The nineteenth Blues nad Bobrem Festival has come to an end. The workshop participants and musicians have gone home. They gave our city what flows from the blues: themselves, their devotion to music and entertainment. They learned and played alongside their instructors at Piwnica Paryska and in the Market Square. They could be seen walking around the city in their characteristic black T-shirts bearing the BnB logo. Preoccupied, some with instruments slung over their shoulders. They became part of our reality.
At the workshops, they got to know themselves, their abilities and their limitations. During the concerts, they experienced stage fright as well as the power of energy flowing from the audience. Many of them felt for the first time what it is like to captivate a listener with music.
Vocal workshops with Krystyna Prońko
Five girls warm up their speech organs. Breathing exercises, exercises for the phonatory and articulatory organs. Trills, repeating vowels in appropriate sequences, vocalizations.
Between exercises, the singer tells stories and anecdotes and offers good, tried-and-tested advice. Such as not eating before a performance or how to alkalize the vocal apparatus to prevent losing one’s voice.
– We do not use artificial instruments; we sing with ourselves. With the body. The stomach can ruin our vocals – Krystyna Prońko tells her students. – So before a performance, you must not drink cognac or eat chocolate. From experience, I know that nuts and poppy seeds can ruin a performer before a show, because the crumbs hide effectively in the mouth and can injure the throat while singing. It is best not to eat anything for four hours before a performance – the singer adds, offering her sleepy student green tea, which refreshes her effectively.
Finding a place in your body where there is no threshold
The girls listen, practice and share their progress. – After the exercises, I feel that when I sing for longer, my larynx does not hurt – says Natalia. They begin the exercise again. “Baba ci koguta niesie tu” they repeat melodically. Suddenly Krystyna Prońko stops accompanying them and addresses one of the students: – Do you have a lisp, Iga? Trouble with the consonant “s”? Read texts containing the letters s, sz and ś while lying down – she advises the girl. – Lying down, your vocal apparatus will position itself correctly.
They return to singing. Prońko asks whether they understand what the next exercise is teaching them. Then she explains. The girls guess; one of them says that this is how she is learning to change keys.
– Moving from one register to another – Krystyna Prońko explains – evening out the timbre and eliminating the threshold is one of the most difficult things to practice. You have to find a place in your body where there is no threshold. That still lies ahead of you – she smiles at her students.
They discuss what a song is. Krystyna Prońko says: – A song is music, rhythm, lyrics and the performer. Today, in many cases, a performer does not need to have a good vocal technique; a song can be arranged appropriately. Arrangements are expanded and the key of a song is changed appropriately, so some singers do not have to change their vocal register.
The students give an example and sing the chorus of Rihanna’s song “Umbrella”.
– Under my ubrella ella, ella, ella, eh, eh…
Repeating the phrase and playing with it, they go out for a break.
I will entertain you with my little hymns; be willing to listen to me between toasts*
Part of the festival is learning from experienced musicians, from stars of the Polish music scene such as Krystyna Prońko, Sławek Wierzcholski, Jerzy Styczyński and many others. The opportunity to perform on stage is also important. Facing stage fright. Testing oneself and one’s skills. Sharing oneself with the audience. The musicians played and listened to our applause, pleased by the attention devoted to them.
Through their activities, the musicians changed our reality and the space in which we spend every day. The city lived through them. It pulsed with blues. Although no devil stands at the crossroads of Bolesławiec and offers musicians, in exchange for their souls, wealth, fame or beautiful women as in the Mississippi Delta, they come to Bolesławiec and play as if their lives depended on it.
(information Grazyna Hanaf, photographs Krzysztof Gwizdała)
* A fragment of the song that the workshop participants practiced during vocal classes. Music by Krystyna Prońko, lyrics by Jerzy A. Masłowski.