You use your voice each day. At a Faculty Artist Series concert on March 1, Triton College Music Instructor Nathalie Colas Grant will demonstrate how it can be used in groundbreaking ways. 

The concert takes place between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. in the R-Building Performing Arts Center, Room R-218. “It’s a chance for not only the students but the community to see what the applied music teachers do in their professional life outside of teaching,” Colas said. At many of Colas’ previous concerts, she worked with an accompanist, but this concert features entirely solo pieces. Each of the songs, composed within the last 50 years, is considered “Western classical new music,” Colas said. Each “uses the voice in non-traditional ways.” 

The differences are visual and vocal, as “the scores usually look very different,” Colas said. The voice may be animalistic, percussive or emotional.“We can use the voice to create a completely different sound world than we’re used to,” Colas said. This is called “extended technique” as compared to “classical standard technique” because it’s “an extension of what you can do with your voice.” 

With any voice, “the instrument is our flesh and bone, so two people will never sound the same,” Colas said. The extended technique accentuates that uniqueness. “It’s interesting, and it can be fun,” Colas said. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.” The concert includes commentary, and you can see and hear an example of this music online here. 

Any visceral response – hate, love, interest – is OK, Colas said. “That’s what culture and art is about – to let yourself be surprised and be open to any reaction you might have.” Before your own “performances” this semester, Colas said taking deep breaths and relaxing the muscles can calm nerves. “The point is to share something, not to impress everyone,” she said.

West African djembe drumming fuses with modern American folk, in a Global Music Series concert on March 8 that explores facets of who we were, are, and might be – and what unites us. 

Singer-songwriter and vocalist Robinlee Gerber, and Percussionist Michael Taylor, perform between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. in the R-Building Performing Arts Center, Room R-218. 

Four concerts in the 2022-2023 academic year’s Global Music Series, including this one, feature artists from Chicago's Old Town School of Folk Music. 

Taylor, who is biracial, said most of the people he meets have never heard of a djembe, but recognize it when they see it. He believes “everyone is instinctively a drummer.” “We were all born steeped in and floating in an aqueous environment with this percussive heartbeat,” he said. “It was our whole world.” 

By the end of the concert, Taylor said you’ll know more about the djembe: “how the music the djembe inherited was created, what time in history, what place in history, and what function it serves in the village community.” Some of his students have told Taylor they seek out drumming for its physical, mental and spiritual benefits, or even “said outright that this is helping them rewire their brains,” sometimes after an injury or illness. 

Moving both sides of the body, combined with the brain needing to process multiple sounds simultaneously is “like superfood for the brain,” Taylor said. Garber said she’s seen similar benefits in her work as a creative arts therapist. “Anything that’s rhythmic or that involves your entire body is going to help your mental health,” Garber said. “It’s going to be a self-soothing process.” 

With Garber on vocals and sometimes guitar, performing all original, lyric-driven music, Taylor accompanies on percussion. “The beauty of not playing solo is finding somebody who plays extremely well,” she said of Taylor. “Even as a little kid, I heard music and felt rhythm everywhere I went,” Garber said. As an adult, “I like to dance. I like to move. I like songs that, for the most part, have an uplifting beat to them,” she said. “And, I’ve always been attracted to African rhythms.” Folk music, which is found in many cultures, https://www. britannica.com/art/folk-music, incorporates themes from everyday life, is learned through hearing, and is sometimes connected to events in social movements or politics. 

One of Garber’s songs, “Be the Change,” is a reference to a quote sometimes attributed to Mahatma Gandhi. Other songs were written in response to polarization or violence. However, the focus is on personal and collective resilience, even optimism. “I wanted to start writing anthems of positivity – the kinds of songs that could be applicable to anybody,” Garber said.“Gonna Fly” is about a relationship’s end, “when someone is no longer there for you and you don’t just walk away, you can find that inner strength and fly,” she said. 

These are songs you can learn, sing to, and take with you after the concert. “My day to day is always about music or art or connecting with other people,” Garber said. “The songs we’ll be doing are a reflection of all that and have a great beat you can dance to.” If drumming, as Taylor says, connects to a time when our world is a womb, Garber’s songs point to the times after our world widens. “They are really about finding the strength within yourself to be who you need to be in the world,” she said.