Application of Laban Principles to Vocal Dynamics
The Laban system is primarily concerned with movement, for expression and analysys it proivides a mechanism for accessing the emotional and muscular tensions in body movement and gestures. I believe that it also offers an opportunity to develop a vocabulary for communicating similar aspects of vocal dynamics. This may be particularly useful in teaching vocal skills for singing, but might present opportunituies in other fields too, (speech therapy springs readily to mind). The concepts can be communicated visually by gestures of the conductor or leader as well as by verbal discription, and the sutdents can readily see that altering the actions and movements does change the vocal dynamic of the group.
Laban Efforts
The Laban system describes movement in terms of “Efforts”.
Light - Heavy
Straight - Curved
Fast - Slow
Which give rise to eight simple movement styles.
WRINGING
Heavy
Slow
Curved
PRESSING
Heavy
Slow
Straight
SLASHING
Heavy
Fast
Curved
THRUSTING
Heavy
Fast
Straight
FLOATING
Light
Slow
Curved
GLIDING
Light
Slow
Straight
FLICKING
Light
Fast
Curved
DABBING
Light
Fast
Straight
All movements can be expressed on a sliding scale that runs from “Introvert” (Small and Self Concious) to “Extrovert” (Large and Exuberant).
On the next page I have detailed a little about how this concept might be applied.
I start with some “Warm Up Exercises”, these use phonemes from the song, but they are deliberately cut back to bare basics. This is intended to activate the brain connections in a kinesthenic way without activating too much of the linguistic areas. The student will make fresh new connections that are not entirely language based but have at least some element of muscular patterns and breathing etc. I have grouped the excersizes into pairs that can be sung in scales and arpegios up and down but this is purely arbitrary and could be introduced in other ways if another leader felt it was apropriate. It may be wise to at least make an attempt at getting the musical intervals right and expressing them in a manner that is close to the rhythm as they appear in the song, this could be particularly helpful for a song containing tricky intervals or rhythm patterns.
Warm Up and Linguistic Excersizes
Sho - Lo
Pressing
Weynn - n'uu
Pressing / Gliding
Aba - Aba
Dabbing
Si Pumm - Ehh
Flicking / Dabbing
Koo - Lahey - Zon
Wringing
A - Bal - Ehh
Thrusting / Gliding
Sooth - Ahha
Floating
Sho - Sho
Gliding
Lo - Zaah
Thrusting
Stim - e La
Flicking
Zon - Taah
Slashing
Free - Kaah
Gliding
Shosholoza
South African work song about a train. The translation to English is not strictly literal but fits better with the rhythm of the original song. Sometimes the words “South Africa” are replaced with some other region of repression and prejudice. Also worthy of note is the fact that “Stimela” is the South African equivelant of what used to be “InterCity” trains here in the UK. Some Times Sung in “Call and Response” style the words in Bracer Brackets are the Call.
{Shosholoza}
Sho - sho - loza - a
Ku - le - zont - a - aba
Stim - ela Si - phum - e South Af - ri - ca
{Wen' uyabaleka}
Wen - n'uya - bal - eka
Ku - le - zont - a - aba
Stim - ela Si - phum - e South Af - ri - ca
{Moving forward}
Mov - ing For - ward
I - in The Mou - n - tains
Steam Train From South Africa
{Running away}
Run - ning Awa - ay
I - in The Mou - n - tains