Resonance
Nalina Wait, Dance
This particular use of ‘resonance’ draws on Massumi’s proposition that consciousness is subtractive, in that conscious engagement in the world requires less awareness of the forces of affect on the body. (1) Massumi explains “will and consciousness can be subtractive. They are imitative, derived functions that reduce the complexity too rich to be functionally expressed.” He describes the ways that affect circulates and resonates the body-mind,
“Brain and skin form a resonating vessel. Stimulation turns inward, is folded into the body, except that there is no inside for it to be in, because the body is radically open, absorbing impulses quicker than they can be perceived, and because the entire vibratory event is unconscious, out of mind.” (2)
The question for me is, is it always entirely beyond conscious perception, or only when experiencing consciousness from the pre-frontal cortex? The practice of attuning to resonance involves disengaging form the cortical consciousness of language producing thoughts to amplify my capacity to perceive the affective resonating vessel of the body (mine and others), moving toward my “slivers” of psycho-physical archives so that I can experience the intent that exists within these forces. This is a subcortical sensory-motor state, that requires certain parameters. Breath stokes the embers of sensation as does the removal of any resistance of gravity. Movement can either amplify or diminish the perception of resonance, depending on the affinity of the movement with the forces. It is not only awareness must be sub-cortical and sensory, but I must also have relational allegiance towards the sensation, listening and not resisting, a unification of the corporal and the incorporeal. The forces operate me as an automaton whether I’m conscious of it or not. Becoming aware of resonance is to find a relational capacity to remove any resistance to the forces, so they might be resolved through the witnessing of their expression.
1. Taken from Wait, N. (2023). Improvised dance: Incorporeal knowledges. Routledge. P. 99
2. Massumi, B. (2002). Parables for the virtual: Movement, affect, sensation. Duke University Press. P. 29.
Tom Hogan, Music and Performance
in response to Nalina Wait
Your voice is essentially made up of three main parts; the breath for volume, the vocal cords for phonation and pitch, and the resonating cavities of your throat, mouth and nasal passages to create tone, to push it out and emanate outside of your body. You could say a third of your voice is resonance alone… But it’s actually much, much more than that.
Your voice resonates through your bones which makes up most of what you hear as your own voice. Your voice resonates in the space you’re in, bouncing to all the walls, reinforcing overtones. Your voice resonates materials in the room that vibrate in sympathy. Up against the wall you can find more overtones reinforced, you can shape the equalisation. You can corner load these frequencies, and change the external sound of your voice. You can then reinforce those pitches in your own body. You can then play the room. By extension, you can sing the world.
If you’ve ever had the pleasure to visit an anechoic chamber - a completely dead space with no resonance - you can become aware of just how much of your voice is dependent on resonance within yourself. In the quiet of the chamber, your breath is just a trigger, it doesn’t need to be powerful. Your ears are begging to hear something familiar externally, but there’s nothing there, so everything internal is amplified. Your head and shoulders vibrate. Your abdomen vibrates. As above, your brain and skin are a resonating vessel. And if you close your mouth, your voice stays with you, but now you are humming, and the hum resonates within you.
Your voice will fill a space, but if no reflection is there, and noone to hear, you will simply be humming to yourself. Perhaps instead you could find the time to listen to what note others are humming? The quieter the better. Remove resistance. Become aware of their resonance. Let their voice resonate within you, and consider how it feels in your body to hum along with them. And if you hum with them, someone else could join you.
This may not just be about sound. This feels political, and the spreading of ideas, and a revolution, of an idea resonating in the bodies of your community and your city and your country and your world. You could say a third of your voice is resonance alone. But it’s actually much, much more than that.