Fascinated by unusual music genres and their influence on people

A choir that makes buzzing, clacking, popping, and hissing sounds, is that really a choir? And can the music that was composed on an old game console really be called music? Dr Chris Tonelli , musicologist and music philosopher and assistant professor of Popular Music at the Faculty of Arts, is fascinated by unusual music genres and their influence on people. ‘I love music that encourages people to create something themselves.’

_{Text: Theone Joostensz | Photos: Reyer Boxem}

An older man is standing on the stage. He is holding a microphone close to his lips and makes soft little popping sounds reminiscent of drops falling into a bucket of water. The sounds are getting louder and louder, they change tones and intention, and then make way for a wide range of other sounds that succeed one another rapidly. At the height of his performance, the man growls, grunts, and screams, he roars like an engine and howls like a jet plane. His face contorts into all sorts of grimaces and with closed eyes he twists and turns as if the noises are squeezed from the deepest recesses of his body. After a while, the volume starts to taper off, the sounds the man produces become less extreme, and his movements calm down. With a barely audible pop of his lips, he ends the performance.

A concert by a sound singer is not exactly an everyday experience. ‘In sound singing, it is not about making the most beautiful sounds’, says Chris Tonelli. ‘You do not have to be able to sing in a conventional manner. All the sounds that you can make with your voice or mouth are welcome.’

Tonelli himself first got acquainted with the genre as a teenager when he went to a show in Toronto of the Canadian poet and sound singer Paul Dutton who performed a few duets with the London singer Phil Minton. Tonelli, a lover of grunge and punk, was deeply moved by what he heard and saw. ‘Because it was so strange, but at the same time so joyful and energetic, and so liberating. The audience witnessed the process of these two men, how they investigated their bodies and voices, how they improvised and surprised each other and themselves. In the conventional music world, it’s all about the final product; the song is your business card. This was something completely different.’

Singing without vocal cords

Tonelli delved further into the genre and developed his skills as a sound singer. He learned more about the art form from Paul Dutton and performed with him a few times. ‘His motto is that you are allowed to discover yourself what you have inside you. He does not tell you what to do or what you should sound like.’

Years later, when Tonelli started his job as an assistant professor of Popular Music at the Faculty of Arts in Groningen, he was already tried and tested in this ‘obscure genre’ as an academic, performer, and conductor. He founded the Groningen Vocal Exploration Choirin which over 250 people have participated so far and that rehearses and performs under his guidance. ‘Sound singing encourages people to create something themselves, which I think is really important. It is inclusive, liberating, it gives people power and energy. For young people, sound singing is really good for their confidence. It is a life practice in being present because you are constantly listening to what the other person is doing. Even if you don’t have vocal cords or no longer have them or they don’t function well anymore, you can participate by making sounds for which you don’t need a voice, like clicking with your tongue.’

When the coronavirus came around, the choir continued online and it even became an international choir. The members of the international choir still come together online once a month. ‘A big advantage of a sound singing choir is that no one is bothered by a lagging connection’, Tonelli says with a laugh. ‘We just use that in our improvisations.’

Barking like a dog

In his book Voices Found: Free Jazz and Singing, Tonelli discusses in depth the history of sound singing, its predecessors such as scatting–vocal improvisation within jazz where nonsense words are sung–and more. ‘Sound singing did not originate from music alone, but from various art forms, such as experimental dance where dancers use their voice. One of the first British sound singers was a sculptor who wanted to express herself through an art form that is only about the process and not, as with sculpting, about the end product that does not show anything of the process anymore.

In one of the chapters, Tonelli philosophizes about what exactly happens with an audience that reacts strongly to a performance. ‘Just like every sound singer, I sometimes have to deal with people who are yelling I should stop.’ They try to make you stop, or they make fun of you. The comments under Yoko Ono´s YouTube videos for example, a well-known sound singer, are quite harsh. One time, following a duet between me and Paul Dutton, someone grabbed the microphone and started barking like a dog. Just walk away if it´s not your thing, I’m fine with that. But why react so intensely? What is being triggered? It turns out that some people do not perceive these sounds as human sounds, even though they are made by humans. They tend to see it as animal noises or sounds from bodies that have lost the control over them. They are confronted with a part of their own humanity that makes them feel uncomfortable. Children experiment freely with their voices and their bodies to make all sorts of noises and they have fun doing it. Grown-ups seem to have unlearned that. You are not supposed to do it, so other people shouldn’t either.’

Miles Davis in chiptune

Why do we perceive certain sounds a human makes as eminent, while others are seen as vulgar? Who decides this? And what does it say about the power relations between people? As an academic, Tonelli is interested in how music helps to give meaning and makes the world a juster place. Equality and connection are important to him: ‘I love music genres that encourage people to create something themselves.’

As an example, he mentions another ‘obscure music genre’ that he studies: chiptune, music that is made with old game consoles. Think of the Atari and the Nintendo Game Boys from the eighties. With only four tones–because the soundcards could not handle more at the time–existing songs are imitated, such as Kind of blue by Miles Davis, which is called Kind of bloop in the chiptune version. In musical terms, such an imitation is called a pastiche. ‘A pastiche is usually dismissed as being fake or a knock-off, though it can actually give the original a different meaning’, Tonelli argues. ‘Chiptune composers have an almost obsessive compulsion to reproduce all existing musical styles in chiptune. For every symphony of Bach there is a chiptune version, all pop songs have a pastiche in chiptune, you name it, you can find it on the internet. A very interesting question is of course: why is that?’

Tonelli himself grew up with the bleeps and bloops of the video games that chiptune is made out of, though, according to him, the genre is much more than just nostalgia. ‘Chiptune came into being when the video games were already more advanced and had a much more elaborate sound palette. But the younger generations also appreciate the sounds that symbolize the freedom and fun of playing video games. When you’re playing video games, you can do everything, you can be anyone and anywhere. That feeling of freedom is especially important to young people, as they can’t do nor decide that much in their lives yet.

Tonelli would like to translate that freedom and fun into large-scale, community-like music projects, ideally involving young people. ‘Working together and building beautiful things with as many people as possible: the world needs more of that.’