Today’s blog is a report on my bizarre experience of being invited to the Polyphonic Singing Festival in Albania in 2008. I was the furthest away of all foreigners (British Columbia, Canada). The others were a small older group from Greece and Tenores di Bitti from Sardinia.
All the other singers were Albanian choirs, representing several variations of the national singing form- UNESCO proclaimed “masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity”, otherwise known as Shqiptar-Iso-polyphony. You can learn more from this video.
What was fairly strange for these folks was the presence of a solo singer. How could a single person be singing polyphonically? As soon as they heard my overtone singing, there were audible bursts of ‘Aha!’ Now they understood that I was splitting my voice into 2 separate controlled pitches, moving in counterpoint.
Strangeness…well it abounded, firstly due to the location of this festival. It took place on a high hilltop, in a 3rd century BC amphitheater setting (the ancient ruins of Bylis). Most of the seating had eroded away.
Another odd element of my participation was due to there being no electricity. They would have been perfectly fine with all the rest of the singers, but my act required electricity/ amplification for my computer, keyboard and mic. They had to go and find the necessary equipment, a sound engineer and a generator (very noisy) to haul up there. I don’t think that they generally have a lot of experience with audio gear. Many of the Albanian choirs, deciding to take advantage of this new-found technology, had certain members almost screeching into the mics, creating a lot of distortion in the inadequate outdoor speaker system.
I was supposed to perform on the first evening. I’d asked for an 88 key electric keyboard that had a reasonable piano sound, as the 49 key one I brought with me was just for the looping and various effects. They found something, though it was less than 88 keys, with very complex looking controls. I had no time to figure out how to get a piano sound out of it.
So there I was, waiting to set up and get some kind of sound check with an engineer who spoke no English. It was worrisome that time was getting on, and the crowd was already large. The master of ceremonies proceeded to announce my name to start my performance when none of the set up had even begun. Panic setting in, I explained from the wings that it was impossible to go on.
The next day, I was able to communicate just enough with the engineer to make the sound work, in time for the afternoon concert. This was reasonably successful, and ensured that later that evening, things would go smoothly for the finale.
The most rewarding part of this whole journey was getting to hang with (and jam with) the Tenores di Bitti from Sardinia. They are a quartet of men performing a one thousand year old tradition of vocals which include rich overtones sung together rhythmically in immaculate precision. You can learn more about it at their official site.
You can watch a video mash-up of me performing in the Albania festival here.
