Jaka Škapin is a Slovenian vocalist, researcher, and facilitator currently based in London. A conversation about collective vocal improvisation, relationality, and the ancient technologies we keep forgetting.

Jaka's musical journey moved in 5–7 year cycles: classical choir singing in Slovenia, music studies in London, and then a turn toward free vocal improvisation — sparked by a Facebook ad for a voice improvisation course. He went deep into the American tradition around Bobby McFerrin, studied with Meredith Monk and has since been weaving Slovenian folk singing traditions into his work.

How important is it to sound good during improvisation? In the communities Jaka works with, the operative word is relationality, not "good or bad". How does this music relate to oneself, to others in the space, to the more-than-human, to ancestors, to the land. Technical quality is not the point. The point is what opens up in the space between people.

"In many cultures, there's no such thing as a word for improvisation — because it's not needed."

Jaka is part of Anthropos, a vocal quartet that creates complete collective improvisations — nothing pre-planned, using only invented language (no spoken language of any member). The project aims for a pre-modern context for music-making: before music was a commodity, before it was a profession. Their debut recording Songs of Humanity happened in three hours, in the middle of the pandemic in July 2020.

The project is also a technology for transcultural exchange — exploring how collective vocal improvisation can facilitate communication across diverse groups, including in dementia care settings.

Since 2016, Jaka has worked with people with Parkinson's disease and dementia in various social settings. This, he says, was the real groundwork for how he improvises:

"I had to sing in such a way that another body could express, or move, or kind of feel supported — feel like they can link with other bodies in the space, feel like they can open up and relate."

He is also part of the The Well - Global Vocal Improvisation Network, which experiments with vocal improvisation as a transformative social tool, like for example in a recent experiment in Canada — making politicians sing and improvise together.

The conversation turns to what Jaka calls the "technological spectrum" — and the importance of repositioning ancient or embodied practices alongside (not against) modern technology. Somatic and eco-somatic practices, he notes, are largely rooted in Indigenous knowledge — a lineage that needs to be named, not erased.

"The right kind of technological emptiness can then mean that everything else does reorient itself in the way that is needed."

Jaka's closing invitation: you don't need a course, a workshop, or even a song. You need a moment in your day. Start with humming — to yourself, to someone in the room, or to your phone. It grows from there.

Jaka Škapin — vocalist, facilitator, researcher. Based between Slovenia and London.

Anthropos — collective improvised vocal quartet.

Music played: Ote Taya Ko (Rising) — Anthropos, Songs of Humanity EP

The Well.- Global Vocal Improvisation Network

Hawkwood College

Braziers Park