Drumming and Spirituality
A chance for people of all skill levels to participate in hands on rhythm-making. We’ll tour instruments from around the world and experience the connection of community drumming through activities, stories, and discussions. We’ll also look at how rhythm and music intersect with Unitarian Universalist values. Bring your own drum if you have one- for those who don't, enough will provided. (90 mins)
In Rhythm and Song
Join us for an hour of community singing and world percussion. Drumming and singing is as ancient as our most sacred rituals and as grounding and joyful today as ever. Join us in exploring songs of justice and while feeling the beat of drums from around the world. (1hr)
Rhythm for Choir
With Matt’s guidance, the choir will explore the theories and practices of West African, South Indian and European perspectives on rhythm. Using song, body percussion, and a few instruments to help us out, we'll explore what different world traditions have to teach us about the role of rhythm. After venturing into odd time signatures, syncopation, and polyrhythms we’ll come back home to the repertoire at hand with a newfound confidence and depth of understanding. Rhythm for Choir is an essential workshop for any chorus looking to explore world music or just to improve their accuracy and feel for reading the notes on the page. (1 hr)
Moving Music Forward
Music has the ability to engage our hearts and bodies together in an integrated worship experience. We invite choir members, ministers, lay worship leaders, and musicians to dive into the theory and specific techniques for creating a transformative music experience. We'll lift up best practices for introducing new music, setting the context and tone of worship, and repurpose the role of musicians and choir members. Together, we’ll explore new musical elements of worship that engage the congregation and deepen our connections with one other.
Song Leading
A fully participatory workshop designed to build skills and confidence for leading music in worship and gathering the community in song. We’ll share best practices for invitational leadership and gentle encouragement to singing. We’ll also expand your repertoire for singing without accompaniment. Join us for an experience of leading and following, rhythm and words, and the sound of a community in harmony together.
Mobilizing Congregations for Justice
Congregations can be a powerful force when mobilized for justice work. This training will teach, model, and practice 3 central tools for community organizing that can be used to build a more loving and powerful justice-centered community. In many congregations activists struggle to get to a place where the justice work is owned by the whole congregation, rather than a select few. Our trainer, Matt Meyer, offers specific tools of community organizing, translated for the context of a congregational setting. We’ll vision what it looks like when the worship, music, board of directors, RE program, and finance committee are brought into a shared vision and how the basic tools of community organizing can help get us there.