This sonic medi­ta­tion allows par­ti­ci­pants to impro­vise vocal­ly while explo­ring an out­door space with others. It is an oppor­tu­ni­ty to walk while sin­ging, obser­ving the constant­ly chan­ging sounds of other sin­gers and phones. It is also an oppor­tu­ni­ty to lis­ten to the effects of phy­si­cal space on cer­tain sounds as well as the evol­ving res­ponses of other sin­gers. It invites focal lis­te­ning (to one’s own cell­phone) as well as glo­bal lis­te­ning (to the other voices, other cell­phones and sur­roun­ding sounds.

The cell­phone, using a free app (echoes.xyz) plays a series of GPS trig­ge­red sounds as par­ti­ci­pants walk through each zone. Ins­truc­tions are given (soni­cal­ly) at the begin­ning of the walk, invi­ting sin­gers to either sing in uni­son or on any other note any­time in res­ponse to the sonic prompts they receive from their phone. The prompts are easi­ly pro­gram­mable on the Echoes app.

In one case, the words “here” and “now” were sung on exten­ded tones and played in dif­ferent zones around a park area. Gra­dual­ly par­ti­ci­pants began to explore inter­ac­ting with each other. See video below.

It is social sin­ging while being out­doors, ideal­ly in a public space giving eve­ryone equal foo­ting on the area. (GPS is not as effec­tive indoors).

ACTIVITY BREAKDOWN
Where : Any out­door area with any par­ti­cu­lar inter­est, geo­gra­phi­cal­ly, social­ly, logistically
Dura­tion : 20 minutes would be a minimum
Participants/Target Audience : Anyone who loves group sin­ging and listening.
Group Size : Any size is pos­sible. The grea­ter the num­ber, the more vocal and cell­phone prompts, enri­ching the sonic possibilities.

INSTRUCTIONS
Find a site that you would like to explore vocal­ly with others, one that you enjoy being in. Use the app https://echoes.xyz/ to create your own walk by crea­ting “zones” of any size filled with any sound you like, on a loop or just once. Invite par­ti­ci­pants to down­load the free app which plays your walk when ente­ring the desi­gna­ted zones. One can stay in any zone for any length of time.

Par­ti­ci­pants sing along in uni­son or any other note any­time in each zone. Other sonic medi­ta­tions can be crea­ted from dif­ferent kinds of sonic prompts to eli­cit dif­ferent kinds of vocal responses.

« The chal­lenge of com­po­sing loops, their tona­li­ties and rhythms, was ins­pi­ring for me. To hear stac­ca­to orches­tral hits, on my device and then mil­li­se­conds later on another’s tick­led me. To hear har­mo­nies and dis­so­nances dance at their own whim also was endea­ring.  » Josh Four­ney, participant.