Practice Tracks
~A note on cultural appropriation~
•Recordings are for your ears only! Do not disseminate. For real. It's illegal.•
•And bare with me on some of these, they're quite imperfect. Sometimes its flat by the end of the recording, or my voice is straining. But I hope these rough cuts get the basic parts across!•
•If a track glitches, try refreshing the page.
To search:
1. Create a shortcut to his page on your desktop
2. Use the search function to find the song you're looking for. ctrl. + F or cmmd. + F
A fun and lively nonsense song in 5/4 timing. Written as a loose base to improvise upon by Karen Porkka, a member of the Ubuntu Choirs Network.
Djun Djun Gudaka
De De Ga De Ga Dun
De De Ga De Ga Dun
De De Ga De Ga Dun
Teaching Tracks
This song is from a collection of music called "Friday Afternoons" made for a school choir, composed in 1932. Recently popularized by the Wes Anderson film Moonrise Kingdom. Based on an old nursery rhyme, the lyrics and layers of sound create a creepy nostalgic feeling and image of this person who has passed on. Both lyrically and musically, this is a great example of doing a lot with a little.
Old Abram Brown is dead and gone
you'll never see him more
He used to wear a long brown coat that buttoned down before
An instant classic! This song is hot off the presses from Seattle-based songleader, activist, and grief-tender Ahlay Blakely. It reminds us that we don't need to hold the story alone. We all hold a part. And so fun to sing with a drone, a building part, and a chanting crescendo.
Everyone feels and carries different parts of the story
And together we weave, we weave a net of rememberance
We were not made; we were not created to hold this; hold this all alone
I learned this song from Kira Seto, a Bend, OR-based songleader. She learned it from Sarina Partridge at a hot spring in the wilderness. What a perfect setting for this magically-layered song, full of flourish and well-held harmony. Sarina is based in Minneapolis and you can find many songs by her Here.
I will go down to the well
let the water ring me like a bell
let the water rock me like a child
for this well will not run dry
no this well will not run dry.
This classic anthem from the Natural Voice Network of the UK hits the sweet spot for four-part harmonies. Singing this song is like dessert. An important reminder that we do infact have everything within ourselves that we need to meet the challenges and rewards of our days and lives.
We've got all the love
All that we need
to change our world, halleluia!
We've got all the love
all that we need
blesssed be.
Teaching Tracks
This song has become an anthem of our times in certain circles. It came to my friend Karisha, fully formed, in a dream. She put it out into the world with hertwo-part band MaMuse, and it became a community singing touchstone, referencing "the great turning" of Joanna Macy's writings. The low harmony was later added by Kyle Lemle of the Thrive choir in Oakland, CA.
We shall be known by the company we keep
by the ones who circle round to tend these fires
we shall be known by the ones who sow and reap the seeds of change alive from deep within the earth
It is time now. It. is time now that we thrive. It is time we lead ourselves into the well. It is time now, and what a time to be alive. In this great turning we shall learn to lead in love. In this great turning we shall learn to lead in love.
There are many Halleluia rounds. This one is a mystery to me, but I learned it from my friend Hannah Stampey years ago. I love the way it builds. Please let me know if you know the origin!
One of my favorites from Lindsey Scott's new album Well Held. Lindsey self-describes her music as the nexus of prayerful, sexy, and childlike, and I totally agree. This one is a prayer to the universe to be a vessel for divine music to flow through, with the most fun "thank you" layer that is a good earworm to get! Here's to gratitude!
Please, please Universal soul practice some song through me
please, please, universal soul, sing a song x2
- When I ask, I ask Believing, when I ask I already Have
when I ask, I ask receiving, when I ask, I already have.
Thank you Thank you Thank you Thank you!
Based on a quote from Brooklynn Childs, melody by Karly Loveling, brand new, learned at Song Village this June. what a gem, and yet another vegetable-themed banger. We contain more than we know...
-If Cauliflower can somehow become pizza, you, my dear, can be anything
-There's casher cheese, and avocado mayonnaise, just think, what could you become?
- I want you to reach beyond your wildest dreams. Way beyond mushroom jerky.
What a magical tag line. To be remembering how to return to the presence in feeling "all is well". I feel constantly in the struggle to remember to tap into the goodness all around me. And this song speaks as well as shows that. Its almost as if the melody line is a person rambling along a lane, while the beautiful droning overlays are the omnipresent magic we can choose to tap into...
-This life is an act of learning how to be ever returning to the living stream of all is well
-This life, return, come on home, come on home, all is well.
- This life is learning, ever returning, all is well.
In this day and age, we are working on dismantling deep systems of oppression within ourselves, and in the process, we are stumbling as we learn. Lisa wrote this song as an anthem to our imperfection in that process, and to encourage a culture where we aren't separating, cancelling, and pushing away others when they make a mistake in this process. As a reminder that for anyone to learn and grow, they need to be held in love even as their behaviors are brought under scrutiny. **Play through to the B part, perhaps the best line in the whole song!**
-How can I know what I don't know? x3
How, how, How could I?
- I am learning what I don't know yet, I am changing...I am learning.
-Wake me up to learn...fall on my face!... Wake me up to learn...
Here is a classic Natural Voice Network move. Take a heartfelt singer/songwriter anthem, and arrange it for Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass. Take a look at the original, and you’ll get more out of the meaning here. It’s a song about the power of the Love within us to bear us through life’s difficulties. Who can’t relate to that?
This love will carry
this love will carry me
I know this love will carry me
love will carry me...
Teaching Tracks
I learned this Haunting Lullaby at Village Fire in 2017. Ladino is a language with heavy Spanish influence, from a time when there was a large Jewish population living in Spain, which was pushed out in 1492. Now Ladino is spoken by pockets of Sephardic Jews in the Israel, the balkans, Turkey, Greece, and North Africa. I am a quarter Sephardic, and have absorbed a fair bit of the culture and magic through that line. There are many different versions of this Ladino lullaby that you can find online, none exactly like this. The words mean, "sleep beautiful child, sleep without worry or pain"
Durme, durme, hermosa donzella,
Durme, durme, sin ansia i dolor,
Durme, durme, sin ansia i dolor.