We’re officially midway through our series of summer workshops, funded by Healthy Minds anti-stigma fund. If you would like to learn more about the workshops, including information on how to sign up (it’s not too late!) then click here.
For the past few weeks, we’ve been running songwriting and music sessions as part of our series of summer workshops. We’ve been getting together at The Dream Machine, a unique creative Glasgow space with a multi-sensory room and a classroom-type space for chatting and workshopping.
The group spent the first week of the songwriting workshops sharing our favourite songs with each other and jamming. We learned the words and chords to ‘Three Little Birds’ by Bob Marley, and then sang it through a few times in the multi-sensory room. We had percussion, guitar, some great harmonising and even a recorder solo!
Then, over lots of cups of tea and coffee, and some great biscuits, Marie got us involved with a creative prompt where we all had to write down songs that felt ‘uplifting’, ‘haunting’, ‘anthemtic’, ‘philosophical’ and ‘daft’. Highlights include ‘The Jeely Piece Song’ and a lot of old school Faithless tunes. We ended the session with a group singsong of Caledonia, with Marie on the guitar. Wasn’t a dry eye in the house!
The next week, we got cracking on writing some songs of our own. Marie played us some instructive songs; lyrics that included an inspirational message or advice. We listened to ‘Affirmation’ by Savage Garden, ‘You Learn’ by Alanis Morissette, and a few more. Then, we had to write down our own inspirational messages, finishing the sentences of “you can”, “i recommend” and “I believe”. Take a look at some of our responses to the prompt by clicking here.
Then we put together all of the lines we had come up with individually, and we had a song! We did some brainstorming regarding the structure of the song – thinking about what the chorus should be, and whether or not there should be a bridge, and by the end of the session, we were all singing away, with Marie improvising chords and melody, and everyone learning as we went along. It was a great session, and we’re already thinking about what comes next for our song.
Watch this space… maybe a Mind Waves band will be coming your way one day… We also have a bit of exciting news for right now – we’re going to be running a monthly open mic and spoken word night at the Dream Machine starting at the end of August! If you like to sing, play an instrument, write music or poetry, or just want to come along to watch, we’d love to see you there. We’re also already planning more music and songwriting sessions, as these workshops were such a hit. The next workshop in our summer series is an online poetry session on the 17th July. Get in touch by emailing maddy@mindwavesnews.com if you want to find out more or sign up!
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