sung rain-drop style:
one word per person at a time!

Community Voice Gathering - Sept 15 2014
@ The Village at Gureje - Prospect Heights, BK

Amazing Grace - raindrop style

Voice Journey Program
@ GEMS, NYC
Nov 17 2015

song composed by members of Girls Empowerment & Mentoring Services

Peace in Mind

Stephanie Rooker (male & female shruti boxes + voice)

vocal meditation - the sonic dance with a shruti box offers (to me) the height of flight for the voice. the intervallic drone of the shruti allows us to soar into vast possibilities of range & pattern, while it secures a harmonic container that welcomes the voice to land safely home.

from "Make the Way by Walking: Voice Journeys with Stephanie Rooker"

© 2015 Voice Journey Sound Center
Cross the Cove Publishing (ASCAP)

Make the Way by Walking

Shruti Soaring

Seasoned Journeyers Ensemble 
featuring Ashlynn Manning, Ben Tyree, Jessica Caplan, ArinMaya

root & fly - a perfect demonstration of the power of simplicity, this 3-note medicine melody lays a strong, deep root to support effortless launch, courageous free-fall into flight, and a safe/sound landing.

from "Make the Way by Walking: Voice Journeys with Stephanie Rooker"

© 2015 Voice Journey Sound Center
Cross the Cove Publishing (ASCAP)

Make the Way by Walkgin

Mikel's Medicine

Voice Journey class - 2/2/16 
Balance Arts Center, NYC

excerpt from an Afro-Brazilian devotional song for Iemanja - orixa / goddess of the ocean, mother of all living beings

led by Mariana Figueiredo
composed by Adriana Figueiredo

Odoia Sereia (Adriana Figueiredo)

Stephanie Rooker & ArinMaya
written by Stephanie Rooker





Sing Me (demo)

Ben Tyree (guitar) & Stephanie Rooker

couples therapy - speaking through spontaneous music, we make our way through seemingly unintentional sounds that emerge from our musical intelligence and paint sonic pictures of expressions lying deep below the surface.

from "Make the Way by Walking:  Voice Journeys with Stephanie Rooker"

© 2015 Voice Journey Sound Center
Cross the Cove Publishing (ASCAP)

One for the Journey

Stephanie Rooker (frame drum + voice) & Thomas Workman (fujara)

rhythmic drone - like a shruti, a rhythmic pattern can also serve as a drone. here, the frame drum holds a steady pulse, a heartbeat that drives the momentum of rhythmic variations, as the fujara and voice
together weave a fruitful spectrum of melodic figures.

from "Make the Way by Walking:  Voice Journeys with Stephanie Rooker"

© 2015 Voice Journey Sound Center
Cross the Cove Publishing (ASCAP)

Fujara

ArinMaya, Matt Silverstein (Himalayan singing bowl + voice),
& Stephanie Rooker (Himalayan singing bowl + voice)

harmonic two-tone sliding, vowels - sliding from one spontaneous tone to another on a shared vowel, we strengthen our vocal proprioception – the sense of sonic/spatial orientation and movement of the voice. blending one vowel into another offers an exploration of resonance and different expressive dimensions
of vowels.

from "Make the Way by Walking:  Voice Journeys with Stephanie Rooker"

© 2015 Voice Journey Sound Center
Cross the Cove Publishing (ASCAP)

Singing Vowels

Seasoned Journeyers Ensemble

harmonic toning - spontaneous harmonic toning helps to develop tonal strength/stamina, refine listening to unusual intervallic relationships, support the surrendering to sound, and enhance orientation in sonic space.

from "Make the Way by Walking: Voice Journeys with Stephanie Rooker"

© 2015 Voice Journey Sound Center
Cross the Cove Publishing (ASCAP)

ArinMaya, Matt Silverstein (instrumental track), & Stephanie Rooker

poem seed song - improvising on & around a pre-written poem, we sing to evoke the meaning of the words, to provoke a multi-dimensional experience of them, while navigating the dynamic contours of a pre-recorded instrumental track

Arin Maya is one of my all-time favorite people to sing with. Her listening is damn-near completely out of this world and her voice goes there with fearless strength and transfixing grace. In our session, we practiced harmonic toning, two-tone sliding & vowel play, and a few improvisational structures. I had also asked Matt to create an instrumental track, suggesting a loose form and certain stylistic elements, to provide a musical foundation for a poem with which I wanted Arin & I to experiment. Like every other piece in this project, we improvised over the track – having never heard it before, but responding to it as it unfolded, as we would a live band of players. We did a few full takes, making different choices, exploring different expressions of the written words each time. In the end, we used that first “fresh” take as the two principal vocals and layered in pieces of the other takes where they supported and enhanced those ideas.


from "Make the Way by Walking: Voice Journeys with Stephanie Rooker"

© 2015 Voice Journey Sound Center
Cross the Cove Publishing (ASCAP)

What Makes You Sing

Stephanie Rooker & Matt Silverstein
vocals, singing bowl, tuning forks

This meditation, dedicated to space and light, includes the ancient, Vedic Gayatri Mantra:

OM BHUR, OM BHUVAHA, OM SWAHA, OM MAHA, OM JANAHA, OM TAPAHA, OM SATYAM
OM TAT SAVITUR VARENYAM
BHARGO DEVASYA DHEEMAHI
DHIYO YONAHA PRACHODAYAT

The mantra is a prayer, an invocation of divine light to heal & cleanse the many layers of our being and guide our path in life in a good direction.

Voice Journeys

Gayatri Meditation

Voice Journey Sound Center (VJSC) presents a diverse & cross-cultural array of workshops, training programs, private lessons, community gatherings and sound healing services to strengthen your voice and sonically enrich your holistic experience.

Voice Journey

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