SONGS are a primary vehicle for Voice Movement Therapy (VMT) work. They hold and carry us through familiar and unfamiliar ground. They are safe containers for the wells of emotion, both subtle and extreme, that we experience as human beings. In VMT we seek out the songs that are longing to be sung and heard by both the individual and the group body.
Personal songs can emerge from the organic sounds of moaning, humming, sighing, crying, murmuring and hollering, to name a few. Poetic melodies with rhythm patterns may hold the movement of swing or march, or arrhythmic explorations may lead us to wonderful styles of song, be it operatic, rock, rap, folk, lullaby, lament, pop, jazz, sacred chant. As practitioners we listen and watch for these cues of pulse and pitch, following them to allow a song to thread its way from the inside out.
We also use familiar songs that are part of an individual’s emotional landscape, which may evoke the memories held deep in the soma (body) and psyche (human soul, mind or spirit).
Working with such songs can activate cellular memory and take people to places of happier times of comfort and reassurance, or release stuck emotions such as sadness, grief and anger. They can also inspire a younger resourceful self that once danced, with an adventurous or playful cheekiness.
I’ve noticed recently that songs have inspired and disturbed me.
It has been a big month with the loss of some strong voices in our world: Olivia Newton John, Judith Durham (lead singer of The Seekers), Archie Roach (First Nations Australian legend) and now, Queen Elizabeth II.
Like many I have felt my psyche traverse memory lane, singing along with ‘Let’s Get Physical’ (Olivia), ‘I’ll Never Find Another You’ (Judith) and the old English Hymn ‘The Day Thou Gavest’.
I was deeply touched by Judith Durham’s Memorial Service held in Melbourne recently and live-streamed around the world. I was raised on The Seekers. Their songbook is earmarked heavily, with the magic of their songs capturing a sense of service to the common good and the common folk. It wasn’t high falutin’ music, but rather accessible to all.
Judith sang to inspire our dreaming, to call up hope. Millions of people recognised something wholesome in the purity of her voice and innocent sense of ‘family’ in the time of The Seekers. It was a different world then, and I was young and yet to experience the world.
The lyrics here reveal:
‘I’ll Never Find Another You’
There’s a new world somewhere
They call the promised land
And I’ll be there someday
If you could hold my hand
I still need you there beside me
No matter what I do
For I know I’ll never find another you
It’s a long, long journey
So stay by my side
When I walk through the storm
You’ll be my guide, be my guide
If they gave me a fortune
My pleasure would be small
I could lose it all tomorrow
And never mind at all
But if I should lose your love, dear
I don’t know what I’d do
For I know I’ll never find another you
Songwriter: Tom Springfield
Archie Roach on the other hand was a son of an Indigenous stolen-generation mother and he was mourned deeply in our country this past month. He was a songwriter who survived living on the streets to become one of our greatest Aboriginal singer /songwriters, one who knew racism, violence and addiction, and who sang as though the earth was singing through him and all life depended on it. He knew inside-out the power of the human voice to express truth. All his songs were about his lived experience and the injustice of what Indigenous Australians live with every day.
‘One Song’ was one of the last truth-speaking songs he gave us.
One Song
We can see from Dreaming place
A planet that is empty
So we sing through time and space
That she may have plenty
We sing out across the land
And across the water
We sing woman, we sing man
We sing son and daughter
Remember well what we have told you
And don’t forget where you come from
Mother Earth will always hold you
And you are born of just one song
Now we are blessed that we’ve been given
This beautiful land where we belong
Dreaming story we are living
Dreaming dance and dreaming song.
Songwriter: Archibald William Roach
And now, Queen Elizabeth II has passed, and today 22 Sep 2022, Australia has been given a public holiday to mourn her.
I feel conflicted and disturbed in my spirit.
Yes, I was raised with privileges as a child of
- the Commonwealth
- an Army Lieutenant serving the Crown
- a mother who loved the Queen and all she stood for, especially the rise of a matriarch after WWII and the Monarch’s Kingdom with the promise of protection and dreams of glamour.
Yet today, with due respect for the service and endurance of Queen Elizabeth’s 70 year reign, I also feel:
No, it’s not OK
- for what she represents: an Empire that brutally colonised and thieved lands, resources, culture, and identity of First Nations peoples
- for me to not be a part of VOICING reparation that is needed for ‘Sorry Business’ to come to an end for Aboriginal Australia
- for me to sing only white Hymns
- for me to ignore the distressing poverty of and racism towards black Australia
Holding and expressing these polarities is not pleasant, but essential to name.
So what do I sing now? What do WE as a collective sing now?
Singing the painful truth is the only way forward for me, as I join with others in the aching reckoning that must happen in our country for us to move forward as a nation to give our Indigenous peoples what is rightfully theirs- a Voice to Parliament, support for the Uluru Statement from the Heart and much more.
New songs must be written and sung! Songs that can hold our grief and carry us through this rocky landscape towards a more peaceful, just and honourable way. Songs that speak and uncover the facts, and hearts and ears to bear witness!!
The Ladhakhi Villagers (of India) say it like this:
‘We have to live together, or we will not live at all.’
Trish Watts VMTR, Australia
22 Sep 2022
I acknowledge Gadigal land on which I live and pay my respects to the Eora Nations elders, past, present and emerging leaders.
Always was, is and will be Aboriginal land.