Meredith Monk is an American singer/composer/performer whose voice music I discovered over ten years ago. I still remember the moment I first heard her music: it was so strange and dreamlike, with hardly any words, lots of swoops and exotic sounds, foreign sounding syllables and things I didn't even know you could do with just a voice. That first piece was Atlas, and it travelled with me over the years, as a source of both inspiration, fun and consolation.

What I find very interesting in her music from an AT point of view is that she learned to extend the use of her voice by exploration. I don't know if it's her that invented what we today know as 'extended vocal technique', but she surely is one of the first singers that realised that the voice has many qualities apart from our singing voice. In her own words, she realised that "the voice could be like the body and that it could have a kind of articulation and flexibility and fluidity like the body has." Over the years, she carefully observed her voice and her body, and experimented with such things as whispers, creaky voice, swoops, hushes, yelling, barking and what have you. All this is what makes up her music, which, for me, is the best explanation why 'music' takes 'playing' as its action verb: so full of freedom, playfullness, wonder and weirdness.

Last week, I finally got the opportunity to see her perform live. I had to travel to Germany to do so, but it was so worth it. What an experience! When she entered the stage, she just went and stood at the front, two feet slightly apart, hands resting in front of her, watching us like we were watching her. And when she closed her eyes and started singing, I just kept wondering where on earth that voice came from, because nothing in her gave away that she was singing. It was almost like the singing did her, in a way. Like the music came from somewhere out of the ground and just passed through her, swaying her a little at times, without effort or artificiality. There were moments where I could have sworn that I saw a little fountain coming out of her head. Just watching her was already such a joy! This was nothing like the singing I've heard, seen or known so far, this was true expression of someone's self, and it was beautiful.

After the concert, I did something that I'd normally never do: I waited outside with my Atlas CD cover to have it autographed. I managed to meet her and exchange a few words with her, and she struck me as a very authentic and kind person.

When I was back in the hotel, I had to keep pinching my arm :-)

I do a course of African drumming at our local music center. It's the second season, and it's great fun. We're with seven or eight people; each weak we learn a rhythm, and once that's settled, we improvise. Improvisation is new to me; in classical singing, everything is more or less fixed. I like it a lot, it's a whole new way of looking at music, and it seems to fit me really well.

What I really like about my djembe is that it's a noisy instrument. When I sang, especially the last few months when I didn't really want to sing, I turned into a kind of non-singer: I sang as quietly as possible, only with my head, almost. That's quite impossible with a djembe. You cannot not-hit it, even the slightest tap already causes quite some noise. When I practise at home, I usually shove a pillow inside the drum, so that my neighbours will notice less. Today, I didn't, and the sound was just booming through my appartment. Cool!

This week, we got an extra challenge: drumming and singing at the same time. Aaaaaaargh! It's alright when the rhythm of the song matches the rhythm that we're drumming, but when the song goes off beat, off sync or whatever you call it, it gets really tricky. My hands tend to go along with my voice, or my voice wants to do what my hands do. After some practise, I got most of it, but it still requires a conscious effort. The best way I've found so far is to treat the syllables of my voice as taps on the drum and thus kind of integrate them with the drumming rhythm.

And if that weren't enough, it's also a nice way to do some AT work, like realising that my arms start at the bottom of my spine, shoulders are part of my back, and arms should have an out-and-round tendency.

Ironic, isn't it, that the one thing that made me take AT lessons in the first place, is the one thing that didn't change in the direction I hoped for. I've stopped singing yet again, and quite definitively this time. And the world didn't end. No drama. No huge void. Not even a sense of loss this time. No sense of having thrown away 20 or so years of investment or achievement. No fear of losing music alltogether; I know now that there will always be music in some form or another, if I want it.

And with that, out goes yet another part of old 'self'. It makes me wonder what 'self' is anyway. Much of how we see ourselves is determined by how others see us, by the roles that are assigned to us by the outside world. It's hard to change people's perception of who you really are, or are becoming. I think it may even be impossible, especially with people close to you, like family. Like mothers. The outside world is pretty much a given. The only thing that I can control is my reaction to the outside world. Stay true to my self, the self that is slowly starting to emerge from all the layers of attributes, opinions and worries.

I catch myself daydreaming again. Tempting as it may be to drift away like that into a comfortable world, I need to remind myself that this is not a good thing. It takes me away from the here and now. And stop explaining everything. There's no need to.

Last Wednesday, something happened during my singing lesson. I'm not quite sure where it started, so I'll just walk through my lesson blow by blow.

Warming up went fine. Cool detail: when I'm stuck and unable to get a flow going, my singing teacher tells me to think forward and up, and things just happen by themselves. It must have been happening for quite some time already, but this is the first time I noticed that I'm consciously able to use AT, and keep using it again and again. And I also notice what I'm capable of voice-wise when things just flow.

My practice piece was something happy by Mendelssohn. This is where things started happening, I think. Some high notes were giving me trouble, and I was told to sing them downwards, so that things could open up a bit more. And to be happy and smile, because that also helps keeping things open and wide.

I tried finding my base, and after a while, I felt this familiar feeling somewhere inside: a big blob working its way up, telling me that, hey I don't want to smile, because I don't feel that happy really, and I don't really feel the need to break down in the middle of a singing lesson, I'll just keep this in here if you don't mind thanks very much it's none of your business anyway. But, of course, things don't work this way. The blob got stuck somewhere in my throat, I couldn't even swallow, let alone sing, because it hurt so much.

This is the first time outside AT that this has happened, and its impact was much bigger than what I've experienced during AT. I guess that, when it comes to my voice, I have much more that I need to let go. It's trying to tell me something, and has done now in such a pervasive way that I cannot ignore it any longer. So, there I go again, on my way to acknowledge the blob, allow it to surface and listen to what it has to say.

Whoever said that 30 lessons will do the trick, hasn't got a clue :-)