone and not knowing what I'm going to sing, and then just going from there, that's really hard to, for people to grasp. And that's a damn shame. Because if people were taught about improvisation in grade school, in middle school in high school, it would be so normal to think of inventing, because we do it in every area of our lives to more or less extent we have to get through the day. I really think of improvisation as a life skill.

Davin Youngs 6:53

So in preparation for this conversation, I've had the joy of revisiting your book, which is aptly called Vocal River and river seems like the most appropriate term for the traveling nature of this text. It's part autobiography, part philosophical inquiry, methodology, there are exercises. But it's all around this idea of improvisation, improvisational singing and the life of an improviser. I wanted to unpack some of this with you, because I'm curious about your story as to how you ended up down this path. Specifically, I wanted to pick up in the 1970s. I know you grew up on a farm in Nebraska, you were the daughter of a farmer, and eventually moved to New York where you were a teacher. But specifically in the early 70s, you talk about moving to the Bay Area, as a time of interdisciplinary collaboration in the arts, you said everyone was working in some sort of creative form, was looking for others to play with, and it didn't even matter what you used. There were frequent gatherings of painters, dancers, photographers, musicians, singers, actors, and quite honestly, this just caught my eye because it just sounds like a sexy time to be alive.

Rhiannon 8:23

Well, first, there were so many steps because I was in my 20s. And I was, I don't know how you feel about your 20s, but I felt like my job was just to stay alive. I had a boyfriend that tried to kill me. I didn't have money. I was wearing kind of mono clothes so that I could disappear. I had shaved my head. And I was just like, on the edge of my skin all the time. I had to work a nine to five job that I totally hated. And I had to figure out what it was I wanted to do. So I drove cab, which allowed me a kind of improvised work life. Am I gonna turn on this street? Or am I gonna pick up that person? And then I realized I didn't want to be an actor anymore, which is what I spent some of my 20s doing. I wanted to make music. So I started going to jazz performances. Every night I could, and they were really cheap or often free. A lot of my study was in jazz clubs listening. There were no conservatories that taught what I wanted to learn, and unlearn. So I would just go to the gigs. And sometimes I wouldn't know what I was listening to. But I insisted on being there and I became aware that not only was there music in the nightclubs, where the jazz was, but there was this other thing going on. I don't remember how I think got introduced to it, but it was everywhere. It was probably the Blake street Hawkeyes. It was a group that Whoopie Goldberg came up in. There were a bunch of them. And I started going to some of their gatherings, everything was improvised. And and once you know, once you take one step into a realm and you're willing, then the river is revealed. And a lot of it was political. So politics, local conditions were very much a part of it. I just went in step by step by leap by another step by step. And I had nothing more important to do in my life and get free, that seemed to me, since I had survived that death, I felt like my big job was to learn everything that was possible that was going to make me free. And never let me get in that kind of situation again.

Davin Youngs 11:25

So your book drops in the very first line into that harrowing scene of domestic abuse and rape that you have, you know, briefly mentioned. And I couldn't help but read that and be curious why this text that was, is essentially about your musical life and your teachings, why you found it important to begin the narrative begin the story at that moment.

Rhiannon 11:56

Well, I took on an editor, about halfway through writing the book, and she read my forward she says, "There's no point in this being here. This is not saying anything. What makes you want to sing?" And that period was so pivotal, because it was the difference between me having the life I have now and being someone's shoes, and not owning my own life. Yeah, it came to me so clearly, that was the moment that I realized that if I did not leave that man, if I did not understand my own power, and my special soul, I was never going to learn it, I was always going to be in somebody else's domain. Fortunately, the the angels surrounded me and guided me out of there. In the book, I talk about these two women in the apartment who heard the entire rape scene go on upstairs, and they poured me a stiff drink. And they said, you either leave now and never see him again. Or you're always going to be with him, or somebody, like him. You make the choice. And I, I could see that they were completely right. And the good news of that was, it was my choice. And for me, meeting all those artists... these people were all trying to get free. That's what they're all trying to do. And they're choosing all these different ways. And, and I'd have to say, that was not the half of it. There was the whole gay men getting free thing that was going on in San Francisco. So I felt like the whole city conspired to help us get free and that's why a lot of us moved all the way across the country to get there. It was a lot of people who were not born in the Bay Area who who traveled there to get free and that kind of vibration was in the air.

Davin Youngs 14:11

You know, what you're saying is such a beautiful reminder of art and music's historical role in the process of liberation or freedom as you keep mentioning, not only on a personal level, but on a political level, which then makes me want to dig further because I'm curious about your relationship to jazz and then ultimately to the women's movement.

Rhiannon 14:40

I was going to jazz clubs, I was listening. I was not singing. I had no reality that I was going to be a singer. I just was listening because this music was setting me free. So I got very engaged in it and then I started learning the music I started taking a lot of classes at whatever situation I could study with the players of that music studying the history of the racism and the the glorious minds that created that music, all of it all bound together. But then somebody sends me to some concert that was all women performers and all women in the audience, like, Ah, yeah! I was not I was not out yet. I was still recovering. But I thought well wait. This is incredible. So I hitchhiked. In those days, you just put your name on a bulletin board with your request. And that's what I did. And these two women said, well, we're going to that festival. It's in Champaign Urbana, Illinois. Do you want to ride along with us? So I did.

Davin Youngs 16:00

And just to preempt this a little bit. So and I know this, just from some research I've done, but there were these women's music festivals that emerged out of this time period. And it seems like the Midwest was home to a couple of the big ones that sort of took off. So

Rhiannon 16:20

I don't know exactly why that is because the a lot of the musicians were on the coasts. But the women in the Midwest, they got it together. And they would get the local university to host it. So that they had all the facilities that they needed, and we would all arrive and all these women would be on the campus, radicalizing ourselves. And so I observed this whole week, which was fabulous. And I kept thinking, where's the improvising? So I said that to Ginny Clemens, who was a really well known singer, she was a blues singer, a white gal out out of Chicago. And she said, Well, Rhiannon, this is really good. what you're doing. If you put a band together, I'll make sure you get in this festival next year. So because I just I was just doing what I was experimenting with and nobody else right there was doing that. So I went home. And I read on a bulletin board women's jazz workshop. It was in the basement of this storefront. So I went downstairs, and there were the other two founding members of Alive!, we were the only three at the workshop.

So It was taught by this really brilliant piano player, woman. And the three of us liked each other so much, we made an agreement to meet, we figured out a name Alive! the very first day, and we set about creating repertoire. Out of like, kind of nothing. But we each really loved jazz. We love the complexity of the rhythmic and the syncopation and we like the chord structures. So we had to just find our way. And I would say there's nothing better than finding other people who have a devotion to the same thing you do. And then you don't know, but you find a way together.

Davin Youngs 18:27

Well, and from what I understand, your collective devotion wasn't just to the music, but it was to the sort of altruistic endeavors of the women's movement around specifically in your case, not having a band leader.

Rhiannon 18:44

Absolutely. Yeah. And we were part of a much more enormous women's movement that was doing that in every possible way of women in every walk of life were waking up to their empowerment and their need to create things communally. Not from the top down, we were not only women, musicians, women, producers, women, sound engineers, women, lighting technicians. It wasn't just making music, we were trying to change the world. And I would wish that on any artist, any musician who sets out to do their work, because we had such a drive to get better. We were studying all the time. We were teaching each other things we were writing music we were we were in it full time, all the time. None of us had another band. That's that's very rare to come upon.

It set the the course for my whole life, because it taught me that the singers not necessarily the leader, and I needed to carry the gear for the other band members. I know Just get in there and be part of the deal and that I could bring my songs. And even if they weren't finished, I could get help finishing them that my songs were worthy, even if I needed help. I didn't have to know how to do everything. The piano player could make my chords more interesting. You know, that collaborative. That's where I got the collaborative thing was from those times, I wouldn't have known that alone. how powerful that was. And and when a life ended, 10 years later, I can remember sitting in my bedroom thinking, I know, one fifth of what I need to know, How the hell am I gonna do this?

Davin Youngs 20:55

Have you ever considered how the sound of your voice or the way in which you were using it at this time related to the social political climate that you were in at the time?

Rhiannon 21:10

That's a really profound question. I had a big voice. And that was my go to. It took a lot. For me to be convinced that that wasn't what was going to make the music better. That more subtlety, more quiet, fewer notes was going to actually work better. But that was a hard sell. It really took me a lot I don't. When I listened to the album's I'm so aware of howhigh my voice was. The center of my voice was higher. I didn't necessarily have the low notes. But I had a really clear, strong voice.

At one point, I lost my voice. A set drummer and conga player, lots of gigs traveling and me singing big conspired for me to lose my voice. I went to this teacher who very wisely said, Okay, these are the things we can help you do to relax your jaw. These are the things we can do to help you sing more strongly from your diaphragm. The rest of it has to do with you, when you are not singing when somebody else is soloing on stage, get out of the light, go stand behind the piano, turn around, stop relating to the audience, the entire set, get out of it. Do not go outside out to the crowd. During the intermission, do not sit quietly in the dressing room and calm down. At the end of the night, go back to the dressing room. Sit down for a few minutes before you go out and greet people. let that go back out of your seventh chakra let your feet come back onto the floor. And then I look at videos of me. And I had one hand that was open. And this other hand was clenched. I had no idea really what my body was going through. And I realized that there were things I had to learn about relaxing and not being in charge.

Davin Youngs 23:42

For some of us. It's a life lesson, isn't it?

Rhiannon 23:45

It is. Eventually my voice came back and I got better at those things. But I think I will be studying that my whole life because of the kind of person that I am. I am the first day of Aries. I am used to like figuring it out making it happen. And that is not really the most creative place to come from.

Davin Youngs 24:06

Yeah, yeah. But it's a juggling act because in addition to that, I also know you as someone who is willing to go to the far reaches of her voice traveling, while touching boundaries that most people wouldn't dare come close to and and fearlessly doing so.

Rhiannon 24:50

I would say because I was an actor during my 20s I was used to exploring sound with my voice that went out of singerly bounds. So that was never really my issue. My issue was figuring out how I don't kill my voice. What is good for my voice but also is satisfying in that Sonic way? And how can I bring it in enough so that I'm inside the form, and people are not having to stretch too far to follow me. I had to bring it in. That's been a lot of what it is for me, I have to learn how to bring it in.

Davin Youngs 25:52

So when does Bobby McFerrin come into the picture?

Rhiannon 25:57

Well, I started listening to him when he was still doing gigs in small clubs. He was doing repertoire, but he had a really great sound, and you could feel something about to burst. So I would go to a lot of these gigs. I didn't introduce myself to him at first. And one night, I went to his gig. He the band stopped, he stepped out front, and he saying an acapella version of Spain. From baseline to melody to rhythmic structure to improvising. And I thought, Oh, my God.

So then he started doing more of that, and and I went up to him one night after a gig and I asked him for a lesson. He said, You know what, you're too late. I'm not doing that anymore. And then I asked him again, another time, or we were talking, I started introducing myself to him more often. And finally, he let me have a lesson. And he only let me sing three pitches, the whole lesson said that's your task. Three pitches, do whatever you want to. Go. So he was mean. Because, he was studying. So he used his students to study further. Actually, when you hung out with him in those early days, he didn't actually talk to people. He kind of sang at you. If you'd sat next to me. He would be arpeggiating he would be singing baselines. And and he didn't really ask you about yourself. He just was in that realm. And if you wanted to hang out, you could. And but he was also really sweet. He had a darling wife. I think just one child at that point. And the people that came to those gatherings were all the people of the Voicestra. So it was all the cool singers. So you'd go and you'd talk to each other. And every once in a while you go sit next to Bobby and he'd arpeggiated.

Davin Youngs 28:46

And so just to give a little context here, Voicestra was the vocal ensemble that Bobby McFerrin founded in, in 1986. And that you were a part of and, and it was composed of an incredibly, incredibly diverse group of singers who sang both some composed music but more improvised music, is that correct?

Rhiannon 29:11

When we first started, we were singing the repertoire from Medicine Man. There was an opera singer, there was a gal who sang Middle Eastern music. There was a me kind of improviser, jazz kind of gal, couple of r&b singers, a gospel singer like that. And then we started singing his repertoire. But the way we rehearsed was improvised. We did a lot of things around blend, how do I blend with an opera singer? He would put us through all different kinds of scales, all different kind of blending exercises, and we were totally on the whole time. And you could, I mean, we all messed up, but it was very clear when you were messing up and that you had to get better. So it was like graduate school.

Davin Youngs 30:05

And what was your understanding of what it was that you were doing at that time collectively?

Rhiannon 30:13

Well, in the early days, we talked about all living together somewhere and singing together for the rest of our lives, like vocal commune.

At the same time, I moved out to Point Reyes, I moved out of an urban setting for the first time in my adult life. And I was living all by myself. On the edge of Tomales Bay, on a house with stilts, I was all alone. I was no longer dealing with the bad girlfriend. My mother just died. You know, I was like, crash and burn. So I just devoted myself to Bobby in the voices. I just studied the tone of my voice, probably for the first time because there were no instruments to bury myself in. I was really listened to where my son was too big, where is pushing? And I think everybody else was as well. This was Devo tase. And Bobby was he had made Don't worry, be happy, and he had decided pop music was going to kill him. So he came home and began to devote himself to a capella music. And in particular, in his case to solo a capella, improvised music. I think what we were for him was the lab.

Davin Youngs 31:43

So wow, you know, everything you're saying, has me thinking back on my own experience with Bobby McFerrin In my case, at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, for our circle songs workshop, which you of course, are on faculty as well and where I met you. But it has me thinking that his presence in music and singing alone sort of dispels this myth that improvisation is about making it up, like pulling something out of nothing, when in fact, you know, someone like Bobby who has championed improvisation and specifically improvisational singing for so long. He's almost been obsessed with method and with exercise.

Rhiannon 32:32

His mom was a church singer, he grew up totally with form, he graduated from Juilliard with a piano degree. He's very, very exacting. And that's how he made voices just so good, because he didn't berate us, but he was so good himself, the exercises were so demanding. And there was a kindness in the room. Which meant that we were all also learning that ego driven music is not nearly as good as community driven excellence. And he never said those words. But we just got it. If you're not listening to the other people singing, you're not going to sing as well. If you're fixated on your own thing, you're not in the community, it's not going to be flawless.

Singers, we experienced vibration in our bodies, and it's ecstatic. So to be with other singers, where the vibration is amplified by how many people are in the group. And that's why everybody's got to be totally present. If they aren't, there's a blip in the circle. So everybody's got to be maximally present without pushing. So that there's this wall of goodness, there's this generosity of spirit that's palpable in the room. Now, that said, in the last years, I've come back to instrumentalists. And when I talk to, like Laurence Hobgood, he feels so much like this. He and I can have conversations about improvisation that are seamless. I don't think I knew that.

Davin Youngs 34:46

Just to interject and say that Laurence Hobgood is Chicago, piano player who is a longtime collaborator of yours and is a brilliant musician.

Rhiannon 35:15

So, when Laurence talks about this he says, I learned songs just so that I can improvise. It's all about the improvising for me. So when he and I are doing gigs, and I'm feeling and our gigs are totally improvised, we may add a song or two, we always do, we add a song, but we don't know which one, we don't know exactly how it's gonna go, messing around with the chords and the structure and but essentially, we're improvising. It's static, really, in very similar way to voices, when I started to realize that I could improvise with harmonic instruments. Oh my goodness. Because with singers, we can only sing one note at a time. If we have a bunch of us, we can create a lot of chords. But we can only do one note at a time, if I'm playing with a piano player, all bets are off where they can go.

Davin Youngs 36:28

Well, and this brings my mind to the notion of improvisation and skill and the development of that skill and, and the emergence of the mystery of music. And you know why it shows up when it does when you're improvising? And, and why sometimes it just, you know, doesn't seem to work.

Rhiannon 36:52

I, I just, I don't know what it is that makes music whole. But I know that it's not just the brain. And it's not just study, it's not just brilliance in the language of music. But that helps a lot. But sometimes, if you can back yourself into a corner where you, you get so absorbed in trying to do it right, or trying to fulfill some expectation that you have of yourself. And if you don't have that expectation, you can just be singing to the rain...

Davin Youngs 38:01

I've studied with you quite a bit in New York and California and Chicago. And, you know, one of the reasons I keep coming back to you is because you are so expert at helping people like me break through what it is that you just mentioned, these sort of expectations that we carry with ourselves around what it is that we're supposed to do and achieve. And it always feels like the voice is our medium for exploring this. But the implications are much greater than singing. But we always talk about it in terms of singing and music. And I'm just wondering if you can think for a moment, sort of specifically around what shows up when a singer is successful when they've potentially moved beyond or through those expectations or those old narratives? How does that show up in the voice and the music.

Rhiannon 39:00

I like there to be a voice coming out of a person that vibrates. But that feels whole that doesn't feel pinched, that doesn't feel stuck in some way. That's really important. I like the tuning to be good. I like for people to be able to hold a pitch so that I can tell where they are in that pitch. And the more range, the better. But if you have an octave, but you're solidly secure and you can hold a pitch in that I could that's really great. I really like people to have a syncopated understanding of rhythm. And that takes sometimes quite a bit of study together to understand how not to sing on th e downbeat all the time, but to slowly start to understand how naturally Is to sing on other parts of the beat. So something about a well tempered voice that feels relaxed in the body of the person. And that the body of the person is moving a bit while they sing. So that nothing is no joins are stuck. And then I love them to just be confident that what they have to bring to them.

Sometimes people come to that right away, because they've been singing to themselves for a long time. And nobody told them no. But for a lot of people, they got told no a lot. And so they reined it in and reined it in and re did it until they might start the session by saying my voices, and I don't like my voice. I like for people to be able to come around to the place where they recognize that there is a sound deeper than they thought they had that belongs to them, and they are always going to have it, they own it. It's just that the energy in the room gets better.

Davin Youngs 41:21

And personally, I've been so interested in the idea of how efficient how fast how direct a path in singing is specifically in improvised fashion, because anyone who has a voice that works, whether they think that they're a good singer or not, or have experience or not, as soon as they start to sing and to improvise, there's this inevitable illumination of the truth of who they are in that moment. And that sounds sort of sort of like a big statement. But anyone who's engaged this work, knows that there's some sort of magic that happens. And I don't know if it's the thing, or the improvisation, or the combination of the two.

Rhiannon 42:07

When I realized that what I really wanted to teach was straight up improvisation, straight up invention of the voice, I knew I was teaching something that belonged to me. I didn't necessarily want to teach people how to sing a song. I still do that sometimes. But I'm coming from this framework of how do we move energy in the room. And that's what, that's what improvisers get very keyed into. Because they very often sang in their room or on some hillside as a kid. And they recognized moving energy, and then whatever else happened to them happened to them. But when we're in the room, improvising, all of that seems to come back to them. And they recognize that the core of it is moving energy, feeling like you're part of life, like you're doing something that's yours. And I never felt that when I was singing songs in the early days, Davin. I always felt like I was second best, or 12th best or whatever. And that was my relationship to to singing songs. And I did the best I could to make repertoire and, and create and be original and all of that. But when I finally just got into the free improvising, I felt like I was my own person finally. And when I see that in somebody else, I am just ecstatic. And everybody else in the room knows it. We all lift up. And that's when I started realizing I didn't want to teach private lessons nearly as much as I wanted to teach groups, because every person in the circle that does that everybody else goes. They lift up and then somebody else does it we go and that's and that's why the improvising is so brilliant, because you've got to focus on the person who's singing not on what you're gonna do, but you're focusing on them. You're teaching yourself how to listen. You're teaching yourself how to collaborate, you're in love with that person that singing at that moment, and your love of them and you're listening lifts them up. It's it's, it's what humans were built for.

Davin Youngs 44:47

I wanted to ask you to describe in your words, a specific exercise that you've developed and I've had the joy of participating in it. It's an exercise that I think that you only introduced to groups who have been together over a day or two or three or more. It's not something that you would just do sort of right off the bat, but it's called shape shift. And the reason I want you to describe it is, because to me, this exercise has been so meaningful, because it sort of captures everything it is that we've been talking about. The idea of community of connection, of listening, of being heard of being seen having to put away narratives around what should or or shouldn't be, and, and also, just visually, the way that this exercise is embodied in the space, I think is just so beautiful. So could you put words to how it is and how it plays out?

Rhiannon 45:56

While there have become variations, but the most clear version is two circles. One circle sits in chairs or stands around the outside. They are the ones who are going to witness. Their job is to be very awaketo what's going on. The inner circle is sitting, usually sitting very close together like, as close as we can manage. And the ideal number of people in this would maybe be six to eight on the outside, six to eight on the inside. And the singers on the inside, take a look at each other. And very often I have people extend their hands to each other, so that there is a physical manifestation of we're about to do this together, we're all going to give everything we've got to this, this is a communal experience. I'm giving you my heart. And then somebody begins, we don't know who it is. And we create a piece of music that ideally less 10 minutes, 15 minutes, maybe even 20 minutes. And we're all making it happen. Everybody's eyes are open the whole time to read the things that's going on. And why it's called shape shift is that they'll get to be a rhythm. Okay, so that's three or four people getting that rhythm, and maybe somebody starts a melody, maybe a couple of people join them in that melody, maybe somebody harmonizes but there's a, there's a coherent kind of piece of music evolving. There's maybe some syncopation, there's maybe a counter melody is going on. It's It's nice, rich music, but we're all watching each other, it's all happening, and then somebody changes it. And that's the shape shift, that change might be something kind of simple, they might start a kind of counter rhythm that kind of cuts through, and everybody hears it. So everybody shifts. And I did not know that was possible. The first time it happened, I thought ... What just happened? But the fact is, we're all listening, and we adjust and the whole thing shape shifts, and the whole tone of the music goes to link into some other place. And not everybody continues singing some people drop out. And then maybe something happens, maybe somebody starts speaking, but but this 20 minutes is comprised of many of those shapeshifts. So the whole texture of the piece is a journey that we go on together.

Davin Youngs 48:55

And what about the observers? What about those on the outside that circle that, that watches and hold space? Because that to me is really the magic of the exercise. There's this thing happening in the middle, but there are these people outside and and you know, there's a similarity in performing for an audience per se. But there's something about the intention behind this physical set.

Rhiannon 49:20

Well, it happens spontaneously as these things often do. I had too many people in a room and I knew we would not be successful there were like 16 people. So I said, Okay, half of you are going to sing and half of you are going to listen. And what I observed is that the listeners were like an energetic force field around the outside that made those of us on the inside feel safer and feel listened to and say I'm singing I'm looking across the circle. I am looking in the eyes of several of the witnesses and I observed their humanity. I observe. I am held more securely in place by their love. That's what it does. And afterwards, we often asked them to say what they heard. And they can be more detailed about it because they're not involved in the singing, they're observing the thing as a whole. So they're, in fact, very important. Sometimes I have too many for the two circles. So the third group there in the middle, lying down, taking it in as a healer, and then comes to the circle with singing, then comes the witnesses. And then what we do is at a certain point, we change, so everybody gets to be in each circle. But, you know, this brings up the point of when is ceremony meant to be in a public space? And when is ceremony so private, that it really needs to be just for the people who are participating? And and why can't we get bigger, so that ceremony can be in a huge room because we need it so much. But just just imagine all the places where this whole a whole room of people could fall into this journey? together?

Davin Youngs 51:21

Yes! But you know, if anyone could imagine the many places that large groups could travel on the journey of collective singing together, it would certainly be me. But I know from my personal experience, that it's kind of a hard sell. I mean, it seems like we've lost our collective imagination around this possibility. And it's always I always observe that there's this tension between our desire to find connection, and our needing of permission or skill to find our way in. And it just is always at odds specifically around you know, singing and dancing and movement. There's this sort of fear this resistance that comes up against our our longing....

Rhiannon 52:11

For group art. Whether everybody does it at the at the same technical ability is not the point yet for this group to move and move air and move body parts. That's it, it's it's just what we're meant to do. I mean, think about schools of fish. I have often wondered as a, as a devotee of swimming, when I'm swimming, and I'm watching schools of fish underwater. How does that feel? Ah, how did the birds feel when they're doing that diving swooping Starling thing that must feel ecstatic, I'm so sure that it does, that you get this, this this ecstatic feeling that you're all moving air together. Or you're moving water, wow. Or trees swaying in a wind in a forest. That must feel good!

Davin Youngs 53:53

As I listen to you reflect right now on the sort of wonders of the natural world, I have an awareness that my age potentially limits me from seeing those things with as much clarity as you are able to, and it makes me want to ask you about growing older and singing. I'm also aware that you just spent the last year traveling all over the world teaching and performing. And I'm just wondering if maybe you could reflect on what that was like with your voice and what it's like growing older and singing, and where you see yourself now.

Rhiannon 54:41

Well, I'm 75. So, to do that to kind of touring at 74 I only could do it because I have a lot of practice at doing it. I know how to rest on airplanes. I know how to sleep in a lot of different beds. I know to get exercise. I there are a lot of things like that. learned about it. So I understand the kind of wisdom that just comes with. I've devoted my life to this work. And traveling has been how I chose to do it, rather than try to do it all in one city where there are certain glorious people who stay in one place and do it that way. I wanted to see the world, I was very aware of that. And I have gotten to do that. So at some point, my partner Jan, and I decided to leave the country of Point Reyes and move over to Hawaii out in the middle of the Pacific. And we're on a farm, we're running a farm, we're living in the quietness that only the country offers. And I still worry sometimes about losing my edge. And maybe I have, I don't know, when I get ready to go on tour, I have a series of songs that I do, that I study that I work on, to make me fast to make me pitch accurate. to lengthen my breath, there are certain classical things I still do to work the range of my voice. But I don't, I don't hold those in the same power. I understand that I am who I am at this point. And what I bring has as much to do with my age and with my living out in the country, as it does with what I know how to sing. So when I walk on stage, I understand in a different way that I am bringing my whole life on the stage with me.

I feel like singing has been so good for my mind. There's a lot going on in the singers mind, that's really firing very fast. So, my mind still fires pretty fast. I don't exactly know how my singing is compared to before, there's probably a little less range. One of the things about being a singer is that lots of times you can sing till you drop over dead. It's just what we get to do because of this form. So I plan to do that. I would like to die singing. That would be very satisfying for me, and I feel like my job now more than ever, is to grow my spiritual life. To grow my capacity to watch the trees, to watch the animals to be generous with the people living on the farm. To feed myself well. Kind of, human things. I think that's my gig. And that's not that's not easy, because my heart still races sometimes when things are anxiety producing. I want to learn how that I can do better. How can I not fire all those neurons just because something is overstimulating.

That's one of the beautiful things about getting older is that I'm not building my career anymore. I can keep giving it away. Now, I can keep figuring out how other people can get hold of their musical opportunities that's glorious. And then to have to be here in the farm where life is busy, happening because the plants are growing and I'm harvesting and wow, what a blessing.

Davin Youngs 59:42

Rhiannon, I want to say thank you with the utmost sincerity for this beautiful conversation. And for that spirit of generosity that you mentioned that you just want to keep giving it away because so many of us are the beneficiaries of that. And you know, I'm personally so grateful and I know you have students and friends all over the world that are so grateful and quite honestly, I'm also just thrilled to see what you will continue to create and to learn and observe along the way. So thank you.

Rhiannon 1:00:24

You too, Davin. You are innovating and striving. Good on.

Davin Youngs 1:00:47

Okay that was really good. Wow, what a gift to be able to ask those kinds of questions of someone with the life experience and knowledge and wisdom that Rhiannon holds. I'm so grateful for this conversation that she gifted me and I hope it has inspired you. I hope you feel as inspired by her work as I do, and I hope that if you want to work with her, you will consider reaching out to her looking her up you can find her at rhiannonmusic.com And as always, you can find me at davinyoungs.com and all the socials at Davin Youngs Instagram, Twitter, all that kind of stuff. Please like, Subscribe, share, review this podcast, make sure other people are able to connect with these stories around singing, the voice and the magic that is sound. I appreciate you. I'm grateful for you. And until next time, peace, blessings and sound.