"The Objective Voice"
In August 1967 I
read a paper at the 7th International Congress of Psychotherapy in Wiesbaden,
which described how a therapeutic community had grown spontaneously around
me as a result of my study and use of my voice.
Today I would like first to read you a description of this voice and of my general performance at a televised concert at Hamburg, Germany,
in which I sang the solo part in Maxwell-Davies' "Eight
Songs for a Mad King". I choose to quote from this particular review
by Heinz Jochaim (Die Welt - 20 October, 1969)
because this critic, more than any other to date, uses phrases that indicate
he senses what 'the objective’ voice is all about.
"Roy Hart is an artist who commands not
only all the voices of the human registers - ranging from the deepest bass
to the highest soprano, but also (incredibly enough) is able to produce
several sounds simultaneously, added to which he gives an acting
performance, which stretches from the most tender allusion to the most
macabre realism. All this was (banal as the formulation may sound) simply
phenomenal, unique, sensational. Yet
it lay beyond all 'sensation'. It
was so deeply stamped by immediate experience, it was the art of presentation
which, at every minute, used the means available in a conscious
way, and yet never transgressed the borderline that leads to trash
... the solo part is specifically written for Roy Hart. No other artist could
probably realise this part so penetratingly.”
"No other artist", Jochaim says "could probably realise”
(i.e. make real) "this part so penetratingly". I should like to say that, since I, as the
pioneer, have shown that this kind of freed voice can be used within the classical
Western musical tradition, others have followed in my wake. For example, since
my breaking relations with Maxwell-Davies on a question of integrity, three
other artists, at least, have sung this part which was (created for my voice,
and the critics have usually taken the trouble to compare their performance
with mine, pointing out where they were even better "than Roy Hart".
I am not interested in these competitive attitudes. I know that my voice is
not a freak and that it has simply opened the way for musicians to be prepared
to listen to the "individual", "wide-ranging", "human"
voice, as opposed to the specialised voice of lieder or opera with their limited
range of acceptable timbres and nuances. Yet, certainly, Jochaim is right:
it is not likely that there is another artist, who uses his voice in
this kind of musical context, who has also devoted 25 years to an intensive
study of the psychological implications of the human voice, and to stretching
its potential for non-egotistical ends. It is my attitude to my art that is
more revolutionary than the particular sounds that fellow artists find they
can copy or embellish, I believe the artist should reveal "the struggle",
should show that "borderline" just beyond what is easily within
his powers of expression, and should show himself “conscious” at “at
every minute” of the imperfections and perfections of his total humanity.
What Jochaim heard was the audible manifestation of an inclusive, knowledgeable
self-control, a control over schizophrenic extremes, commanded to come
forth for the expression at will in a conscious rather than
a poetical way. He heard a man, who is a philosopher, a psychotherapist, a sportsman, a husband,
a lover, a friend, an actor, allying himself to the role of musician alongside
those whose musical training has been more specialised. What the critic saw
was acting that totally matched the sounds produced, because those sounds
were embodied sounds. Some musicians have objected to the combination
of acting and music, and in my recent concert in Vienna, where I performed
a new work written for my voice by an Austrian composer, Meinhart Rudinauer,
most of the music critics referred to my performance in scathing tones as
"acrobatics" or "pantomime", and there was a distinctly
anti-avant-garde music movement afoot in Vienna, because the musical world
there had heard too much that was not really authentically progressive music.
Only one critic was able to see my performance in quite another light:
"the human
voice (baritone solo) is exposed to an extraordinary test of endurance making
hitherto unknown demands on the bravura of the soloist, which Roy Hart, an
English singer, dedicatedly and unegotistically accomplished. The possibilities
of expression and the extension of this realm of expressive potentialities…
compels admiration in its variety and range." Salzburger
Nachrichten 20 January 1972Salzburger
Nachrichten 20 January 1972.
That this critic was prepared
to praise a musical work in terms of "a
test of endurance", and that he could use words like "dedicatedly"
and "unegotistically", reveals that the purpose of my work is slowly
seeping through to the compartmentalised Western mind. Now in Japan the art
of Zen, a religious dedication can be experienced in many forms of art, but
it is taking the English a very long time to understand the totality of the
kind of art which I practice. To put it shortly, I have often referred, to
my art as "Conscious Schizophrenia", a conscious bringing together
of the many parts into which Western man usually likes to divide and subdivide
himself.
. . . . People have asked
why I am so obsessed with the voice - what about all the other important means
of human expression? I have found that full development of the voice, that
is connecting all its tones of expression to embodied feeling, includes
everything else, and forms a vital bridge between head and body, the conscious
and unconscious. It is because I have aimed to sing eight octaves or
more, using my whole body, will and imagination to do so, that my acting performance
appears as immediate and embracing. To educate my voice to produce at will
a great variety of timbres and nuances that relate to immediate experience
rather than to a clever, intellectually acted simulation of experience,
I had to gain in my body the knowledge of my comprehensive humanity. I am
a Jew, born in South Africa, but I have had to find in myself not only the
Jew but also Hitler, not only a white man but also a Negro. I find it interesting
that the artist who has most frequently and most successfully been invited
to sing works written for my voice has been the Negro singer, William
Parson. The average European singer is simply not embodied enough to produce
the intensity of the range which I have demonstrated. My life’s work has been
to give bodily expression to the totality of myself. This means bringing an
enormous unconscious territory into consciousness, with the help of the dream
world and the unbiased
observations
of co-students of many unconscious gestures, words and actions. Some of the
sounds which I and my colleagues make seem identical to many to be heard in
any psychiatric ward, and at my concerts several people have found my sounds
disturbing and have had hysterical reactions, but, for those who can hear
without fear, it is clear that these sounds are consciously, detachedly "produced",
"commanded" to come forth, and because I and my fellow-students
choose where, how and when to make them, we are not forced to become alienated
from society, as are those in the psychiatric wards, who seem to be making
similar sounds.
. . . . The different members of my community all earn their livings in a variety of way, and yet manage to fit into their part in the normal bread-winning world a very formidable, disciplined training. They attack with the utmost effort of body and will the different centres of energy - a form of shock treatment for the cells, a biological shake that one hopes will occasionally spark off a new communication between two yearning synapses. Certain sounds stimulate the cortex, others vibrate the genitals, almost all are controlled by the diaphragm and the mind, and the most rewarding sounds involve a fine, tight-rope-walking communication between head, guts, diaphragm, finger-tips and toes. Fall off this tight rope, and one is immediately over Jochaim's "borderline that leads to trash". The razor edge can be bodily experienced. Most of the sounds that totally involve the body and concentration of will, are broken, chorded sounds, like an engine, triple-stopping on a stringed instrument, the roar of a wild beast or the scream of a hysterical witch. I notice that these "chorded" sounds are frequently used by priests in primitive religions rituals as, like prayer, they require a high degree of concentration, and they have an integrating influence. Each individual is constantly discovering "new" sounds for himself "in extremis", or in a moment "off guard", relaxed, or under the waking influence of dream images from the night before. These “new" sounds are sought again and again in the cold light of consciousness, until they are capable of production at will.
. . . . . When I discovered that stretching my powers of vocal expression entailed stretching my awareness of myself in relation to other human beings, my work then became a matter of finding more and more authentic means to aid this stretching process. In my Wiesbaden paper, I described how the demands of my work caused my music studio to grow into a combined Church/Theatre/Clinic/Gymnasium and Sports Club, and we call it now The Abraxas Club (taking the definition of Abraxas to be "the creative synthesis of opposites").
I will try to summarise the activities that go to make the stretched, objective
voice:-
Earning a living; hard exercise in gymnasium and on squash courts; lengthy
rehearsals of Roy Hart Theatre in our studio, exploring touch and struggle
of all kinds, physical and mental; cabaret performances in the Club's restaurant
on Saturday evenings (this is at present suspended as we are in the process
of acquiring larger premises for our theatre work); relating, discussing,
filing and cross-indexing of dreams; linking dreams and unconscious gestures
and general behaviour to the observable daily experiences of each other; study
of relationships in marriage, as friends, as apparent enemies, with especial
observation of male and female aspects in each person; working on expressing
sounds in the eight octave range, both singly and in groups; four-hour-long
sessions (sometimes up to eight hour sessions)
carefully scrutinising "the word", as expressed by each other,
by people we have met outside our hermetic circle, or by writers whose articles or books have been brought to be read as
of general, current and edifying interest.
We seek to be well informed on matters of philosophy, comparative religion,
world politics, basic medicine, physics and the latest findings in any subject
worthy of human research from biology to business management. The aim throughout
is to enlarge our human experience with as much control and objectivity as
possible, and then to present this "fruit" in a theatrical context.
Because there is a strong communal
objective, and that is a noble one, the context in which we live has proved
to be therapeutic. BUT it is not suitable for everyone. This context works
as preventive therapy for people in a high intelligence bracket, who need
to learn how to keep open the bridge between intellect and feeling, people
of energy who need worthy channels for that energy (and there are many such
people languishing in hospitals for lack of such a context). It is also beneficial
for those who are not particularly gifted, nor particularly energetic, but
who have patience, humility, courage and above all a desire to grow. It is
NOT suitable for those whose body chemistry has been so far influenced by
traumatic experiences or stubborn death wish so that the Will for Action has
been warped beyond repair. Yet who, even the most experienced of doctors,
can say for certain when the will has been warped beyond repair? I
have had some happy surprises and some sad disappointments, BUT my system
I think of two girls who were so severely
schizophrenic in their behaviour that a doctor colleague of mine, a psychiatrist,
insisted they were in need of hospitalisation at a certain point, but our
context was strong enough to “hold” them and bypass the need for hospitalisation
and they are both now
creative assets in Roy Hart Theatre productions and in their daily jobs. Three men, long established in practising homosexuality,
have been able to discover the possibilities of sustained and loving heterosexual
relationship, with interesting reflections in voice and other behaviour. A
manic-depressive of very high intelligence, on the brink of his fourth suicide
attempt, where the third had left him with thrombosis, of arm and leg, found
the attack on his system by sounds aided his will to live and assisted the
chemistry of his body to fight fear. He had six months clear of depression
without drugs when living in our context, but his family commitments were
such he was not able to continue doing this.
Our age group ranges from l6 to 49, and for the past two years all have
been working well (forty of us) with no severe neurotic symptoms save for
one highly intelligent graduate, who was hospitalised for two months a year
ago, but has been holding his own very well within our structure ever since.
It must now be clear that the music therapy I practise is highly active. There
is a very valuable form of music therapy which entails passive listening,
but in our context even our listening takes an active form registering where
the sounds come from in the body and with what differing dynamics they are
produced in different individuals; registering the known personality of the
person making the sounds and the context in which he or she is making them
(i.e. mindful of that person's dreams, daily actions over the years, relationships
and so on). The sounds which I make vocally have a background of maximum thought,
maximum sensitivity to others, maximum personal feeling and involvement, and
maximum self-discipline.
It is therefore no accident that these sounds, so lovingly cultivated,
have attracted the interest of a variety of professional musicians and that
the theatrical presentation of the work of myself and my colleagues is attracting
the attention of well-known personalities in the professional theatre.
To take first the world of music, I came across this definition of musical
aesthetics in the Harvard Dictionary of music :- “Musical aesthetics is the study of the relationship
of music to the human senses and intellect", and this was arrived at
after pointing out that music did not have to be beautiful to be artistic
and aesthetic. I have approached music (and theatre, and politics and.....)
from the other way round:- build a good bridge between the senses and the
intellect and, I maintain, a man will
move, think, utter and live musically (theatrically, politically aware and......).
Keeping this definition in mind, I think of the musicians who have been especially moved to ‘utilise' my voice. Hans Werner Henze heard my sounds and immediately wanted to use then for the externalisation of his own need for revolution. He wrote "Versuch Uber Schweine" originally for my voice, but shortly after Deutsche Grammophon recorded my performance of this work, I pointed, out certain psychological facts to him, as a friend, and there has since been a rift in our relationship - to me, quite an expected pattern. Peter Maxwell Davies used my sounds to portray a type of schizophrenic madness - allegedly the madness of George III, who was actually in classified terms of madness, a schizophrenic. The music illustrates schizophrenia. Much of Maxwell Davies' music is concerned with bringing together different strands of musical or historical experience and my voice represented another facet of this process. His own physical being is alive with a jerky, restive energy, somewhat compulsive, and he could hear that my voice told him something about integrating fields of energy. Here again, we have parted company due to our living on such completely different levels of awareness, but any psychologist who wished to study the facts of our parting could only be saddened by, but fully understand, the whole process. Karlheinz Stockhausen was tremendously excited on first hearing my voice. I performed his vocal version of "Spirale" at St. Paul de Vence with such success that there was talk of further co-operation between us for the World Fair in Japan, but it was clear that our two worlds could not knit at that times perhaps never, but we at least parted company realistically and in friendship. We met at a time when, after many years devoted to the machine manipulation of sounds (electronic music), Stockhausen had become inspired by Chinese mysticism and many of his ‘compositions' were texts or themes taken from Chinese writings, such as the I Ching. I believe that that I do in my own body is the point of balance between machine and mysticism.
Many of the most gifted artists have a split between body and mind, and
in fact their art partly thrives on this fact, The three whom I have mentioned
all had an immediate, unconscious, strong response to my voice; they felt
a tremendous 'something' speak to them, but I know that none of them really
grasped the significance of that 'something'. They have not the psychological
experience to do so. How a fourth composer, less well-known but with a more
intuitive respect for the philosophy behind my vocal 'gymnastics', has written
a work for my voice called "Description of an Inner Journey". This
is the work referred to at the beginning of my talk, which was performed in
Vienna last January, The title alone shows an interesting progression, but
one critic flatly refused that the interior world had any right to be displayed
in such a musical context.
. . . . To turn now to the world of theatre
and relate it to the feelings of that Austrian critic: that critic and many
people, more than half the world, do not wish to mix categories or see life
in the round. I live in an Abraxian way: that is, I aim at a creative synthesis
of opposites. The result of my work on my voice is that I have established
a new kind of community living - a body of people who have chosen to call
themselves Roy Hart Theatre. I did not personally aim to establish a theatre.
It grew involuntarily out of my work, and perhaps in time it will come to
be known as Theatre of the Heart. This theatre is at present functioning in
two halves like a loving married couple – the performing half, and the rooted
remainder, who keep the daily routine research going forwards in London. The
performing half is currently touring Spain, a country seething with politically
orientated passions. This tour is sponsored by the Spanish Government in response
to the immediate enthusiasm for our work which the Spanish people have shown.
During the past year there have been constant demands from Spain for teachers
from our Theatre to conduct courses from two weeks to a month in duration.
Successful, internationally known actors and actresses have attended these
workshops and have been demonstratively grateful for what they have learned
from them, although only one of the five teachers, apart from myself, has
had any dramatic training outside the work in our own studio. The surging
revolutionary spirit of the young Spain of today feels the profound meaning
of the revolution we have been working on for twenty-five years in our own
bodies. The politically ambitious or, one might say, the dedicated revolutionary,
of course resents the impact that our work has made, just as Henze resented
my comments, but I know that I am as dedicated a revolutionary as any of them.
Although I am Jewish and I honour this fact, I an not in Israel helping their
admirable though sadly anachronistic fight for survival. Nor would I join Henze in his allegiance to
the student revolution, nor have I joined the Spaniards, despite my compassion
for their cause. I know that my role
is to teach people to be aware of the political explosives within themselves
before they can be of any use to the cause of human progress.
When I leave Japan I go to join my
Theatre in Paris, where we will perform together on Jean-Louis
Barrault's invitation in his ten day Theatre Festival. This Festival is
a way of studying the meaning of Theatre and Jean-Louis Barrault has chosen
six themes for illustration by different theatrical companies, though anyone
can "interrupt" the action by other performers on any of the days
that illustrate themes which they were not chosen to represent. Roy Hart Theatre is
to perform on the theme of "The voice, breath and the birth of language",
the first theme: yet such is the Abraxian nature of our work, I see that our
production admirably illustrates all six themes. I also find it heart warming
that the dramatic speech which I will be performing in French was written
for me by a poet and playwright who is also a doctor in daily practice, so
he really knows something about the embodiment of the word. In the words of
his poem I would like to state what I am doing here with you today :-
"J'ai marche vers toi"
- and thank you for affording me the opportunity to do so.
