HMMM is a multilayered performance project that has occurred in many Canadian cities, and so far in Lima, Peru. In each HMMM, a group of participants hum for about 30 minutes on extended tones. Most are carrying portable radios, tuned to a broadcast of an earlier humming session. The sound of these many voices humming is like a sonic wash of soothing, organic tones across the urban soundscape. In some cases, merchants play the broadcast in their stores and restaurants. The sound is enveloping and omnipresent, and yet never loud in any place. People stroll through, experiencing constantly changing sonic mixes of vocal sound.

The piece is also informed by two years of weekly workshops called HMMM, devoted to vocal improvisation and listening skills. Many ideas and exercises are drawn from the Deep Listening practice of Pauline Oliveros. In HMMM, citizens begin to interact with each other on the basis of sonic, nonverbal cues as opposed to the normal state of stasis from information overload. The habitual sidewalk becomes transformed and things become quieter as people begin to listen critically. At its best, being in a HMMM feels like swimming in a sea of vocal sounds.

This idea comes from a number of my previous works using low watt radio transmission and voice. PARADIO was performed at the Banff Centre for Arts in 1997. It was also performed at Place des Arts of Montreal in 1993, commissioned in 1995 for the inauguration of the Vancouver New Public Library. It was also part of the Lincoln Center Out of Doors festival as part of Make Your Own Instrument day in 1996.

The radio is generally used as an extension of the body in my work, a bridge from one body to another. HMMM seems to encapsulate my relationship with low watt radio; how fragile and physical it is. Like a voice, it is ultimately individualistic and subject to so many kinds of suppression.