‘Sound is Touch at a Distance.’
Do you like to sing? Would you like to learn to use singing as a tool for connection in your community? Have you experienced Community Singing and wondered about how you might bring a bit of this practice into spaces where you live, work, and play with others?
Join Community Songleader Liz Rog and 8 others for a special weekend for sharing tools for community songleading. We will practice many of the skills involved in successfully getting other folks singing including: picking the right song for the moment, finding a good starting pitch, teaching in a clear call & response style, showing the rhythm and melody in your body, building confidence, and modeling joyful and welcoming humility.
Location: Land Alliance Folk School in Oxford, IA
Cost: $150/person
Special pricing note: if you are connected to a Folk School or other organization that shares learning in community, please reach out to the centerforbelongingfolkschool@gmail.com to secure a no-cost spot, should space allow! We have graciously received funds from the Folk School Alliance to cultivate community singing in Folk Schools across the country.
Meals: each participant will be matched with one other to provide one meal for 9.
Accommodation, if needed: $89/person for a single room, and $49/person for a shared room.
At this workshop you will find connection to other emerging songleaders; a chance to learn and practice the tools of songleading among supportive peers; songs and resources galore; and encouragement to go home and continue on the path!
We’ll talk about the history and culture of community singing. We’ll consider the singing wounds of our society and how we can be part of the healing. We’ll prepare to offer and receive hospitality through singing in community!
We can learn to serve in brave, humble, and collaborative leadership. This weekend is a time to begin, using the simple tools of song, conversation, slow-time, and good food. I have something to offer: how do I prepare myself to hold space? What practical and spiritual tools do I need? How can my leadership empower others? How do I listen well to the voices around me even as I am asking for their listening? When is it time to rest?
We’ll gather around these questions, and the form we use is songleading. We’ll stand as witnesses to each other’s stepping up, celebrating the different strengths and styles of each and all. The tools we practice can be used in everyday settings: around a kitchen table, in houses of worship, in healing spaces, in movements for change. Our workshop is a circle of belonging, and each person returns home with their own version of what it means to hold space with grace, energy, and ever-growing skill. This is the beginning.
If you feel called to begin learning how to lead others in song, can hold a tune reasonably well, and have some rhythm, this is for you. You certainly don’t need to be a school-trained singer/musician (I’m not!), but even if you are, there is still plenty for you to learn at this workshop.
Open Hub Singing Club, Decorah, 2023
Words from past workshop participants:
“I learned that song leading is a form of radical presence to the moment, and to the people holding this moment with you. That the success of leading a song depends upon an immense receptivity to the hearts & voices in the room, to their collected energy, to the group as it seeks wholeness, adventure, harmony. And a willingness to trust the group to co-create the moment with you.”
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“I learned that song leading is also a way of listening, a way of listening in together for a way towards each other, dreaming new and more loving ways of relating in and beyond the group. That we catch songs, but they also catch us, entwine us in new & beautiful & bewildering forms of intimacy & growth.”
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“I've been feeling so much gratitude for the way we learned that singing can open up space for challenge, for vulnerability, for the silence of unknowing. How the "leader" component of song leader also emerged through our grappling with some of the complex and crucial questions of our times: cultural appropriation, sexual violence, rage, love, justice... how song community can respond or attend or witness. It makes me glad to know that the ways we will all lead songs include these questions, and a willingness to hear many truths, to feel, to adjust our perceptions, to struggle with finding words that suffice, to not give up the struggle, and to notice how different it feels when it is shared.”
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“I especially appreciated how for a couple days I felt what it's like to live in a world filled with song. It felt as though a song could begin at any moment--and in many of the moments a song did begin! Songs for blessing meals and blessing each other, songs for late night fun, songs for waking up, songs to support friends, songs for expressing rage, songs to get to know each other better, songs to tell stories, songs for saying goodbye... That's what I've been thinking about since. How can I use the specific song leading tools I learned to spread that magical feeling throughout more of my life?”
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“I appreciated the format of the course, which included personal sharing from participants, learning and singing songs, gaining practical knowledge of technique, and also an opportunity for students to teach a song to the group. It was the right amount of singing vs. spoken information.”