Meredith Monk - Human voice as an instrument

Meredith Monk has been transcending the music in a way very few composers are capable of. Her interview where she showed her apartment was really inspiring, all those details, starting from tapes, instruments to cups and turtles lead me to connect those things with her creation of music itself. She says “The human voice is the first instrument”, which I never thought about, however, through her first piece “16 Millimeter Earrings” she proved her statement, that visual art combined with the voice can be a great compound where the emotions and feelings are expressed way superior to with the real instruments. In “Quarry” (1976), by using their voices and performances, she managed to present her vision and perception of the World Wars happening in Europe and her power to do that is exceptional and astonishing.

Except for using her voice as an instrument, Monk also managed to link the sounds she produced with the sounds of the different instruments such as in “The Songs of Ascension”. The video begins with men sitting inside the tower playing the instruments while at the same time Meredith Monk starts climbing the stairs as the sounds are going on, she uses each movement to express the sounds produced as well as the sounds she makes making the performance impressive. As the video goes on, more instruments such as violins are included. While they are being played, the performers are moving in the same rhythm, feeling the notes and sounds. Although I love music, I always admired people being able to feel it that way, in a sense the music can inspire them to make some specific moves or some kind of art. 

In “The Songs of Ascension”, the voices and instruments are presented as one unit, in my opinion, Monk wanted to show how the human voice is not so distinctive from the instrument itself, and when using them together the divine performance is assembled. The art she created in this piece provokes the feeling of astonishment, for she used so many factors, putting them in one and thus creating a masterpiece that can only be watched with awe.