Sound journeys
The room becomes an instrument. And so do you.
An evening held in voice and resonant space, where the only thing asked of you is to lie down and listen.
Join the next journeyA sound journey is simple to describe and hard to forget.
You arrive. You find a place to lie down. The lights soften, and the room grows quiet.
Then the sound begins, and for the next while you have nowhere to be and nothing to do.
The voice leads. The instruments gather around it. The space itself starts to ring.
What happens inside you is yours. Some people rest more deeply than they have in months. Some travel a long way and come back carrying a little less than they arrived with.
Matter is frozen sound. The voice is the thaw.
Everything that feels solid was once vibration. In a sound journey we loosen what has set too hard, and let it move again.
Often the voice is no longer only mine.
I step aside and let spirit in. As the body opens, the soul takes it up as its instrument.
People have heard Tibetan monks in it, and Siberian shamans. Ancestral songs rise. Ancient voices come, and the keening of the caoineadh, the old Irish lament that carries grief the whole way through.
It moves freely across place and tongue. It arrives as a tapestry of cosmic language, beyond words, where you may meet shamans and singers from across the world.
Beneath all of it, the Divine Mother moves through the voice as the Holy Spirit. She is where the sound comes from, and where it returns.
What moves through the room
I work with the voice first. Acoustic instruments and soundscapes gather around it, woven in here and there across the journey.
The voice
The thread that carries the whole journey. Tones, overtones, and song that meets you wherever you are lying.
Drone instruments
Sruti box, monochord, and the long tone of a Tibetan bowl. The held field beneath everything, for the voice to rest on and rise from.
Singing bowls
Large and small, Tibetan and crystal. Long sustained tones that hold the room like a tide.
Gong
A single great wave that fills the whole space at once. It washes over you and keeps ringing long after the strike.
Shamanic flute
Breath turned to melody on a simple wooden flute. It opens a clearing in the sound and leads the ear somewhere new.
Shamanic drum
A steady heartbeat to travel by. The oldest sound, calling the journey onward and holding the ground beneath it.
Frame drum
Held in the hand, struck soft or quick. A lighter pulse that lifts the rhythm and carries the song.
Natural rattles
Seed and gourd, shaken soft or sharp. A small rain that moves around the room and clears the air.
Ocean drum and rainmaker
Water arriving and withdrawing, and a slow fall of rain across the room. The ocean drum is often the wave that closes a journey.
Soundscapes
Acoustic textures and ambient layers, woven in here and there, so the field keeps moving across a long journey.
Before you come
How long
Ninety minutes to two hours of held sound, with time to land before and rest after.
What to bring
Something soft to lie on, a blanket to stay warm, and an evening with nowhere else to be.
Who it is for
Anyone who wants to listen. You need no experience and no musical training of any kind.
How it is held
In a small group, in spaces chosen for their resonance, with room to share afterwards if you wish.
From the journey
What moved through the room
Of the dozens of different sound journeys I have experienced in my life, this was the most impressive, the purest, and the most healing.
What Maurice achieves with his voice and instruments is extraordinary. The primal sounds help you make contact with deep layers, and then to integrate them again with a seemingly miraculous simplicity.
In the sacred space he creates, something can be opened, cleared, lifted, purified, or moved in whatever way wants to move within you.
The held bedding, the high vibrational level, and the deeply attuned experience he creates are truly unique, and set a new standard.
What a wonderful experience. A location perfectly suited for an interplay with whatever wants to move through Maurice by way of his instruments and voice, fully attuned to the people experiencing it.
With his instruments, among them various large and small singing bowls, ocean drums, and a rainmaker, and with his voice, he brings you to places you could not reach on your own. Blissful.
I felt light, refreshed, and rinsed clean after the journey. The ocean drum at the end did a great deal for me.
Maurice Spees
Sacred Voice alchemist and sound practitioner, working with voice, breath, and instrument as ways into direct experience. He has held sound for artists, seekers, couples, and people approaching the end of life, and offers these journeys in the spirit of a gift freely given.