Abby Carter, who sings soprano in the GSA Choir, writes about her experience of rehearsing 14 Weeks – composed by Jane Stanley, with lyrics by Judith Bishop.
Each of the pieces written for Composeher ask something of us that develops and expands both our abilities as a choir and as individual singers. Some demand complex close harmonies and others huge dynamic contrast, or precise polyrhythmic textures. For me, it is 14 Weeks that pushes us the furthest into musical territories unknown. The piece can be described as ‘aleatoric music’ in that its distinctive sound is built on indeterminacy and improvisation. It takes us away from the familiarity of strict and comprehensive choral musical instruction and into a kind of structured randomness described by our Musical Director, Jamie Sansbury, in rehearsal, as a ‘murky sound world’. Surely, any self-respecting choir does not aim for ‘murky’ but instead polished, clean, and controlled?
In Jane Stanley’s piece, beats in bars are rare and sound is generally organised into aleatoric ‘cells’ in which we sing musical material at prescribed pitches and dynamics but with free rhythm and tempo. Crucially, these cells demand that we sing independently of our neighbours to build a sound world that is ‘smooth, gliding, distant, glowing, [and] subtle’ as described by Jane in her initial performance direction. A fundamental of choral singing is listening to other singers to be ‘in time’; we dedicate countless hours to timing and articulation, making sure no consonant lands out of place. However, in 14 Weeks we must consciously reject that instinct to conform and instead listen closely to each other to ensure we are singing truly individually. For the most part, even when cued by our conductor to move to the next cell, Jane tells us that we should finish what we were singing before acknowledging the instruction. Unthinkable for an obedient chorister!
It feels scary and uncomfortable at first to reject the aim for ‘perfection’ we are typically expected to have in performing a piece of music and instead surrender to chaos and the unknown. In doing so, the sound of the choir ripples and swells like a growing organism. The piece starts on a single repeated note and, as more voices come in, expands to be rich in texture and harmony which, coupled with Judith Bishop’s text, is certainly evocative of a growing foetus. Jane chooses to notate much of the piece as two separate choirs singing simultaneously – on a pragmatic level, helpful to clearly group parts that are singing distinct musical ideas – but the music on the page beginning as a single line then mitotically dividing and growing, as cells do, serves to symbolise the physiology of early pregnancy rather beautifully. In some sections, one of the piece’s ‘two choirs’ sing in rhythmic unison, or ‘homorhythm’, while their words dissolve and echo around them in aleatoric cells sung by the other choir. The sound is dreamlike and warm, inviting us to imagine how a growing foetus might hear their mother’s voice from the womb.
I approach this piece from a couple of angles: as a recent composition student of Jane’s, and as a long-time singer and choir member. I am new to the GSA Choir and had no idea we would be singing this piece until my first rehearsal. I first learned about 14 Weeks in deepest darkest lockdown as a University of Glasgow music student, staring at my laptop, sitting on my parents’ kitchen floor getting through my degree one video lecture at a time. I was lucky enough to be taught by Jane during my composition studies, so it is now a real pleasure to be singing one of her pieces, and especially one that taught me new techniques and kept me composing when the world was closed for business. Throughout my music degree I became fascinated by notation systems and compositional techniques that stray outside of, or expand upon, Western Classical tradition. As a student, I was able to develop my own compositional ideas using concepts like aleatory and indeterminacy that were introduced to me by tutors like Jane. So, by being involved in the rehearsal and performance of a piece like 14 Weeks, I feel as if I am getting a ‘behind the scenes’ understanding of what it is like to put these contemporary and exciting musical concepts into practice.
In our first rehearsal – after seeing puzzled, worried faces staring at unfamiliar music – Jamie immediately proclaimed, ‘I promise you, it’s not as difficult as you think it is’. At first glance the piece’s atypical notation seems intimidating, perhaps inaccessible for an amateur choir. But Jane has employed this technique to express her complex and richly layered musical concept in a way that is exceptionally clear. It has been really valuable to understand how a piece like this works in practice and what challenges and joys it presents to each singer as well as the ensemble as a whole.
In writing 14 Weeks, Jane has definitely made use of the choir’s size, allowing our huge number to create remarkable texture, density, and contrast. Singing the piece feels uniquely emotional because I can use the composer’s instructions to sing the text in a way that feels right for me, while over 100 other personal performances of the text envelop me. Standing amongst a choir as they sing is an invariably powerful experience but, when each voice is so individual, stopping to listen for a moment in rehearsal is quite magical, with notes, words, and rhythms glittering around you like running water in the sun.