A 4-day workshop with Linda Stonestreet
Luther Burbank Center for the Arts in Santa Rosa California
January 25-28, 2024
What is this workshop?
Vocal Improvisation with purpose. An immersive form of vocal improvisation that propels creative expression. This is an experiential workshop for singers to increase their confidence through embodied learning. We will be working with form and practice, building ensembles, soloing, using murmuration, word, melody, and rhythm. This work is about collaboration. It’s about making spontaneous music in the moment. It’s about making stuff up, enjoying the process and following and trusting ourselves, the music, and our partners. We will begin with a few basic forms and become confident with them. Then gradually add more depth and complexity as we go depending on the group capacity. This course is for singers who want to improve their skill in and knowledge of collaboration and vocal improvisation. Entry level improvisers welcome. This course is for experienced singers. Sight reading is not required.
Who is this course for?
Experienced Singers who want to learn how to improvise in ensembles through vocal improvisation, Singer-Songwriters who want to embody practices that will increase the flow of creativity, to tap into the powers of creation so they can free their constraints in songwriting, improvisers who want to take their craft to the next level and gain tools for teaching others, singers who love the idea of collaboration and want to cultivate co-creation in their lives, singers who want to develop new ways to use their voice and increase confidence in their capacity to collaborate. Singers who want to use their voice in ceremony or song as prayer. Singers who want to prepare for All The Way In, but aren’t yet ready to apply.
What are the 7 Sacred Essential Elements of Song?
The 7 Sacred Essential Elements of Song (7SEES) is an emerging body of work developed by Linda Stonestreet. It’s a way of mapping spontaneous collaborative composition. Seeing the coordinates of songs that emerge in vocal improvisation through the lens of 7 organizing principles of consciousness called the 7 Saywas. You will learn how to apply what Linda has learned in over 15 years of deep initiations, study, and contemplation of the Andean Mountain shamanic traditions. Linda will take you on a deep dive into each one of the 7 Sacred Essential Elements of Song (7SEES) so that you can begin to understand how they work together simultaneously in creating spontaneous music through Vocal Improvisation. Here is an overview:
1. Breath Kausay – Get to know your breath in a new way. Use your breath as Raw source energy – Uninformed, just pure light. Learn how and where are you harvesting breath from. How does it inform the quality of the music? Learn to call in your breath as a super power.
2. Voice Nuna- Many singers try to emulate the voice of other singers they admire. In a sense, we assign the spirit of another onto our breath (Think Karaoke or cover tunes – when you’re trying to sound like another artist) We are going to explore the nature of your own true voice. Your voice encodes your breath with your own unique spirit. Experience your voice as Spirit of the energy of your breath – Encoding the breath with your spirit / purpose – the universe inside you or your own flavor.
3. Body Munay – Discover ways to synthesize music through the matrix of your heart. Learn how when something comes up for you to stay with the experience, let it teach you. How is your body affected by the music coming through you and in proximity to you? Is it a vehicle? Is it a stumbling block? Move, discover, become aware of body in relation to voice etc. We will use our bodies to walk past the urge for competition in collaborative spaces, and be of service to music.
4. Mind Chulla – The power of our mind from its reflective qualities and Imprints/ alignments / group mind / hive mind – information from the culture at the moment – How are you in communion with life? What parts of the collective experience are you aligned with? Notice how one word or sentiment inside a piece can color and flavor the piece, instantaneously. We will focus on Choice points: In collaboration, do I respond to others or do I take it in my awareness and move with something complimentary without reacting. The power of the purpose of the group.
5. Essence Yuya – Learn to map Wisdom of spontaneous creation by shifting your perceptual awareness to see what wisdom is expressing through the song? Too often we get stuck in rhyming and lose the thread of wisdom known and yet unknown. The song can express through you; New wisdom.
6. Belonging Chekaq – Find ways to expand your Awareness of the truth in your presence and purpose within the group. How do you embrace the music? In co-creating, Where are you unreasonable? Where do you abide?
7. Fluidity Kollari – Ultimately we learn together how to embody practices that lead you to Become like a river – The nature of the way you move, sing, enter and stay in the music relative to the pace and themes that propel you into action and opportunity within the music is key to allowing you to map songs. What are you a conduit for?
What is Vocal River? It’s The skill and spirit of improvisation.
Course instructor Linda Stonestreet has studied and embodied (since 2016) the 33 detailed concepts, practices and techniques contained in Vocal River framework developed by Rhiannon. These practices are forms for getting into the flow of improvisation. We will work intensely with these forms as a base for this course. We will be sourcing from the Vocal River.
(Recommended Reading, listening: BOTH the Vocal River Book & audio recording “Flight” prior to workshop)
In Rhiannon’s words: “Improvisation is a gift, a necessity, a skill, a dance with the unknown. It is the practice of approaching the unknown, not with fear but with curiosity, and with trust that the path will be revealed. It is about staying awake, really awake, all senses vibrant, as you learn to be available to it all: the fear and the endless possibilities of each new moment. When you improvise you become part of all that is alive because constant change is the reality that all living beings encounter. This can be difficult, or an enormous blessing, as the thrill of improvisation takes over and a greater wisdom surfaces.”
In her book Vocal River, Rhiannon reveals the skill and spirit of improvisation both onstage and in daily life for singers, musicians, artists, and anyone interested in combining the creative aspects that touch all our lives. The book is also a meticulous guide to Rhiannon’s methods of teaching improvisation featuring 33 detailed exercises that bring us into the circle of music where, step by step, we learn about blend, collaboration, soloing, listening, skill, faith, and generosity. Vocal River is the culmination of Rhiannon's long and celebrated career as an international performer and teacher. In it she shares her exuberance, her craft, and her fresh insights into the dimensions and gifts of improvisation.
How do they go together? Vocal River meets the 7SEES.
7 Sacred Essential Elements of Song naturally flow from and through the 33 Vocal River forms, where the spirit of improvisation meets the 7 Sacred Essential Elements of Song for infinite possibilities of creating music in the moment. To develop these practices together is what’s required for maintaining awareness for creating in the moment performances that are interactive, musical, meaningful.
Who is the instructor?
Linda Stonestreet is a Singer-Songwriter and two-time graduate of Rhiannon’s All the Way In program. She draws from the huge well of the Vocal River body of knowledge, as well as a songwriting, and performing background to deliver her approach to guiding groups. Since 2008, an initiate in the Andean Mountain Shamanic traditions of consciousness, as well as the Dagara, Tamang and Himalayan practices through initiations, deep study, contemplation, and pilgrimages with and being mentored by Marti Spiegelman and Jose Luis Herrera and other Andean Elders. Linda is well connected to acts of ceremony and believes in the power of using song as a sacred modality for creating life-affirming positive change. She has developed a musical matrix, as a way of consciously mapping in the moment spontaneous music through the lens of an Andean principle called the Saywas, which she will be teaching and incorporating in partnership with the Vocal River practices. The convergence of Rhiannon’s highly inspired and magical practices in Vocal River woven together with the 7 Sacred Essential Elements of Song converge to access new depths in Breath, Voice, Body, Mind, Wisdom, Belonging, and Flow. Why? Because creating music in the moment, in a purposeful way, brings about meaningful creative collaborative improvisational performances.
Thursday January 25th 2024 10-4pm
Introduction to Vocal River concepts * Practice Vocal River techniques and begin working in ensembles
Friday January 26th 2024 10-4pm
Deep dive develop and hone skill in Vocal River forms
Saturday January 27th 2024 10-4pm
Introduction to the 7 Elements. Incorporate 7 Elements into the Vocal River practices to deepen experiential
knowledge and embodiment.
Sunday January 28th 2024 10-4pm
Improvisation as performance. Song as ceremony.
Registration $247 per person. Bring your own picnic munch. Coffee tea provided.