I Heard There Was a Secret Chord
Copenhagen, DK | Madrid, ES | London, UK | Montréal, CA | New York, US | +
At any given moment, hundreds of people are listening to Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah at the same time. I Heard There Was a Secret Chord creates a metaphysical connection between them through a sensory experience, in an attempt to demystify this universal hymn.
Sensory Connections
Singing in a group brings about visceral universal emotions, humming, on the other hand, creates a musical vibration inside the body. I Heard There Was a Secret Chord merges the two sensations and provides the public a moment of communal contemplation on the universal, quasi-mystical quality of Hallelujah.
The Project
The piece consists of a room and a website. Both continuously broadcast Hallelujah’s melody, hummed by a virtual choir. This choir of humming voices is directly impacted by the visitors. Whether they are listening online or in-situ, the number of voices heard increases and decreases as a result of their presence. The fluctuating number is displayed in real time.
The Room
The room is an octagonal floor with a series of suspended microphones. Unexpectedly, the microphones are not meant to record or project voices; they are used to transform voices into vibrations. When one hums into a microphone, the sound makes the floor vibrate. The vibrations increase in intensity as more people join the choir.
The Website
The website operates like a single-song radio station, fluctuating with the amount of listeners. Anybody can join the choir of I Heard There Was a Secret Chord and feel the universal magic of Hallelujah wherever they are.
Creating an Interactive Choir
To create the humming version of Hallelujah and the interactive choir of I Heard There Was a Secret Chord, Daily tous les jours collaborated with seven amateur and professional Montreal choirs. For two weeks, we transformed Tetra SoundLab into a humming factory. The result was 635 recordings with 1250 different voices.
Daily’s article in the exhibition catalogue.
A Crack in Everything
Created in 2017, I Heard There Was a Secret Chord was a commission from the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art in collaboration with the National Film Board of Canada. The installation was created for the Leonard Cohen: A Crack in Everything exhibition during Montreal’s 375th anniversary celebrations, one year after the musician’s passing. The exhibition is now touring the world.
Credits
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- A Project By Daily tous les jours
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- A commission from the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art in collaboration with the National Film Board of Canada.
- Creative Direction
- Mouna Andraos
- Melissa Mongiat
- Interactive Direction
- Pierre Thirion
- Environment Design
- Rebecca Taylor
- Advisor
- Fady Atallah
- Sound Direction
- Michael Baker
- Design
- Anne Ouellette
- Technological Direction
- Eva Schindling
- Production
- Irene Chaudouet
- Studio Coordination
- JoDee Allen
- Recording
- Patrick McDowall
- Dominique Girard (Tetra SoundLab)
- Choir Direction
- Mélodie Rabatel
- Acoustic Consultant
- Tim Hewling (Résonance TJL)
- Fabrication
- Double Effet
- Filming, Photography and Editing
- Geoffrey Boulangé
- Website Programming
- Folklore
- Advisor
- David Robert
- Choirs
- Ensemble Vocal Les Nanas de Montréal
- Choeur Gai de Montréal
- Ensemble vocal DivertisSon
- La Serre
- BAnQ
- L’ensemble I Coristi de Laval
- Special thanks to
- Bianca Su, Bea Van Grutten, Spotify, Victor Shiffman and the MAC team, Hugues Sweeney, Martin Viau and the NFB team, Kelly Nunes, Guillaume Sasseville, Malcolm Remple
- Powered with the help of
- Arduino
- MaxMSP
- This project is one of the 200 exceptional projects funded through the Canada Council for the Arts’ New Chapter program. With this $35M investment, the Council supports the creation and sharing of the arts in communities across Canada.