Episode 1 - The Musical Force & Flow, feat. Paul Smith from Voces8 Foundation

"What is a Musical Force? Not what, but who. Who is a musical force? Who moves music making forward? The obvious answer is the conductor. The conductor has some music, she knows how it should go and so she rehearses a group to realise her vision of how the music goes. 

That is an excellent way of being a Musical Force. And it is especially effective when there is a coherent group of skilled individuals who all understand their roles and jobs within the group and use the conductor as the focal point for creating something together. 

This is not what I do. Yet I am still a Musical Force. Most of my best work has been with groups who are less defined in their sense of their jobs and roles. As a community musician my job description is to work with whoever I have in front of me and to be the Musical Force for them."

Neil discusses what it means to be a Musical Force as a Community Musician, the ups and downs and how he has come to the conclusion that being a positive musical force is one of the most important aspects of being a community musicians. Neil mixes this with experiences of group Flow whilst playing at the Music for Youth Proms and the great light bulb moment he experienced with Southbank Sinfonia.

He then sits down with Voces8 Foundation CEO (and old friend) Paul Smith to talk about how he has helped shape Voces8 into a musical force all over the world, one that doesnt just perform to the highest of standards, but brings people along with them placing participants front and centre.

https://voces8.foundation/paulsmith
https://www.psv8.co.uk/
Voces8 Method to buy from Amazon: shrtco.de/iExMXy
Instagram @hatchmyideas
Neil and Pauls Reflections Album: https://open.spotify.com/album/1QTt4mZxOxpbwnSOpXds4Q
Music for Youth: https://mfy.org.uk/
Southbank Sinfonia: https://www.southbanksinfonia.co.uk/

Music Listing: 

Theme Music from The Leaves of the Trees. Composition by Neil Valentine, recorded live in Winchester Cathedral. 
Performers: 
Neil Valentine – Viola, electronics, composer 
With: Sophie Raven – Flute, Claire Yates – Viola, Jeremy Leverton – Electronics 

Finlandia – Jean Sibelius – Royalty Free Recording 

Classical Symphony – Sergei Prokofiev – Southbank Sinfonia 

The Pity of War – featuring Southbank Sinfonia 
Project with Archbishop Sumner School YR5 and Southbank Sinfonia. Recorded live in the Old Vic Tunnels – Waterloo. 
Music co-composed with Neil Valentine, Southbank Sinfonia and children from Archbishop Sumner School. 

O Gwen – from Reflections Voces8 Records. Composed by Neil Valentine. Performed by Neil Valentine, Paul Smith, Clare Stewart and Voces8. 

Transcript

Episode 1: The Musical Force – Flow 

What is a Musical Force? Not what, but who. Who is a musical force? Who moves music making forward? The obvious answer is the conductor. The conductor has some music, she knows how it should go and so she rehearses a group to realise her vision of how the music goes. 

That is an excellent way of being a Musical Force. And it is especially effective when there is a coherent group of skilled individuals who all understand their roles and jobs within the group and use the conductor as the focal point for creating something together. 

This is not what I do. Yet I am still a Musical Force. Most of my best work has been with groups who are less defined in their sense of their jobs and roles. As a community musician my job description is to work with whoever I have in front of me and to be the Musical Force for them. 

Whether that is a professional orchestra or a group of Primary School Children. Whether it is patients in an elderly care ward or with University Students. In many cases it’s a mixture of many communities at once. 

I move music making forward and bring the group with me. I see through my experience, skill and intuition where a piece of music can go, what it could be and how it can manifest. I meld my point of view with that of the group. I notice the way they engage, their levels of engagement, how they engage, their body language, facial expressions, friendship groups and many other things subconsciously into account to see this point of view. I can do this because of the experience I have, the skills I have developed and the elements of myself I have learnt to trust, such as my instincts. 

The Musical Force guides the music making down these paths. There are many ways off the path, there are tangents, T-Junctions, bridges to cross. But the Musical Force helps navigate these all with patience, skill, empathy and good humour. Through these elements I bring a group with me. 

I do not say “this is how it is going to be” and force the group down a path because I like an idea. Well, that is not true, I sometimes do. But when I do it’s for a good reason such as a time pressure looming over the horizon (such as the end of the session or a performance) or because of the personalities and needs of members of the group need to see the session move for their own sense of stability. 

What I do say is yes. I say yes to people’s ideas through my body language, the use of my face and eyes, the openness of my shoulders and the reflecting back of their musical ideas and offerings to the group. I say yes to their suggestions through translating them in a more coherent fashion, and I do this quickly. I interpret ideas, suggestions and developments in such a way that works for the group as a whole. 

On top of this I move things forward. I create momentum in the session. We are moving on, we are learning, developing, creating, enhancing, supporting, playing, nurturing, expanding together in the same direction. My role in this motion is the spark of the engine and the tiller at the back. The group have control of the accelerator, but I am there working with them, encouraging them to use it in such a way that the group moves forward together. Reflective Portfolio – Neil Valentine – Podcasts 

FADE 

Reflecting on this is timely. It is allowing me to see where I am now and appreciate how I got here. And I hope it will help me see a little clearer where I could go. 

I have always had a clear sense of where I fit musically in the hierarchy of a group. I have valued my contribution to a group very highly right from my earliest memories. I played performances in Primary School assemblies in front of the whole school. I wondered why the boy sat in front of me in orchestra was in front of me and not behind. When I was 15, I was placed towards the back of the viola section in Southampton Youth Orchestra when I was convinced I should have been at the front. That was a difficult day. It was clear to me that my worth had not been taken into consideration as deeply as I felt it should have been. Looking back, I wanted to in the middle of it all, not just because of the recognition that gave me, but for musical energy that I was part of. In the Orchestra I was part of a network of others who had a similar energy, and somehow I knew I would be best placed in the middle. 

Finlandia Melody 

My first heightened experience of this was at the Music for Youth Schools Proms at the Royal Albert Hall. Sat on stage, playing with all my friends, right in the centre of the orchestra which was right in the centre of this enormous hall. Family watching from the side. I was absolutely in the middle, the centre of it all somehow, physically, musically and in ways that are harder to define. I was somehow part of the heartbeat of this incredible thing we were creating together, part of the spark, part of the engine and the energy. It was glorious. It was the first time I experienced what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described as flow “a state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter; the experience is so enjoyable that people will continue to do it even at great cost, for the sheer sake of doing it” (1990). 

This was a formative experience for me. It showed me what could be when everything fits together. It was glorious. 

If I fast forward back to now. It was this experience which I search to recreate with the groups I work with. I endeavour to find ways to create a strong sense of group, bringing the music which they love (in my experience that means that they have ownership of it), in a space they feel belong for a reason that they are all behind. You could argue that I core aspect of my work is facilitating group-flow. 

FADE 

In 2007 I was part of Southbank Sinfonia. I was not the best player by any stretch, and it has taken me a lot of years to accept that properly as I look back. But they saw something in me, and I was thrilled to be part of the group. I got a lot out of being in this orchestra with new friends & colleagues. I had a lot of new experiences which I am incredibly grateful for. The most impactful was the enormous lightbulb moment that came when working on my first large scale education project under the direction of Lincoln Abbots. 

Prokofiev Classical Symph 

Classical music performance is hard. So very hard. There is very clear line between what is right and what is wrong. If each note is not in tune and in the right place then it can be considered wrong. That’s where the skill, hard work and practice come in. You work hard so that whatever combination of styles, rhythms and notes come your way, you can deliver them accurately. Then there is Reflective Portfolio – Neil Valentine – Podcasts 

musicality, style, nuance, ensemble skills, performance practice, performance pressure, audience expectation not to mention the fact that this might be your job to bring into the mix. It’s hard and stressful, and I felt these things keenly. 

FADE 

I find high level classical music performance anxiety producing and difficult even though I have done it all my life and loved being part of it. I had played in orchestras since I was 8 years old, and here I was, aged 25 stood in front of a class of 9- and 10-year-olds, looking at me, wanting my help on how to make a piece of music inspired by an exhibit in the Imperial War Museum: The Jolly Boat (a small wooden, clinker-built boat from the SS Anglo Saxon which was sunk in WW2. Seven men managed to escape in the jolly boat which drifted 2,700 miles across the Atlantic finally grounding with only two survivors, Able Seaman Robert Tapscott and Roy Widdicombe, on an island in the Bahamas after 70 days. Quite the story). Back to me. I am asking a group of 9/10 year olds what the music for the Jolly Boat might sound like. I was asking them for their help. I had seen the way Lincoln had captured our energy without a score or a baton. He had used other skills to bind a group together, skills you normally didn’t see explicitly in a Chamber Orchestra. And seeing this energy I volunteered to lead this group. The only problem was I didn’t really know how, and I needed them to help me. (https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/30004040). 

War Requiem in the Tunnels- The Pity of War - FADE 

Through that week I learnt that you can be multiple things at once. Even more vital was experiencing that they do not compromise each other, in fact they reinforce each other and build each other up. I was able to me a member of a professional orchestra, a teacher, a performer, a composer, a facilitator, a musical force, positive energy and myself all at the same time. This did not lessen my own standing in the eyes of myself or others. Colleagues of mine could perform the hardest music to an incredible standard at the drop of a hat but were terrified of talking to a group of children. And there I was thriving, engaged, excited, finding my feet. 

I became the musical force. The group and I learnt how to make decisions together, engage with the topic and produce a piece of music that was as good as it could be, given that this was my first go at it. I seemed to instinctively know how to begin this process, how to engage them, how to be the musical force. And while my toolbox wasn’t very full I knew how to use what I did have in a way that was engaging and fun. 

O Gwen 

Thinking about this now, about the experiences I have had in which everything seemed to just fit, about performing at the Royal Albert Hall, many concerts, performing at the album launch of Reflections I am brought back to flow. 

In 1990 Milhay Csikszentmihalyi described eight characteristics of flow as. 

• • Complete concentration on the task 
• • Clarity of goals and reward in mind and immediate feedback 
• • Transformation of time (speeding up/slowing down) 
• • The experience is intrinsically rewarding (autotelic experience) 
• • Effortlessness and ease 
• • There is a balance between challenge and skills 
• • Actions and awareness are merged, losing self-conscious rumination 

Reflective Portfolio – Neil Valentine – Podcasts 

• • There is a feeling of control over the task 

In 2015 Hart and Di Blasi (2015) measured the characteristics, outcomes, and practical applications unique to group flow during musical jam sessions. 6 of these key characteristics mentioned before applied to group flow: 

• • concentration on the task at hand 
• • transformation of time 
• • autotelic experience 
• • challenge-skill balance 
• • action-awareness merging 
• • sense of control 

If you are a music leader you might think what I thought when I read that: Sounds like a brilliant music session. 

From my experience, during a group music making session concentration on the task at hand is essential. You need your members to be being fully engaged, and when that happens there will be ‘transformation of time’. Many group members look at the clock and say something like ‘wow, look at the time!’. 

A group music session is very much about the autotelic experience. If the music making wasn’t fun to do, if the members were not enjoying and getting something out the session then music would not be a group activity. Music making happens in groups all over the world, and a large part of that is making music for music’s sake, for the autotelic experience. When a group is enjoying this they experience themselves sounding like only this group can sound, whatever the level of ‘performance’ is attained from an outside standpoint. 

One of the great tasks of a music facilitator is to get the right challenge-skill balance for each participant and for the group. Pitching it at the right level is essential and finding ways for each person to find their own challenge-skill balance is one of the marks of a good music leader. It is also a test of one’s own challenge-skill balance and thus supports you entering towards a flow state as well as the group. You could argue that the leader is part of the group, and therefore would need to experience all these same instances at the same times as the group. The group’s activities support the leader and the leaders support the groups. 

When a group feels like they are a group, shares empathy and understanding, knows how they sound, trusts one another, is moving forward together they will experience a sense of control over the music making they are engaged with. It belongs to them, they take ownership of it, they have control over it and themselves. When the music becomes theirs a member’s actions & awareness merge. They are not separate from the music or their instrument. They are the music; they are the group. This may only be for brief moments and the sensation would most likely cease when the music making is over, but it may well have been there. I suggest that most musicians have felt this. 

I guess I am suggesting that an aspect of a true Musical Force is one who is creating a space where a group can experience flow together. It certainly appears that way to me. Musical Force will bring a group to concentrate completely on the task at hand and thus they will lose track of time. In this space the journey is as important as the outcome, fun is being had along the way, the sessions are full of joy and wonder and which the performance will be brilliant, that wasn’t the only piece of magic. Each member has had parts that were within their skills, and they were brilliant because the skill/challenge balance was right. They were in control of themselves and their contribution. The group had a strong sense of control with each member knowing what they need to do to contribute meaningfully. During this they have been stretched in some way, they have grown and developed. Reflective Portfolio – Neil Valentine – Podcasts 

(FADE) They feel pride for their achievements and for taking the risks they needed to take to be challenged. Alongside this the sense of group has increased, friendships have grown, empathy has increased. The group feels like it is there’s and when they make music together that is all there is. There is no ‘me’ and ‘the music’, no ‘us’ and ‘the music’, it’s all one thing, working and moving together. 

This could be describing an orchestra or choir. It could be your school band or your rock band. It could be you rapping on stage, at one with the audience or with your friends. For me, its leading a group made up of all kinds of people, bringing them together, helping them find their sense of group. Finding the flow together. 

Theme Music from Leaves of the Trees 

I have felt this on a number of occasions, the first one being in the Royal Albert Hall as a 14-year-old playing with my friends. In Southbank Sinfonia when thoroughly engaged playing with my colleagues on music that was challenging, inspiring and engaging and playing Mozart 41st Symphony ‘Jupiter’ with St Paul’s Sinfonia in London after not enough rehearsal time and Andy Morley, our esteemed Maestro, ploughing on non-the less at above full speed. 

I have felt it in groups I have been leading. In Coventry Cathedral, reimagining the Britten War Requiem with teenagers and performing our efforts overlooking the ruins of the ruined old Cathedral which was destroyed in WW2. I have felt it leading Southampton Family Orchestra when the brass team (of various ages and abilities) come back having composed their own Sci-Fi fanfare inspired by John Williams. I felt it performing with Paul Smith, Clare Stewart and Voces8 at our launch concert of Reflections, losing myself in a rendition of an important composition of mine ‘O Gwen’. 

I have also seen it many times in others. I saw it when an elderly patient who had been silent for two weeks broke out into a rendition of O Sole Mio to a flabbergasted ward. I have seen it in toddlers who are transfixed by the sound coming out of a cello (and their parents who are equally amazed observing their child’s reaction). I see it in the groups I conduct when everyone breathes together, and a note is made as if the group is as one. I felt it again at the Royal Albert Hall, but this time as the Musical Force by leading 1000 young people through in the finale of the Schools Proms. 

This engagement is everywhere, this is where music and people meet. The mind stops chattering, the focus is unquestioned, aims are unified, and the music just happens. 

FADE 

Followed by conversation with Paul Smith co-founder of VOCES8, author of The VOCES8 Method and CEO of the VOCES8 Foundation 

Music Listing: 

Theme Music from The Leaves of the Trees. Composition by Neil Valentine, recorded live in Winchester Cathedral. 

Performers: 

Neil Valentine – Viola, electronics, composer 

With: Sophie Raven – Flute, Claire Yates – Viola, Jeremy Leverton – Electronics Reflective Portfolio – Neil Valentine – Podcasts 

Finlandia – Jean Sibelius – Royalty Free Recording 

Classical Symphony – Sergei Prokofiev – Southbank Sinfonia 

The Pity of War – featuring Southbank Sinfonia 

Project with Archbishop Sumner School YR5 and Southbank Sinfonia. Recorded live in the Old Vic Tunnels – Waterloo. 

Music co-composed with Neil Valentine, Southbank Sinfonia and children from Archbishop Sumner School. 

O Gwen – from Reflections Voces8 Records. Composed by Neil Valentine. Performed by Neil Valentine, Paul Smith, Clare Stewart and Voces8.