ABSTRACT
Baldur articulates a relationship between singing and the Physical Self that is fundamentally concerned with the physical spaces where bodies sound, and where vocal and social connections are made. Vocal acts are symbolic work, and they work, in part at least, as other embodied expressive forms do, without the need for verbal mediation. Embodied vocal behaviour is clearly a special kind of multi-perceptual experience where expressive forms of musical structures, bodily gestures, narratives in song texts, and a wide range of environmental contexts provide a multi-dimensional matrix where meanings are configured and developed in integrated forms of symbolic interactionism. The vocal construction of ‘spring’ in the barn is under threat from modern farming methods because hay is increasingly wrapped in white plastic film and even left outside during winter months to create a surreal landscape. Even in private vocal activity, intrapersonal communication and reflexive action is concerned with the social world that songs and singing construct and represent.
