THE PORT TOWNSEND CISTERN STORY

In 1995 a friend told me about an unusual "tunnel" in Port Townsend, Washington (PT). He used words like "other worldly" and "mystical" to describe sounds uttered in an underground water catch at old Fort Worden in PT. He told me the reverberation lasted an amazing forty-five seconds before it faded completely. I telephoned everyone from the Port Townsend Library to the Fire Department before I found out the location of the "Cistern Chapel" in Old Fort Worden State Park.

I called the Fort Worden State Park Office and explained my project. They referred me to Centrum, an art center at Fort Worden. They reviewed my project and granted me a permit to use the cistern.

I found Neville Pearsal, a local engineer at Synergy Sound who understood my project, and we set dates to record and edit. I made housing, plane and car rental reservations. I started leg-strengthening exercises so I would be able to descend the ladder into the two-storey ladder into the cistern..

I have sung and recorded in spaces with an 8-second long reverberation, but preparing to sing a space where each note lasts 45-seconds stretched my imagination. I listened to Stuart Dempster, Paul Horn and whales. I considered renting studio time to practice singing in an electronically created long reverberation. I dreamed of being underwater. Eventually, I decided to let the cistern show me what to do and focused my attention on contacting radio stations and news media about the project. And exercised.

I arrived in beautiful PT on May 20. After settling in at the Olympic Hostel, I discovered a fellow musician, the host at the hostel. We made plans to jam together in one of the bunkers. After we played, he showed me the locked entrance to the cistern. He suggested practicing my ladder skills on one of the vertical ladders above ground at the old weapon batteries.

As I began to climb the narrow, vertical ladder, it became apparent that I did not have the upper body strength to hang on to the ladder. My arms began to shake violently before I reached the top. I needed to find some safety equipment to make a secure descent into the cistern.

I located a rock-climbing outfitter in Port Angeles, 43 miles away. They couldn’t provide the equipment I needed. I drove two hours to Seattle to consult with an REI climbing expert. He advised full-body industrial rigging with someone to belay me down the ladder.

I called the PT Fire Department trying to locate rigging. I explained my dilemma to the chief. I asked if the fire department would be responsible for the rescue if I fell. He said yes. I asked him to help me to be sure that I did not fall. He put me in touch with the leader of his "descent and rescue" team. We hoped to hold a practice drill using me as victim, but there just wasn’t enough time to plan it. Disappointed, I ran out of options.

Neville Pearsall of Synergy Sound in PT discovered that I could create the sound of being in the cistern by singing into the opening of the cistern. He found a "sweet spot" along the wall inside the cistern where my voice sounded as if I were singing directly into the microphone. He placed the other mic among the columns. I wore headphones to hear the sounds created as I sang into the cistern. My hero!

Capturing the natural ambient resonance of the space is the starting point for my music. My new CD, Water Birth is recorded in a 45-second reverberation that suggests an underwater environment of sea creatures, slow undulation of underwater plants and inner space.

Inner Runes, my debut CD records solo voice with the drone of a Tibetan singing bowl, inside the Sound Column, a 64-foot column that supports the Palace of Fine Arts rotunda. The tuned, precise quality of the Sound Column's 8-second reverberation creates airy and ethereal music.

The emanations of a didgeridoo and percussion recorded in a long Marin Headlands' tunnel, Construction 129 shapes the music for Ravens in Moonlight. The natural reverberation recorded in fog creates songs that are both earthy and mysterious.