Bulgarian Scholarship winner Zlatka Dimitrova is studying on the One Year Diploma
course at Vocaltech, (you can check out her diary here over the next year). Zlatka
shares her experience of our most recent master class with Cleveland Watkiss on
29th January.
The first vocal master class for 2009 made an exciting start for the new term. This was
our first chance to meet a complete master of improvisation – something we will need to
be quite aware of during the third term. Cleveland Watkiss showed us how amazing the
voice can truly be and some of the unique things you can do with it as an instrument.
First, Cleveland gave us a brief review of his biography and one of the things that really
amazed all of us was the fact that he has been a session singer for Stevie Wonder. He
told us that this was his dream as well and he couldn’t really believe when he got the
news he was going to record with Stevie Wonder. He also told us that he has experience
in all styles, but his passion is jazz music.
In the first half of the master class he presented us his new style of performing – with
loops. He has reached the master skills in this unique kind of performance by using
different channels where he records different sounds like bass line or different
harmonies. He sings that with his own voice, records this, then loops the sound and
then he starts to sing over the top of this and repeats the process over and over to create
a unique sound. He could play loops through 8 channels at the same time. All the ideas
he demonstrated to us were spontaneous and original. He showed us how a vocalist
can make a song and even a whole concert only by using his or her voice. He confessed
that the inspiration for this idea came from Bobby McFerrin, who was one of Cleveland’s
favourite teachers.
The second part of the master class was really challenging for us, as we became part of
his improvisations and his performance. First he asked us to think about a phrase or a
word and then we had to improvise a song around 30 seconds long connected with the
phrase. The advice that he gave us was not to think about it beforehand and just
improvise when the moment comes. All of us were a little scared but in the end we were
all having a great time while singing our improvised songs.
At the end of this exciting night he talked to us a little about improvising, blues and the
earliest form all of singing. He showed us how all these things are connected because
the earliest form of singing has been ‘call and response’ a method which is often used
in improvising, especially in blues. The last thing he wanted from us was to join him in
improvising over a blues standard. First we learned the melody then he made us
improvise a vocal melody, then a bass line and the hardest thing – making drum breaks
and solos only with our voice. He really was a master of controlling and playing with his
voice.
We all learned something very important from this evening – that the voice has no limits,
it can do anything, as long as you teach yourself playing with your voice and let it be free.
By Zlatka Dimitrova
Vocaltech, 1 Year Diploma Student
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