The Dance Between…

Where Contact Improvisation meets Collaborative Vocal Improvisation

A 4-day residential immersion with Rick Nodine and Briony Greenhill

Vocal improvisation artists and contact improvisation artists are invited to come together, to follow the cord of aliveness between music and movement.

Rick Nodine is a leading teacher of Contact Improvisation (CI), based in London. This is a rare opportunity to have an immersive 4 day residential drop in with Rick.

Briony is “one of the world’s leading proponents of Collaborative Vocal Improvisation - CVI” - The Guardian. She helps students to co-create beautiful, powerful, tender, surprising vocal music in the moment; overcoming barriers to being present with the music and each other, and letting the music flow - musically. She became inspired for this collaboration after having a very lovely time singing while Rick danced with Pipaluk Supernova.

The meeting of dancers and singers can provide rich creative opportunities for the more experienced practitioner, while support for beginners is intended. 

To work with Briony, you need to be able to sing in tune, keep a beat, and want an adventure.

To work with Rick, you need to have a body and be able to focus your attention on it.

Video introduction

We invite you to watch this short video introduction to what you can expect from this retreat…

At last, we are coming together: Briony Greenhill and Holly Stoppit combine our quite formidable forces for a deep week of singing, fooling, self-exploration, improvisation, creative expression, embodiment, nature connection, play, fun, joy, depth and support in the deep sweet sacred land of Embercombe, in Devon UK.

Briony will lead Collaborative Vocal Improvisation - a wonderful art-form of making up vocal music on the spot with others. It’s an exciting, beautiful, thrilling, deep, challenging approach to singing for those who can sing in tune, keep a beat, and want an adventure. Some classes will be broken into beginner-intermediate and intermediate-advanced levelled groups so that everyone can be met with just what they’re ready for.

Holly will share her treasure trove of ensemble improvisation, site-responsive play and fooling, a form of solo improvisation where you embody all the voices in your head. We’ll playfully connect as a group, building trust and support, before we start to get to know the parts of us that come up when we are seen and heard. With curiosity and compassion, we’ll tenderly greet the shy parts who want to crawl under chairs, we’ll welcome the show off parts who want to dance on tables, we’ll XXX with the mean parts that tell us we’re rubbish, and we’ll make space for all the other parts who show up. In doing so, we’ll free up energy to bring into our improvisation and into our lives.

It will be a bold, liberating, connecting, fun, expansive midsummer week. Pray to the gods of British summertime to bestow good weather upon us and we will be able to enjoy Embercombe’s swimming lake, shady forest and lush meadows in abundance.

We will work sometimes together as a whole group and sometimes separate into two groups, each working with one teacher - then swapping over. At these times we’ll divide by singing level so that everyone is appropriately met. We’ll have evenings of cabarets, creative time together around the fire, and downtime on the land.

We’ll sleep in very comfy yurts, be fed Embercombe’s delicious healthy fresh food; and enjoy together a space without alcohol or mobile signal, unplugging, detoxing, and recharging, finding that spark within and between us, and with a little luck, co-creating delight with it.

This is for mixed experience levels. Everyone needs to be able to sing in tune and keep a beat. Basic intro work will be available for the newcomer, as well as great creative opportunities for the more experienced practitioner.

Video introduction

We invite you to watch this short video introduction to what you can expect from this retreat…

With Guillermo Rozenthuler and Briony Greenhill

Hello dear singers with previous experience in Vocal Improvisation,

This weekend is for you. The aims are to develop everyone’s personal and ensemble practice and to grow as vocal improvisers, through a process of singing together, in-the-moment coaching and sharing.

We are coming alongside each other for the first time (at least, the first time since we co-created the London Vocal Improv Collective in 2011!), hoping to offer a broader and more diverse panorama of the possibilities of vocal improvisation to our expanding community of singers. 

Together, we’ll draw from our years of personal and shared experience, introduce new ways in, hold space for new explorations and paths to deepen the practice of the forms learned before.

You will have a chance to sing in many configurations of CVI and receive encouraging feedback and ideas from both of us individually. We want the weekend to be an invitation for everyone to become more rounded, versatile and confident as a vocal improviser. 

A time to unwind, nourish, exchange music, joy and energy. A time to share our love for this amazing and transformative artform, singing together in as many ways as possible.  

Video introduction

We invite you to watch this short video introduction to what you can expect from this retreat…

@ Ashprington Village Hall, nr Totnes, Devon

Saturday 10am - 5pm

Sunday 10 - 4.30pm.

This Introductory weekend is currently full.

You can add yourself to the wait list linked below in case someone drops out and a space opens up. Also, please note that the next Beginner - Intermediate Intro to CVI will be November 30 - Dec 1.

Collaborative Vocal Improvisation (CVI) is a thrilling, inspiring, challenging, ancient, and contemporary approach to singing with others. When we sing together without a song, composer or conductor, those roles become shared in the moment with spontaneously created music and emergent shared leadership. It involves deep listening to self, other and the space between us, and an adjustment to improvisation: new for many people, often quite scary, and usually thrilling and hugely nourishing.

This beginner-intermediate introduction is for people with little to no experience of improvisation, who may feel a bit shy to share the voice, but are up for having a go. To access this art-form you need to be able to sing in tune and keep a beat. This work can help cultivate the natural magnificence of your voice, and reduce self-judgement and help you love your voice.

Led by Briony Greenhill who is one of the UK’s leading teachers of CVI. She has studied extensively with CVI pioneers Rhiannon, David Worm, Joey Blake, and Improvisation pioneer Bobby McFerrin, as well as improvisation teachers in France and India, and leading piano teachers in California. She continues to pioneer the therapeutic application of CVI, her integration of CVI teaching with her SomaSource therapeutic training with Dr Melissa Michaels, and what unfolds in her teaching. 

She is creator of the Resonant Body method for cultivating the magnificence of each unique, natural voice, and vocal and personal healing.

She has released four entirely improvised albums - Listen, Sketches, Voice Unknown and Remembering. Her debut studio album, Crossing the Ocean, was released in 2022 and featured in The Guardian, Mojo, Women’s Hour and Radio 3. Briony is a founding member of the new The Well Global Vocal Improvisation and the UK vocal improvisation festival.

To hear about everything as it happens or in advance, subscribe to the mailing list.

Practicalities

Hot drinks will be provided.

It’s best if you don’t drink alcohol on the preceding evenings; CVI asks for and cultivates a high level of presence and sensitisation, and alcohol can blur that somewhat.

Please bring a packed lunch and any snacks you may need.

Please bring a yoga mat and blanket on the Sunday. If you’re coming from further afield by train, local people may be able to bring extra for you.

Cost

£169 Early bird (before 1 March)

£199 Later Bird (after 1 March)

Limited to 16 places.

Students have said:

“One of the most powerful experiences of my life! I feel changed on a cellular level!” (ok it was a 4 day retreat not a weekend…)

“Briony really made us all feel at home – starting off with exercises that didn’t force me outside of my comfort zone, and a no judgement pact, really allowed me to feel comfortable with the group, which then gave me the confidence to try out some solos.”

“It was seriously fun, crazy, inspiring, opening and meditative, all at the same time.”

“Some singing teachers teach you sing with your voice. Briony teaches you to sing with your heart and sing from your soul.”

“You made it feel like a womb. Protected, loved, nourished, warm and holding.”

Please direct questions to info@brionygreenhill.com.

Assistant Places

Two assistant places are available at half price. If you'd like to be the assistant, please email info@brionygreenhill.com. The assistant arrives an hour before and leaves 30-60 mins after on each day and helps with set up, pack down, tea and kitchen overview and facilitating the group to clean up after lunch. The assistant doesn’t have an assistant role during the singing sessions and is 100% participant in those times.

CVI, Collaborative Vocal Improvisation, is a delicious approach to being a singer; co-creating music with others in the moment in ways that are diverse, thrilling, challenging, deep, and delightful.

Here is a video about Briony’s teaching:

Vocal Improvisation can be applied to performance, composition, healing, ritual, community singing, music education, recording and your ongoing creative life.

This is a 4-day residential retreat for singers with some experience of improvisation or some degree of singing confidence. You need to be able to sing in tune and keep a beat. If you’re very shy to be heard, a better option initially would be Vocal Transformation.

We’ll explore the CVI forms, bring out our voices, do the Resonant Body practice for vocal optimisation, learn to improvise with words, and play. We’ll support the emotional and psychological aspects of becoming comfortable with improvising (which can be scary initially) - all held in a trauma-informed space.

Kindness, support, community, and lots and lots of singing.

There’ll be optional yoga and dance most mornings before breakfast (bring kit), a hot tub, and three vegetarian partly organic meals provided daily.

Prices vary by accommodation type:

Camping £725

Standard twin £755

En-suite twin £795

Standard single £825

En suite single £855

2 assistant places are available at a £150 discount.

About Briony Greenhill

Briony is “one of the world’s leading proponents of collaborative vocal improvisation (CVI)” - Laura Barton, The Guardian. She has been teaching CVI internationally for a decade, and students call her a “master” whose work is “life changing”. 

Briony’s recent album was featured on Woman’s Hour, The Guardian, Radio 3 and Mojo, and all songs were sourced in improvisation. She has performed live with some of the world’s leading vocal improvisers.

She’s a founding member of The Well, the new Global Vocal Improvisation Guild; co-founder of the UK’s first Vocal Improvisation Festival, and maker of what is perhaps the world’s first Vocal Improvisation app, Your Song. She has released four entirely improvised albums, including what we believe are the world’s first entirely improvised 5 and 6 voice albums (Listen and Remembering).

Briony teaches vocal musicianship - Chops for Singers - from beginner to advanced levels. As a qualified SomaSource Leader, Briony is experienced in supportively holding the inner themes that can emerge through work with vocal improvisation: grief; personal and collective trauma, a wide range of emotions, a multitude of parts. She draws from somatic trauma healing, IFS, and Soul work to compassionately support students as they face what stands in the way of their access to their free, natural, unique, magnificent voice that is our birthright, and an open pipe to the songs of now. It can be transformational. (Having said that, in an intermediate-advanced intro weekend there is not a whole lot of space to go into these things - not as much as on a week-long, year long, or Vocal Transformation course.)

Vocal Improvisation can be applied to community singing, therapy and healing; ritual and ceremony; recording and performing; collaboration with other singers, instrumentalists and inter-disciplinary artists; composing and songwriting, arranging and producing, music education, and your ongoing creative life.

Students have said:

“Working with Briony has been such a gift for me. Her expertise in the field of voice work is inspirational and I have felt so supported by her generosity, strength and tenderness. As someone who also works with the voice, I have felt so ignited by her guidance and knowledge. I took part in her Vocal Improvisation Retreat and it gave me so much for my own creative path. I feel so blessed to have worked with Briony and consider her to be a fantastic leader in this field. I will continue to work with Briony as it nourishes my creative path as a musician and as a vocal facilitator.”

— Nessi Gomes, Artist, Teacher

“I’ve loved every minute of working with you and I think all instrumental students should do this. In fact I wish every person could experience this way of being. I have taught music at the conservatory level and at the early childhood level; at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Levine School of Music, The Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning through the Arts, etc. I trained in Juilliard, New York in Dalcroze Eurhyrhmics, a Swiss body-based approach to teaching and developing musicianship, which is extremely powerful work. 

But what you bring specifically to the voice is something quite unique. To me it’s body-based, soul-based, healing-based, and community / collective-oriented. Your vocal work has a spiritual dimension that Dalcroze Eurhyrhmics only hints at. It’s very beautiful. I’m quite certain that the need and the desire for what you offer is immense.”

— Marcia Daft, Music Education Specialist

“I mostly wanted to express my deep gratitude for what you do and what you have opened in my life. CVI has literally changed my life. The structures, the skills, the tools I learned in circles with you have opened up my musical and my daily life. I have been able to finally experience and be part of nourishing, exciting musical collaborations! My song writing, my teaching, my performing is transformed by my willingness to stand in the void and let music move through me.” - Emily, choir leader and singer songwriter

“I feel so much more free vocally and like I’m accessing music from a new perspective. You’re a wonderful, nurturing teacher and have so much wisdom that ripples out far beyond the vocal realm.” - Pearl, vocal improvisation teacher

“Thank you for a revelatory and transformational weekend Briony! Much has moved in me. 🙏🏻” Mark

“And then after our course was done the peer group continued…and this has been such an incredible blessing in my life.  I can’t even say how much it has meant to me over the last year and a half.  Those beautiful people and voices are in my heart (and I hope my life) forever.” - Anon

“The benefits of the course are rippling out in my life in subtle and crystal clear ways. I feel more confident in all areas of my life.” - Lucy

“If everyone in the world did this, there would be no problems. I’m just so high from it! I don’t know of anything, any therapy, that makes me feel this way.” - Isabel

“It’s amazing what’s there. It’s amazing what’s there when I start listening instead of leading.” - Anon

“How rich to have witnessed all these people sharing their voices and words and movements, it really was spectacular. I'm so so glad I came, I trusted you and was right to trust you.” - Anon

“It truly is a temple, bringing up such deep stuff.” - Isabel 

“It’s all leadership and listening I reckon, and that’s what you teach. Finding our voice, facing out fears, following our hearts, listening deep within, expressing our love, it’s all what you do 🙂” Dave

“Thank you so much for such a brilliant course and for holding space so beautifully and so generously. It really has been an eye-opener for me in terms of how powerful the voice can be for healing.” - Bex

“I am the youngest of 4 and always held back. Until I finally realised it wasn't my shadow I was standing in and suddenly really enjoyed performing! Briony Greenhill helped so much.” - Jane

“I’m discovering a reservoir of power actually, which I suspected was there but I hadn’t actually felt or experienced coming through in the way that it is, both in my voice and in my day to day. It’s very much like something has been stirred and invigorated and given some channel to start moving in the world, and this is really really really exciting, and really beautiful. I’m just absolutely delighted by it.” - Tom Hirons, writer and storyteller

“Suppressing non-verbal emotional expression increases autonomic arousal, leading to a higher likelihood of being diagnosed with cancer, high blood pressure, ulcers and other major and minor health problems (Pennebaker and Chew, 1985)” - from Conor O’Brien’s Masters Dissertation about CVI in the context of Music Therapy.

“I just want to say thank you for bringing me to a place where I can work to uncover bits of myself that I’m longing for, and that’s what the work does. Last night was so utterly, utterly unique and sort of, sacred for me, because to build those connections and have that closeness to people who I hardly know, to be honest, is - it makes it worth being alive. Your own, amazing solo was an unexpected gift.” - Anonymous

”Briony, I thank you for all the roads you have taken in life that have brought you to where, and how and who you are.❤️ The breadth and depth of what you teach is so vast and yet the experience is so supremely intimate, such a sweet and desired juxtaposition.  My soul is showering you with gratitude for opening up this world to me!🙏🏼 “ - Elaine 

Please direct questions to info@brionygreenhill.com.

Collaborative Vocal Improvisation (CVI) - the art of making spontaneously co-composed vocal music with others - is rising in popularity in the UK and around the world - because it feels brilliant. And terrifying. And liberating. And next level for keen singers.

Here is a Guardian Article about this work, and a short video about Briony’s teaching. 

Studying CVI with Briony encompasses:

• Using and developing our chops - our skilled creative use of our abilities with rhythm, harmony and melody

• Deeply cultivating the unique magnificence of the voice using the Resonant Body method

• Growing into the ability to improvise live in front of an audience from a place of relaxation and presence

• Deepening our listening

• Support for the deep inner work that the art form asks of us

• Personal growth and transformation

• Refreshing the spiritual connection with music - returning to the source, sourcing from the void

• Making really good music, delightfully and surprisingly so - out of thin air in the moment, alone and with others

• Emergent co-creation - potentially entering a higher state of surrender where we are sung

• Finding your unique authentic expression and style

Intermediate - advanced workshops with Briony are for experienced singers, performing / recording artists, choir leaders, singer-songwriters, music graduates / teachers / keen students who can sing in tune, keep a beat, and are ready to jump in.

Practicalities

• Timing: 10am - 5pm Saturday, 10-4.30pm Sunday. Please arrive 15 mins early for a prompt start. We may end up to 10 mins over time.

• Hot drinks will be provided

• Please bring a packed lunch and any snacks you may want

• On the Sunday please bring a yoga mat and blanket for floor work. If you are coming from afar by train, probably local people can bring extra.

  
  

About Briony Greenhill

Briony is “one of the world’s leading proponents of collaborative vocal improvisation (CVI)” - Laura Barton, The Guardian. She has been teaching CVI internationally for a decade, and students call her a “master” whose work is “life changing”. 

Briony’s recent album was featured on Woman’s Hour, The Guardian, Radio 3 and Mojo, and all songs were sourced in improvisation. She has performed live with some of the world’s leading vocal improvisers.

She’s a founding member of The Well, the new Global Vocal Improvisation Guild; co-founder of the UK’s first Vocal Improvisation Festival, and maker of what is perhaps the world’s first Vocal Improvisation app, Your Song. She has released four entirely improvised albums, including what we believe are the world’s first entirely improvised 5 and 6 voice albums (Listen and Remembering).

Briony teaches vocal musicianship - Chops for Singers - from beginner to advanced levels. As a qualified SomaSource Leader, Briony is experienced in supportively holding the inner themes that can emerge through work with vocal improvisation: grief; personal and collective trauma, a wide range of emotions, a multitude of parts. She draws from somatic trauma healing, IFS, and Soul work to compassionately support students as they face what stands in the way of their access to their free, natural, unique, magnificent voice that is our birthright, and an open pipe to the songs of now. It can be transformational. (Having said that, in an intermediate-advanced intro weekend there is not a whole lot of space to go into these things - not as much as on a week-long, year long, or Vocal Transformation course.)

Vocal Improvisation can be applied to community singing, therapy and healing; ritual and ceremony; recording and performing; collaboration with other singers, instrumentalists and inter-disciplinary artists; composing and songwriting, arranging and producing, and music education.

Students have said:

“Working with Briony has been such a gift for me. Her expertise in the field of voice work is inspirational and I have felt so supported by her generosity, strength and tenderness. As someone who also works with the voice, I have felt so ignited by her guidance and knowledge. I took part in her Vocal Improvisation Retreat and it gave me so much for my own creative path. I feel so blessed to have worked with Briony and consider her to be a fantastic leader in this field. I will continue to work with Briony as it nourishes my creative path as a musician and as a vocal facilitator.”

— Nessi Gomes, Artist, Teacher

“I’ve loved every minute of working with you and I think all instrumental students should do this. In fact I wish every person could experience this way of being. I have taught music at the conservatory level and at the early childhood level; at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Levine School of Music, The Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning through the Arts, etc. I trained in Juilliard, New York in Dalcroze Eurhyrhmics, a Swiss body-based approach to teaching and developing musicianship, which is extremely powerful work. 

But what you bring specifically to the voice is something quite unique. To me it’s body-based, soul-based, healing-based, and community / collective-oriented. Your vocal work has a spiritual dimension that Dalcroze Eurhyrhmics only hints at. It’s very beautiful. I’m quite certain that the need and the desire for what you offer is immense.”

— Marcia Daft, Music Education Specialist

“I mostly wanted to express my deep gratitude for what you do and what you have opened in my life. CVI has literally changed my life. The structures, the skills, the tools I learned in circles with you have opened up my musical and my daily life. I have been able to finally experience and be part of nourishing, exciting musical collaborations! My song writing, my teaching, my performing is transformed by my willingness to stand in the void and let music move through me.” - Emily, choir leader and singer songwriter

“I feel so much more free vocally and like I’m accessing music from a new perspective. You’re a wonderful, nurturing teacher and have so much wisdom that ripples out far beyond the vocal realm.” - Pearl, vocal improvisation teacher

“Thank you for a revelatory and transformational weekend Briony! Much has moved in me. 🙏🏻” Mark

“And then after our course was done the peer group continued…and this has been such an incredible blessing in my life.  I can’t even say how much it has meant to me over the last year and a half.  Those beautiful people and voices are in my heart (and I hope my life) forever.” - Anon

“The benefits of the course are rippling out in my life in subtle and crystal clear ways. I feel more confident in all areas of my life.” - Lucy

“If everyone in the world did this, there would be no problems. I’m just so high from it! I don’t know of anything, any therapy, that makes me feel this way.” - Isabel

“It’s amazing what’s there. It’s amazing what’s there when I start listening instead of leading.” - Anon

“How rich to have witnessed all these people sharing their voices and words and movements, it really was spectacular. I'm so so glad I came, I trusted you and was right to trust you.” - Anon

“It truly is a temple, bringing up such deep stuff.” - Isabel 

“It’s all leadership and listening I reckon, and that’s what you teach. Finding our voice, facing out fears, following our hearts, listening deep within, expressing our love, it’s all what you do 🙂” Dave

“Thank you so much for such a brilliant course and for holding space so beautifully and so generously. It really has been an eye-opener for me in terms of how powerful the voice can be for healing.” - Bex

“I am the youngest of 4 and always held back. Until I finally realised it wasn't my shadow I was standing in and suddenly really enjoyed performing! Briony Greenhill helped so much.” - Jane

“I’m discovering a reservoir of power actually, which I suspected was there but I hadn’t actually felt or experienced coming through in the way that it is, both in my voice and in my day to day. It’s very much like something has been stirred and invigorated and given some channel to start moving in the world, and this is really really really exciting, and really beautiful. I’m just absolutely delighted by it.” - Tom Hirons, writer and storyteller

“Suppressing non-verbal emotional expression increases autonomic arousal, leading to a higher likelihood of being diagnosed with cancer, high blood pressure, ulcers and other major and minor health problems (Pennebaker and Chew, 1985)” - from Conor O’Brien’s Masters Dissertation about CVI in the context of Music Therapy.

“I just want to say thank you for bringing me to a place where I can work to uncover bits of myself that I’m longing for, and that’s what the work does. Last night was so utterly, utterly unique and sort of, sacred for me, because to build those connections and have that closeness to people who I hardly know, to be honest, is - it makes it worth being alive. Your own, amazing solo was an unexpected gift.” - Anonymous

”Briony, I thank you for all the roads you have taken in life that have brought you to where, and how and who you are.❤️ The breadth and depth of what you teach is so vast and yet the experience is so supremely intimate, such a sweet and desired juxtaposition.  My soul is showering you with gratitude for opening up this world to me!🙏🏼 “ - Elaine 

Please direct questions to info@brionygreenhill.com.

Assistant Places

Two assistant places are available at half price. The assistant arrives an hour before and leaves 30-60 mins after on each day and helps with set up, pack down, tea and kitchen overview and facilitating the group to clean up after lunch. The assistant doesn’t have an assistant role during the singing sessions and is 100% participant in those times. If you'd like to be the assistant, please email info@brionygreenhill.com.

Dear Singers

I invite you to join me for a new-year weekend of deep diving into Collaborative Vocal Improvisation. This is a weekend for all experience levels; I trust that the more experienced folks will bring the newer folks along in our flow; and we’ll all hold each other in kindness.

CVI is a wonderful artform of improvising vocal music together with others in the moment. It’s thrilling and fun and challenging and can deeply connect us to ourselves, one another, and our surroundings.

Here is a video about my teaching if you are new to this.

We’ll warm ourselves up, do some forms to lead us in, and then play play play, with duet, 4 and 5 person forms (weather permitting), improvising with language, possibly some supported solos, a little Resonant Body work and some yummy CVI sound healing for the midwinter.

Each day, arrive from 10am for a 10.30 start

Bring your own lunch and snacks (there’s a full kitchen there - we’ll have 1h for lunch).

We’ll be done by 4.45 for a 5pm departure.

Full price: $305

Bursary price - 3 places $205

Assistant price - 2 places $105

Staying Over

There is a dorm above the barn where folks can stay for a donation to the barn. Joan Hanna says: also if anyone wishes to stay, they can make a donation to the barn. Others will benefit. May all beings be happy! and free of suffering.

There is a full kitchen in the garage by the barn, a shower, and heating everywhere. There are 7 foam single mattresses and tumbling mats could be doubled up. There is a parking lot before the barn, and beach access.

Briony Greenhill is “one of the world’s leading proponents of collaborative vocal improvisation (CVI)” - The Guardian.

CVI is the art of co-creating vocal music in the moment. Here is a short film about Briony’s teaching. Briony is in the lineage of Bobby McFerrin, Rhiannon, Joey Blake and others, and holds the transformational aspects of the art form with skill and care.

Briony is a co-founder of The Well Global Vocal Improvisation Network, and the UK Vocal Improvisation Festival.

She has released 4 entirely improvised albums. Her debut studio album took improvisations and reproduced them adding instrumentation in the studio. Crossing the Ocean featured in The Guardian, Mojo, Radio 3, Woman’s Hour and more.

Briony teaches vocal musicianship from beginner to advanced levels, while also honouring the spiritual, ritual and therapeutic application of CVI. She is a qualified SomaSource Leader; a “psycho-spiritual educator, artist, activist and healer who has an integrated understanding of how to creatively work in developmentally attuned ways with diverse people throughout life’s cycles.” You can read more about Briony’s teaching values, Vocal Musicianship Trainings, and a history of vocal improvisation in the American tradition here.

Students have said:

“One of the most powerful experiences of my life! I feel changed on a cellular level!” (ok it was a 4 day retreat not a weekend…)

“Briony really made us all feel at home – starting off with exercises that didn’t force me outside of my comfort zone, and a no judgement pact, really allowed me to feel comfortable with the group, which then gave me the confidence to try out some solos.”

“It was seriously fun, crazy, inspiring, opening and meditative, all at the same time.”

“Some singing teachers teach you sing with your voice. Briony teaches you to sing with your heart and sing from your soul.”

“You made it feel like a womb. Protected, loved, nourished, warm and holding.”

Please direct questions to info@brionygreenhill.com.

This weekend is now fully booked. Click here to add your name to the wait list

Dear Singers

I invite you to join me for a weekend of mid-winter deep diving into Collaborative Vocal Improvisation. This is a weekend for all experience levels; I trust that the more experienced folks will bring the newer folks along in our flow; and we’ll all hold each other in kindness.

CVI is a wonderful artform of improvising vocal music together with others in the moment. It’s thrilling and fun and challenging and can deeply connect us to ourselves, one another, and our surroundings.

Here is a video about my teaching if you are new to this.

We’ll warm ourselves up, do some refresher forms to lead us back in, and then play play play, with duet, 4 and 5 person forms, improvising with language, some supported solos, a little Resonant Body work and some yummy sound healing for the midwinter.

Each day, arrive from 10am for a 10.30 start

Bring your own lunch and snacks

We’ll be done by 4.45 for a 5pm departure.

Full price: $325

Bursary price - 3 places $225

Assistant price - 2 places $125

Please contact info@brionygreenhill.com if you would like to be an assistant.

Briony Greenhill is “one of the world’s leading proponents of collaborative vocal improvisation (CVI)” - The Guardian.

CVI is the art of co-creating vocal music in the moment. Here is a short film about Briony’s teaching. Briony is in the lineage of Bobby McFerrin, Rhiannon, Joey Blake and others, and holds the transformational aspects of the art form with skill and care.

Briony is a co-founder of The Well Global Vocal Improvisation Network, and the UK Vocal Improvisation Festival.

She has released 4 entirely improvised albums. Her debut studio album took improvisations and reproduced them adding instrumentation in the studio. Crossing the Ocean featured in The Guardian, Mojo, Radio 3, Woman’s Hour and more.

Briony teaches vocal musicianship from beginner to advanced levels, while also honouring the spiritual, ritual and therapeutic application of CVI. She is a qualified SomaSource Leader; a “psycho-spiritual educator, artist, activist and healer who has an integrated understanding of how to creatively work in developmentally attuned ways with diverse people throughout life’s cycles.” You can read more about Briony’s teaching values, Vocal Musicianship Trainings, and a history of vocal improvisation in the American tradition here.

Students have said:

“One of the most powerful experiences of my life! I feel changed on a cellular level!” (ok it was a 4 day retreat not a weekend…)

“Briony really made us all feel at home – starting off with exercises that didn’t force me outside of my comfort zone, and a no judgement pact, really allowed me to feel comfortable with the group, which then gave me the confidence to try out some solos.”

“It was seriously fun, crazy, inspiring, opening and meditative, all at the same time.”

“Some singing teachers teach you sing with your voice. Briony teaches you to sing with your heart and sing from your soul.”

“You made it feel like a womb. Protected, loved, nourished, warm and holding.”

Please direct questions to info@brionygreenhill.com.

Collaborative Vocal Improvisation (CVI) - the art of making spontaneously co-composed vocal music with others - is rising in popularity in the UK and around the world - because it feels brilliant. And terrifying. And liberating. And next level for keen singers.

Here is a Guardian Article about this work, and a short video about Briony’s teaching. 

Studying CVI with Briony encompasses:

• Using and developing our chops - our skilled creative use of our abilities with rhythm, harmony and melody

• Deeply cultivating the unique magnificence of the voice using the Resonant Body method

• Growing into the ability to improvise live in front of an audience from a place of relaxation and presence

• Deepening our listening

• Support for the deep inner work that the art form asks of us

• Personal growth and transformation

• Refreshing the spiritual connection with music - returning to the source, sourcing from the void

• Making really good music, delightfully and surprisingly so - out of thin air in the moment, alone and with others

• Emergent co-creation - potentially entering a higher state of surrender where we are sung

• Finding your unique authentic expression and style

Intermediate - advanced workshops with Briony are for experienced singers, performing / recording artists, choir leaders, singer-songwriters, music graduates / teachers / keen students who can sing in tune, keep a beat, and are ready to jump in.

Practicalities

• Timing: 10am - 5pm Saturday, 10-4.30pm Sunday. Please arrive 15 mins early for a prompt start. We may end up to 10 mins over time.

• Hot drinks will be provided

• Please bring a packed lunch and any snacks you may want

• On the Sunday please bring a yoga mat and blanket for floor work. If you are coming from afar by train, probably local people can bring extra.

Assistant Places

Two assistant places are available at half price. The assistant arrives an hour before and leaves 30-60 mins after on each day and helps with set up, pack down, tea and kitchen overview and facilitating the group to clean up after lunch. The assistant doesn’t have an assistant role during the singing sessions and is 100% participant in those times. If you'd like to be the assistant, please email info@brionygreenhill.com.

About Briony Greenhill

Briony is “one of the world’s leading proponents of collaborative vocal improvisation (CVI)” - Laura Barton, The Guardian. She has been teaching CVI internationally for a decade, and students call her a “master” whose work is “life changing”. 

Briony’s recent album was featured on Woman’s Hour, The Guardian, Radio 3 and Mojo, and all songs were sourced in improvisation. She has performed live with some of the world’s leading vocal improvisers.

She’s a founding member of The Well, the new Global Vocal Improvisation Guild; co-founder of the UK’s first Vocal Improvisation Festival, and maker of what is perhaps the world’s first Vocal Improvisation app, Your Song. She has released four entirely improvised albums, including what we believe are the world’s first entirely improvised 5 and 6 voice albums (Listen and Remembering).

Briony teaches vocal musicianship - Chops for Singers - from beginner to advanced levels. As a qualified SomaSource Leader, Briony is experienced in supportively holding the inner themes that can emerge through work with vocal improvisation: grief; personal and collective trauma, a wide range of emotions, a multitude of parts. She draws from somatic trauma healing, IFS, and Soul work to compassionately support students as they face what stands in the way of their access to their free, natural, unique, magnificent voice that is our birthright, and an open pipe to the songs of now. It can be transformational. (Having said that, in an intermediate-advanced intro weekend there is not a whole lot of space to go into these things - not as much as on a week-long, year long, or Vocal Transformation course.)

Vocal Improvisation can be applied to community singing, therapy and healing; ritual and ceremony; recording and performing; collaboration with other singers, instrumentalists and inter-disciplinary artists; composing and songwriting, arranging and producing, and music education.

Students have said:

“Working with Briony has been such a gift for me. Her expertise in the field of voice work is inspirational and I have felt so supported by her generosity, strength and tenderness. As someone who also works with the voice, I have felt so ignited by her guidance and knowledge. I took part in her Vocal Improvisation Retreat and it gave me so much for my own creative path. I feel so blessed to have worked with Briony and consider her to be a fantastic leader in this field. I will continue to work with Briony as it nourishes my creative path as a musician and as a vocal facilitator.”

— Nessi Gomes, Artist, Teacher

“I’ve loved every minute of working with you and I think all instrumental students should do this. In fact I wish every person could experience this way of being. I have taught music at the conservatory level and at the early childhood level; at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Levine School of Music, The Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning through the Arts, etc. I trained in Juilliard, New York in Dalcroze Eurhyrhmics, a Swiss body-based approach to teaching and developing musicianship, which is extremely powerful work. 

But what you bring specifically to the voice is something quite unique. To me it’s body-based, soul-based, healing-based, and community / collective-oriented. Your vocal work has a spiritual dimension that Dalcroze Eurhyrhmics only hints at. It’s very beautiful. I’m quite certain that the need and the desire for what you offer is immense.”

— Marcia Daft, Music Education Specialist

“I mostly wanted to express my deep gratitude for what you do and what you have opened in my life. CVI has literally changed my life. The structures, the skills, the tools I learned in circles with you have opened up my musical and my daily life. I have been able to finally experience and be part of nourishing, exciting musical collaborations! My song writing, my teaching, my performing is transformed by my willingness to stand in the void and let music move through me.” - Emily, choir leader and singer songwriter

“I feel so much more free vocally and like I’m accessing music from a new perspective. You’re a wonderful, nurturing teacher and have so much wisdom that ripples out far beyond the vocal realm.” - Pearl, vocal improvisation teacher

“Thank you for a revelatory and transformational weekend Briony! Much has moved in me. 🙏🏻” Mark

“And then after our course was done the peer group continued…and this has been such an incredible blessing in my life.  I can’t even say how much it has meant to me over the last year and a half.  Those beautiful people and voices are in my heart (and I hope my life) forever.” - Anon

“The benefits of the course are rippling out in my life in subtle and crystal clear ways. I feel more confident in all areas of my life.” - Lucy

“If everyone in the world did this, there would be no problems. I’m just so high from it! I don’t know of anything, any therapy, that makes me feel this way.” - Isabel

“It’s amazing what’s there. It’s amazing what’s there when I start listening instead of leading.” - Anon

“How rich to have witnessed all these people sharing their voices and words and movements, it really was spectacular. I'm so so glad I came, I trusted you and was right to trust you.” - Anon

“It truly is a temple, bringing up such deep stuff.” - Isabel 

“It’s all leadership and listening I reckon, and that’s what you teach. Finding our voice, facing out fears, following our hearts, listening deep within, expressing our love, it’s all what you do 🙂” Dave

“Thank you so much for such a brilliant course and for holding space so beautifully and so generously. It really has been an eye-opener for me in terms of how powerful the voice can be for healing.” - Bex

“I am the youngest of 4 and always held back. Until I finally realised it wasn't my shadow I was standing in and suddenly really enjoyed performing! Briony Greenhill helped so much.” - Jane

“I’m discovering a reservoir of power actually, which I suspected was there but I hadn’t actually felt or experienced coming through in the way that it is, both in my voice and in my day to day. It’s very much like something has been stirred and invigorated and given some channel to start moving in the world, and this is really really really exciting, and really beautiful. I’m just absolutely delighted by it.” - Tom Hirons, writer and storyteller

“Suppressing non-verbal emotional expression increases autonomic arousal, leading to a higher likelihood of being diagnosed with cancer, high blood pressure, ulcers and other major and minor health problems (Pennebaker and Chew, 1985)” - from Conor O’Brien’s Masters Dissertation about CVI in the context of Music Therapy.

“I just want to say thank you for bringing me to a place where I can work to uncover bits of myself that I’m longing for, and that’s what the work does. Last night was so utterly, utterly unique and sort of, sacred for me, because to build those connections and have that closeness to people who I hardly know, to be honest, is - it makes it worth being alive. Your own, amazing solo was an unexpected gift.” - Anonymous

”Briony, I thank you for all the roads you have taken in life that have brought you to where, and how and who you are.❤️ The breadth and depth of what you teach is so vast and yet the experience is so supremely intimate, such a sweet and desired juxtaposition.  My soul is showering you with gratitude for opening up this world to me!🙏🏼 “ - Elaine 

Please direct questions to info@brionygreenhill.com.

Men, we miss you.

Typically 1, 2 or 3 men come to each class I run. The men miss other men. The women miss the men. I don’t know how the non-binary people feel about it.

Singing is core to our humanity. The male template has been repressive to this aspect in some cultures, perhaps British culture.

I know it’s in you. Men, this weekend is for you.

Last time we did it, an epic brotherhood emerged for the weekend. We called it Stag Heart, the feeling of great resourced-ness from being in the healthy company of a group of men.

Many men expressed a sense of vulnerability arriving into a group of men. Is this safe?

They built safety together. I helped, stood back a little more than I normally do.

The voices were Beautiful. There were tears, haka dancing, breakdancing, a solo about a c**k, support, kindness, and a whole lot of magnificent music making.

I’m not expecting it to be like that every time. This is improvisation after all.

But ultimately I would love to cultivate balance in the growing community of CVI (Collaborative Vocal Improvisation) lovers and practitioners; female, male, non-binary, white, black, straight, queer, able bodied, disabled, 

So I call to the musical and the poetic in you; to the vocal and vulnerable; to the rhythmic and harmonic; to the journey into embodiment and en-heart-ment, into brotherhood and wholeness, and the place of voice and singing in that.

I lead as a woman, an experienced teacher of CVI, a happily married woman with a fab Dad, a son on the way as I write, and lots of good male friends, a lover of men.

You are welcome. I will help you to sing and to improvise, and I will hold with care whatever comes up on the way. 

Recommend for people who can sing in tune and keep a beat.

Earlybird £95

Regular bird £125

I’ve got no money but I want to sing £55 (5 spots)

I’ve got money and I want to support others £155

Limited to 16 places.

Students have said:

“I’m discovering a reservoir of power actually, which I suspected was there but I hadn’t actually felt or experienced coming through in the way that it is, both in my voice and in my day to day. It’s very much like something has been stirred and invigorated and given some channel to start moving in the world, and this is really really really exciting, and really beautiful. I’m just absolutely delighted by it.” - Tom Hirons

“Thank you for a revelatory and transformational weekend Briony! Much has moved in me. 🙏🏻” Mark

“Briony's approach to CVI is a kind of revolution. She presents this vibrant, creative and compelling art with a masterful sensitivity to the needs of her students and their unique singing journeys.” - Xander

“It’s all leadership and listening I reckon, and that’s what you teach. Finding our voice, facing out fears, following our hearts, listening deep within, expressing our love, it’s all what you do 🙂” Dave

“It was deeper than an ayahuasca ceremony, I grew more than in workshops with leading psychologists, and it’s the safest I’ve ever felt in a group.” - Robin

“It was seriously fun, crazy, inspiring, opening and meditative, all at the same time.” - Dave

Ashprington Village Hall, Devon TQ9 7UL

Saturday 10am - 5pm

Sunday 10.30 - 4.30pm.

Collaborative Vocal Improvisation (CVI) is a thrilling, inspiring, challenging, ancient, and contemporary approach to singing with others. When we sing together without a song, composer or conductor, those roles become shared in the moment with spontaneously created music and emergent shared leadership. It involves deep listening to self, other and the space between us, and an adjustment to improvisation: new for many people, often quite scary, and usually thrilling and hugely nourishing.

This beginner-intermediate introduction is for people with little to no experience of improvisation, who may feel a bit shy to share the voice, but are up for having a go. To access this art-form you need to be able to sing in tune and keep a beat. This work can help cultivate the natural magnificence of your voice, and reduce self-judgement and help you love your voice.

Led by Briony Greenhill who is one of the UK’s leading teachers of CVI. She has studied extensively with CVI pioneers Rhiannon, David Worm, Joey Blake, and Improvisation pioneer Bobby McFerrin, as well as improvisation teachers in France and India, and leading piano teachers in California. She continues to pioneer the therapeutic application of CVI, her integration of CVI teaching with her SomaSource therapeutic training with Dr Melissa Michaels, and what unfolds in her teaching. 

She is creator of the Resonant Body method for cultivating the magnificence of each unique, natural voice, and vocal and personal healing.

She has released four entirely improvised albums - Listen, Sketches, Voice Unknown and Remembering. Her debut studio album, Crossing the Ocean, was released in 2022 and featured in The Guardian, Mojo, Women’s Hour and Radio 3. Briony is a founding member of the new The Well Global Vocal Improvisation and the UK vocal improvisation festival.

To hear about everything as it happens or in advance, subscribe to the mailing list.

Practicalities

Hot drinks will be provided.

It’s best if you don’t drink alcohol on the preceding evenings; CVI asks for and cultivates a high level of presence and sensitisation, and alcohol can blur that somewhat.

Please bring a packed lunch and any snacks you may need.

Please bring a yoga mat and blanket on the Sunday. If you’re coming from further afield by train, local people may be able to bring extra for you.

Cost

£165 Early bird (before 1 October)

£195 Later Bird (after 1 October)

Limited to 16 places.

Students have said:

“One of the most powerful experiences of my life! I feel changed on a cellular level!” (ok it was a 4 day retreat not a weekend…)

“Briony really made us all feel at home – starting off with exercises that didn’t force me outside of my comfort zone, and a no judgement pact, really allowed me to feel comfortable with the group, which then gave me the confidence to try out some solos.”

“It was seriously fun, crazy, inspiring, opening and meditative, all at the same time.”

“Some singing teachers teach you sing with your voice. Briony teaches you to sing with your heart and sing from your soul.”

“You made it feel like a womb. Protected, loved, nourished, warm and holding.”

Please direct questions to info@brionygreenhill.com.

Assistant Places

Two assistant places are available at half price. The assistant arrives an hour before and leaves 30-60 mins after on each day and helps with set up, pack down, tea and kitchen overview and facilitating the group to clean up after lunch.

The assistant doesn’t have an assistant role during the singing sessions and is 100% participant in those times.

If you'd like to be the assistant, please email info@brionygreenhill.com with a short message about your suitability and interest.

A 6 month online course · Weekly sessions Thursdays 6.30-8pm UK (10.30am-12 Pacific, 7.30-9pm CET)

9th November 2023 - 11th April 2024 with a midwinter break · 21 sessions in total.

Freebie Taster session: 26th October 6.30-7.30pm UK time.

Upper Mouth Lower Mouth is a unique journey for women. We combine pelvic dance arts (belly dance, twerking and sensual dance) with singing and voice work, alongside support for healing, to gradually cultivate liberation, pleasure and aliveness for the female voice and pelvis, in connection. This can lead to an improvement in the singing voice (through improvements in the pelvis) and erotic pleasure; and fewer barriers to enjoying both as a regular and flowing part of your life.

The upper and lower mouths, two gateways to the core of us, are frequently veiled and blocked by our life experiences and cultural imprints.

A journey of gentle unveiling and skilfully supported shifts can increase your experience of pleasure and aliveness, cultivate more freedom of expression, invigorate your life and (re)light your fire! Both mouths are connected, in their inhibition and wounding, and in their healing, reclaiming and wellness.

In Upper Mouth Lower Mouth, we use singing and dancing to clear blockages from the voice and pelvis, helping to chimney sweep the core of you, clearing out shame, limitation, trauma and inhibition. This time we are delighted to be joined by Kalindi Jordan, who will lead three sessions of guided, off-screen self-touch for healing, also known as de-armouring.

Together, all of this can help with recovery from sexual and reproductive trauma, and loss of erotic pleasure and vocal ability due to life experiences and ageing.

The longer we go on, the deeper it gets. Also you build physical fitness, including in the muscles in your pelvic bowl and vocal architecture, over time, so benefits accrue over the duration of the course and onward.

This is the 5th time Upper Mouth, Lower Mouth has run (and the very first time with Kalindi on the team!)

The four of us are honoured and glad to collaborate in service to women’s holistic wellness.

All quotes are from previous Upper Mouth, Lower Mouth participants. (Names have been changed.)

About the Facilitators

Kalindi Jordan

Kalindi is an inspirational group facilitator and therapist working in the field of intimacy coaching, sexual healing, conscious relationships, yoni healing and sacred sexuality.

Assisting couples and individuals to bring deep love, respect and transformation into their relationships.

Kalindi has spent 27 years exploring her own and other people’s energy. Her profound understanding of the human energy system, psychology and sexual nature comes from her study and practice in Taoism, Tantra, Vedic mysticism, bodywork and being present with life as it unfolds. 

The creator of the Sensual Mastery Journey and Amrita Tantra.

Reine Kabban

Reine is a fully trained dancer in Classical Belly Dance, Tribal Fusion and ATS (American Tribal System), a mother and a singer. She's been training and performing dance for 9 years and teaching for over 5 years. She has a background in yoga, meditation, and breath work for more than 15 years, including 2 years living and training in an ashram. 

She currently holds regular retreats in womb work, sexual healing, belly dance, woman's empowerment, emotional release through voice and movement, and so much more.

She holds space very naturally, with depth and ease, creating a  powerful journey with softness and poise. She is simply herself and gives permission to those in her space to claim themselves too. To be wild, be daring, be raw, be sensual, just be.

Previous Upper Mouth, Lower Mouth participants have said:

“I LOVED my intro to belly dancing and Reine’s gorgeous hot witch straight-talking no shit teaching, all stirred in the juicy pot of ancestral and grandmotherly wisdom”

“Very deep and sensual energy and vibe”

“I really admire Reine and the way she embodies her pleasure. It is so helpful in terms of giving permission to practice. It was so delicious to be in her presence and learning with her.”

Leela Stephanie

Tantric Transformational facilitator, Erotic Wisdom coach, Love Priestess, Soul Mystic guide, Sacred cacao ceremonies.

With over 10 years of teaching & performing in Sensual Arts, she uniquely combines body wisdom with her academic, yogic and temple arts training background.

She started teaching sensual dance to women at 18 years old. Since 3 years, she specifically teaches a combination of sacred twerk, emotional alchemy and sensual dance as a way to feel and move emotions, connect and own’s one sensuality, power and pleasure.

Leela is a certified Sensual Arts, Yoga, Meditation & Mantra teacher, Reiki Master, PNL & Holistic Coach and graduated from the Level 3 of the International School of Temple Arts (ISTA).

Known for creating safe and playful transformational containers, she creates individual and collective journeys based on ancestral innovation practices.

As a medicine woman, she helps people to heal, explore and embody their soul’s gifts and humanness - their free, authentic, wild, empowered sexy unique self in harmony and within unity. This is for Leela the most impactful change one can be and contribute to earth consciousness and authentic living.

Leela speaks English, French, Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish & Swiss German.

Previous Upper Mouth, Lower Mouth participants have said:

“Leela was uninhibited, encouraging and inviting in her teaching. Her excitement and voluptuous nature is infectious and makes “trying” more awkward movements and embodiments easier”

“There were some bomb drops of wisdom”

“I loved how Leela was teaching it with so much joy and fun. It released a lot of anxiety and brought a lot of joy.”

“I loved Leela’s vibrant and open energy.”

Briony Greenhill

Briony is a teaching artist who supports healing and transformation through voice and improvisation. She teaches internationally, is creator of the Resonant Body method, an acclaimed recording and performing artist, and a SomaSource leader.

“SomaSource Leaders are body-centred psycho-spiritual educators, artists, activists and healers who have an integrated understanding of how to creatively work in developmentally attuned and culturally sensitive ways with diverse people throughout life’s cycles.” - Golden Bridge.

Previous Upper Mouth, Lower Mouth Participants have said:

“Briony is empathetic, open and wise. I loved every exercise and getting out of the comfy zone.”

“It was amazing to have so many different exercises to play with the voice and the body. I loved Briony’s way of teaching and giving the space that was needed for each of us. I felt really safe.”

“The experience created a safe, playful space for me to explore and befriend my voice.”

“I love her amazing ability to create such an intimate, safe, inspiring space where I really felt the wish to explore my voice more - in a balanced fun and deep way at the same time. I loved her honesty about her own story and the need to accompany other women in this discovery.”

Structure

Overall there are 6 sessions with Reine, 5 with Briony, 5 with Leela, 3 with Kalindi, and an opening and closing session with all of us.

The movement sessions with Reine and Leela will include about 1h of movement, 10 mins of singing led (this time) by Leela and Reine each in their own way (because it is SO wonderful to sing after we dance); and time for sharing.

There is an optional buddy-pair system for extra support outside of the time together on Zoom; and a reading list for extra support. For some who like to read / listen, there is a lot of additional value from the texts.

The classes are recorded and available for 2 weeks after the class. For privacy, sharing is not recorded so you get a lot more from it by attending in person as much as you can.

The Upper Mouth Lower Mouth teaching is gradually being incorporated into Briony’s app. Reine’s course is up, and Leela’s is filmed and awaiting an edit… when Briony is fully back from maternity leave.

Cost

Paid monthly for 6 months

Regular price: £95 / month, £570 total (it works out as £18/hr of class time)

Support others: £125 / month, £750 total (£23.80/hr of class time)

Bursary places: 10 places are available for for low-income, low-wealth folks; you choose your monthly payment amount. Click here to see eligibility and apply.

3 residentials @ Earth Spirit Centre, Nr Glastonbury: 8-12 Oct ‘23 · 11-15 Feb ‘24 · 2-6 June ‘24

Plus 3 weekends @ Ashprington Village Hall, Totnes, Devon: 18-19 Nov ‘23 · 30-31 March ‘24 · 4-5 May ‘24

Wild Voice Solid Roots level 3-4 is a program unlike any other.

It’s a year-long training with 18 days in-person, and support between sessions.

It’s a deep dive into the advanced art of Vocal Improvisation and Collaborative Vocal Improvisation (CVI). It will likely transform your voice and your relationship with your voice, cultivating a more emboldened and authentic way of singing and, I dare say, being.  You will probably end the year ready to teach, practice, perform record and co-create CVI.

This is for intermediate - advanced singers, people with music degrees, choir leaders, performing / recording artists, composers / singer songwriters and such, who want to dive deep into CVI and vocal musicianship.

We’ll study music theory for singers through the voice, ear and body: rhythm, melody and harmony at Levels 3 and Level 4. (Possibly supported by the app for your practice in between gatherings if the advanced courses are ready by then.) It will get your chops up to a good standard to support the rigour behind your creative magnificence as a vocal improviser, in a way that can also be applied more widely to your musicianship, be it as a composer, arranger, songwriter, choir leader, producer, teacher or so on.

We typically study music theory in the mornings and more free-form and expressive CVI in the afternoons. 

It’s an 18 day course spread over 8 months, with three residential 4-day gatherings at Earth Spirit Centre, near Glastonbury, Somerset and three non-residential weekends at Ashprington Village Hall near Totnes, Devon.

Studying CVI, Rhythm, Melody, Harmony, performance and recording.

30th March - we’ll have an open studio on the Saturday Evening at Ashprington, where the public is invited to witness you singing in our familiar environment

4th May - We’ll have a public performance in a concert hall in the Totnes Area

5th June - we’ll have a mobile sound engineer come for a day of recording which will also be filmed. (We’ll all share ownership of the unedited recordings and footage and you can use / edit what you want, subject to consent from everyone in that piece. You can opt out.)

Timing of each day is typically: 8-9am yoga or dance on residentials; 10-1 Solid Roots 2.30 - 5.30pm Wild Voice. 6.30pm dinner, evenings can be free / talking / support / singing together / rest / Wildlings Cabarets / sound healing.

Price, depending on accommodation in the residentials, including healthy mostly organic food on the residentials:

Camping/van* £3015

Standard shared £3115

En suite shared £3225

Standard Single £3300

En suite single £3425

Payment plan available: email info@brionygreenhill.com for more information.

2 assistant places are available at a £500 discount: email info@brionygreenhill.com to apply.

*option to combine camping and room for colder months, priced accordingly

Including

All teaching

Accommodation at Earth Spirit

3 healthy organic meals per day during the residentials (plus snacks and hot drinks). (£26 supplement for special generic diet, i.e. gluten/dairy free)

Monthly group support calls

Support buddy pair system through the year

Sound engineer, camera person, and the concerts.

Up to 16 students.

You will get most out of the course if you clear space in in your life for a daily music practice, 30mins - 2h per day 5 days per week. The more time you allocate, the richer your results will be.

Coed Hills, nr Cardiff, Wales, 2023 - 4

23rd-28th Sept ‘23 · 29th Oct–3rd Nov ‘23 · 17th-22nd March ‘24 · 13th-18th June ‘24

With vocal improvisation, we can sing our inner lives, heal and grow. We can sing what is alive in a group, a room, or even a society - that needs to be expressed. We can to some extent sing the inner lives of others, for their self awareness and wellbeing. We can relate with nature, ancestors, Mystery. It is a skill of ritual, ceremony, therapy and healing.  

For the second time, Briony Greenhill will lead a group of students through a year that focuses exclusively and in depth on these aspects of vocal improvisation. 

Taught in four residential weeks at Coed Hills Retreat Centre in South Wales, near Cardiff.

The first 3 weeks focus on:

Finding my voice and its relation with my inner life

Living my voice and connecting with the Natural World

Opening my voice, and connection with the Unseen

The last week focuses on:

Giving my voice, and stepping into leadership.

Context

What do we mean by ‘re-wilding the voice’ or ‘wild singing’, the title of much of my teaching?

Wildness has got some bad connotations. Raaaa! Wildness is brash, ugly, uncontrollable, loud, wild.

Yet look at the first thing you can perceive that is wild. It may be the air upon your skin; the movement of the clouds above, the wind in the trees.

Wildness can be very still; very delicate.

Wildness is ecological genius.

Wildness is life living, evolving and being shaped by something more than human intelligence.

So when I talk about wild singing, I am talking about stepping out of music that is shaped by human intelligence, and into music that is shaped by more-than-human intelligence.

(This is why some of my students say this is inherently a spiritual practice, and some of my collaborators call it a ‘Jedi training.’)

Entering this state - where were are receptive to the more-than-human intelligence and let it have our voice - we enter, and become more and more able to know and access, a state of deep quiet, listening, and attunement.

In that state, we can hear more.

And this is where people who, honestly, are blocked from the state of deep listening, can reject this as “woo woo”.

I shall continue.

In this state of deep quiet, listening and attunement; 

We can connect with the consciousness, perhaps the wisdom, of trees and rocks.

We can relate with ancestors and perhaps, for some, future generations.

We can feel and sing the inner lives of others

We can feel and sing our own deep inner truths, and through that, come to know them.

Then we can use this work for healing, ritual, prayer, and ‘therapeutic purposes’

I put that in ‘’ because, really, why did we ever separate singing and dancing from therapy? They’re inherently woven.

In between us as we (probably) are today and the state of deep quiet, can be things that we don’t want to feel.

So using the voice and the body, we have beautiful ways to feel and sing and move into those hard places; the voice and movement become like a river, like a water, that dislodges stuck rocks and carries them out to sea.

Rivers are inherently self-healing, self-cleansing.

There is a healing force in the universe and, among all else, we can choose to align ourselves with it.

And in this some choose meditation, some choose shamanism;

I choose voice, and body.

I choose dance, and song.

Some say or feel that it’s dangerous.

Historically, witches and shamans have been persecuted and killed for these capacities.

But, it’s a Thing. It just is, a Thing.

Voice is one of the main ways that led me to this; which is perhaps why some people want to or have been trained to keep their voices quiet; because they fear the depth of the power contained in there.

But it’s safe. Ethics guide us. It’s beautiful. It’s very beautiful indeed.

Here we go.

Cost

The fee includes

• All teaching

• Monthly group calls

• Student buddy pairs providing support and continuity in between

• Lodging at Coed Hills

• 3 organic meals a day + tea and snacks

£4000 for the year. For bursary, assistant info, cancellation & refund policy see Money

Payment plan available: email info@brionygreenhill.com

Up to 16 students.

Singing the Unseen happened first in 2019, and then ceased due to the pandemic. Now, it returns.

Past Students Say:

Course Themes

Finding my voice and its relation with my inner life

We’ll work with tone and self expression. In particular:

The Resonant Body

• Vocal tone; vocal meditation; increasingly subtle somatic awareness of voice, and increasingly awesome vocal quality

• Improvised chakra singing - coming deeply into the resonant body

• Integrating movement for deeper embodiment, deeper self-enquiry and expression.

Voice and the inner life

• Language and creature language

• Establishing a self-exploratory vocal improvisation practice; allowing the inner to express through voice

• Welcoming all of the inner life, borrowing from IFS (internal family systems), clowning (accept, express, exaggerate) and Buddhism / Tara Brach (RAIN: Recognise, Accept, Investigate, Nurture).

• Singing with a drum or rattle

Living ritual: opening, closing, autumn equinox.

Living my voice and connecting with the natural world

The voice, solo and collaborative improvisation

• Deepening our work

Nature connection

• Sit spot practice

• Solo and group practice outside

• Medicine walks, group and private; tree, stone, water, animal conversations and song; plant work

Aspects of living ritual - Samhain

We’re going to live ritual through - directions, creating a container, calling in, letting go, naming, marking, room for mystery, doing the most beautiful job of calling spirit as we can manage today.

Living my voice, and connection with the Unseen

Voice, language and creature language in relationship

• Singing a room, what is alive in a group

• Singing another person’s inner world

• Singing a blessing

• Voice and ancestral connection

• Voice and relationship with Mystery

• Deepening our relationship with listening, emptiness, trust, and being a vessel.

• Sound healing

• Initiations through the life cycle

Living ritual: spring equinox ritual

Giving my voice, and Stepping into Leadership

In the final week, each student has the group for 90 mins; longer if they collaborate. They can facilitate, lead something, perform, request something in the realm of our work together. There is support, reflection and feedback. It unfolds. Last time, it was epic!!

Many students create, collaborate on, lead (if they are called to) and sing in ceremonies together. Stepping up as a ritual singer; using voice in healing, prayer, ceremony and ritual and any other kind of relationship with mystery and the unseen. 

Living ritual every day - and over Summer Solstice

By “the unseen” I mean bigger aliveness, the field of a group / place / person; ancestors, your inner life, the inner life of others, the life in rivers, trees, plants, elements, creatures; interpersonal energetic dynamics; and what we might call Mystery.

About Briony Greenhill

At core, I am a ritual singer. I’m a qualified SomaSource practitioner - “adept at tracking the relationship between the body and the Spirit, creating culturally sensitive experiences that inspire individuals to feel at home within themselves along with feeling a part of the Cosmos, the Mystical.” For three years with the Stepping Stones Project working on youth initiation, I brought voice to the organisation’s ceremonies. I lead and bring voice to grief rituals, integrate aspects of ritual onto the retreats I lead, and was a regular ritual singer at Soulful Sundays in California - a non-denominational community church. I have sung at many weddings.

I spent many years under the leadership of female ceremonialists. Nunutsi Tenipe (Cherokee) led my Vision Quest and was my mentor for 18 months; Melissa Michaels led me in dance rituals and deep healing through improvised movement; Rhiannon taught me a deeply spiritual approach to voice; I have practiced sound healing for years with Shay Nichols and other graduates of the CIIS sound healing program; and I took and later assisted many grief rituals with Sobonfu Some, and have been leading Dagara-style grief rituals since 2016.

So my themes are the feminine, ritual and voice; in the context of my own Earth-based spirituality which is somewhat Daoist-Pagan in nature, and quite practical.

I hold a first class degree in Political Science and have been studying and playing - and will continue to study and play - music my whole life.

I believe we need ceremony and ritual; for our seasons, our communities, our celebrations, transitions through life stages, and to weave the gold back into life and community. We need people to lead and co-lead those ceremonies, and those leaders need our voices - to be at home in our voices, and able to make good use of the inter-connective and transformative power of the voice in a context of ceremony and weaving people, community and nature back together with love.

Vocal Improvisation is good for this.

Here we go.

Scoriton Village Hall, Scorriton, Devon TQ11 0JB (map)

Saturday 10am - 5pm

Sunday 10.30 - 4.30pm.

Collaborative Vocal Improvisation (CVI) is a thrilling, inspiring, challenging, ancient, and contemporary approach to singing with others. When we sing together without a song, composer or conductor, those roles become shared in the moment with spontaneously created music and emergent shared leadership. It involves deep listening to self, other and the space between us, and an adjustment to improvisation: new for many people, often quite scary, and usually thrilling and hugely nourishing.

This beginner-intermediate introduction is for people with little to no experience of improvisation, who may feel a bit shy to share the voice, but are up for having a go. To access this art-form you need to be able to sing in tune and keep a beat. This work can help cultivate the natural magnificence of your voice, and reduce self-judgement and help you love your voice.

Led by Briony Greenhill who is one of the UK’s leading teachers of CVI. She has studied extensively with CVI pioneers Rhiannon, David Worm, Joey Blake, and Improvisation pioneer Bobby McFerrin, as well as improvisation teachers in France and India, and leading piano teachers in California. She continues to pioneer the therapeutic application of CVI, her integration of CVI teaching with her SomaSource therapeutic training with Dr Melissa Michaels, and what unfolds in her teaching. 

She is creator of the Resonant Body method for cultivating the magnificence of each unique, natural voice, and vocal and personal healing.

She has released four entirely improvised albums - Listen, Sketches, Voice Unknown and Remembering. Her debut studio album, Crossing the Ocean, was released in 2022 and featured in The Guardian, Mojo, Women’s Hour and Radio 3. Briony is a founding member of the new The Well Global Vocal Improvisation and the UK vocal improvisation festival.

To hear about everything as it happens or in advance, subscribe to the mailing list.

Practicalities

Hot drinks will be provided.

It’s best if you don’t drink alcohol on the preceding evenings; CVI asks for and cultivates a high level of presence and sensitisation, and alcohol can blur that somewhat.

Please bring a packed lunch and any snacks you may need.

Please bring a yoga mat and blanket on the Sunday. If you’re coming from further afield by train, local people may be able to bring extra for you.

Cost

£165 Early bird (before 1 August)

£195 Later Bird (after 1 August)

Limited to 16 places.

Students have said:

“One of the most powerful experiences of my life! I feel changed on a cellular level!” (ok it was a 4 day retreat not a weekend…)

“Briony really made us all feel at home – starting off with exercises that didn’t force me outside of my comfort zone, and a no judgement pact, really allowed me to feel comfortable with the group, which then gave me the confidence to try out some solos.”

“It was seriously fun, crazy, inspiring, opening and meditative, all at the same time.”

“Some singing teachers teach you sing with your voice. Briony teaches you to sing with your heart and sing from your soul.”

“You made it feel like a womb. Protected, loved, nourished, warm and holding.”

Please direct questions to info@brionygreenhill.com.

Assistant Places

Two assistant places are available at half price. If you'd like to be the assistant, please email info@brionygreenhill.com. The assistant arrives an hour before and leaves 30-60 mins after on each day and helps with set up, pack down, tea and kitchen overview and facilitating the group to clean up after lunch. The assistant doesn’t have an assistant role during the singing sessions and is 100% participant in those times.

Resonant Bodies

Nourishment through the mysteries of voice, sound, body and nervous system, with Anita Lewis and Briony Greenhill.

Briony and Anita are super chuffed to be working together again and this time in real life in a village hall in Devon.

We’ve been wanting to collaborate again for a while but needed some time since our last offering to let the dreaming work through us, evolving the brew and blend of our combined practices.

Over a wintry weekend in February we want to offer you a nourishing elixir, a tonic for your voice, heart, body and soul. 

Flowing from the confluence of our embodied explorations of voice and somatic movement enquiries, we want to offer a space where you have an opportunity to slow down and rest in the supportive company of others.

This won’t be a heady affair of learning about the voice and nervous system. There’s already so much information about the vagus nerve out there, we don’t want to add to the overload but rather offer the possibility for a relational experience with yourself, your voice and your body. Rest into the intelligent matrix of your own system held within the mystery and miracle of life.

We will offer spacious guidance and practical skills for you to use as inspiration for your own lived experience; in the room together, and back in your life at home. 

We will support your exploration of what it means for you to live, move, breathe, vocalise in your body; to relax, soothe, rest in the deep velvet black, and restore wellness through sound, movement, rest, and led group practices.

Anita Lewis is a somatic educator and movement facilitator, engaged with the healing modalities of cranial sacral therapy, continuum movement, vocal improvisation, sounding and yoga; with a decade of specialism in trauma. Her work seeks to enable exploration of the relational and interconnected nature of life. 

Briony Greenhill is a folk-soul improvisational artist and teacher of CVI (Collaborative Vocal Improvisation). She's a qualified SomaSource leader - a psycho-spiritual educator, artist, activist and healer who has an integrated understanding of how to creatively work in developmentally attuned ways with diverse people throughout life’s cycles. www.brionygreenhill.com

Here is a google pin for Scoriton Village Hall

Limited to 22 spaces: £160/180/200 sliding scale.

Workshop times: Saturday 10 - 5; Sunday 10.30 - 4. Please arrive 15 mins early for a prompt start.

Saturday 14th 10:00 - 17:00, Sunday 15th 10:00 - 16:30.

Collaborative Vocal Improvisation - the art of making spontaneously co-composed vocal music with others - is rising in popularity in the UK and around the world - because it feels brilliant. And terrifying. And liberating. And next level for keen singers.

SOLD OUT - to join the waiting list please give us your details here

Here is a Guardian Article about this work, and a short video about Briony’s teaching. 

Studying CVI with Briony encompasses:

• Using and developing our chops - our skilled creative use of our abilities with rhythm, harmony and melody

• Deeply cultivating the unique magnificence of the voice using the Resonant Body method

• Growing into the ability to improvise live in front of an audience from a place of relaxation and presence

• Deepening our listening

• Support for the deep inner work that the art form asks of us

• Personal growth and transformation

• Refreshing the spiritual connection with music - returning to the source, sourcing from the void

• Making really good music, delightfully and surprisingly so - out of thin air in the moment, alone and with others.

• Emergent co-creation - potentially entering a higher state of surrender where we are sung.

• Finding your unique authentic expression and style

Intermediate - advanced workshops with Briony are for experienced singers, performing / recording artists, choir leaders, singer-songwriters, music graduates / teachers / keen students who can sing in tune, keep a beat, and are ready to jump in.

About Briony Greenhill

Briony is “one of the world’s leading proponents of collaborative vocal improvisation (CVI)” - Laura Barton, The Guardian. She has been teaching CVI internationally for a decade, and students call her a “master” whose work is “life changing”. 

Briony’s recent album was featured on Woman’s Hour, The Guardian, Radio 3 and Mojo, and all songs were sourced in improvisation. She has performed live with some of the world’s leading vocal improvisers.

She’s a founding member of The Well, the new International Vocal Improvisation Guild; co-founder of the UK’s first Vocal Improvisation Festival, and maker of what is perhaps the world’s first Vocal Improvisation app, Your Song. She has released the world’s first entirely improvised 5 and 6 voice albums.

Briony teaches vocal musicianship - chops for singers - from beginner to advanced levels. As a qualified SomaSource Leader, Briony is experienced in supportively holding the inner themes that can emerge through work with vocal improvisation: grief; personal and collective trauma, a wide range of emotions, a multitude of parts. She draws from somatic trauma healing, IFS, and Soul work to compassionately support students as they face what stands in the way of their access to their free, natural, unique, magnificent voice that is our birthright, and an open pipe to the songs of now. It can be transformational.

Vocal Improvisation can be applied to community singing, therapy and healing; ritual and ceremony; recording and performing arts; collaboration with other singers, instrumentalists and inter-disciplinary artists; composing and songwriting, and music education.

Students have said:

“Working with Briony has been such a gift for me. Her expertise in the field of voice work is inspirational and I have felt so supported by her generosity, strength and tenderness. As someone who also works with the voice, I have felt so ignited by her guidance and knowledge. I took part in her Vocal Improvisation Retreat and it gave me so much for my own creative path. I feel so blessed to have worked with Briony and consider her to be a fantastic leader in this field. I will continue to work with Briony as it nourishes my creative path as a musician and as a vocal facilitator.”

— Nessi Gomes, Artist, Teacher

“I’ve loved every minute of working with you and I think all instrumental students should do this. In fact I wish every person could experience this way of being. I have taught music at the conservatory level and at the early childhood level; at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Levine School of Music, The Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning through the Arts, etc. I trained in Juilliard, New York in Dalcroze Eurhyrhmics, a Swiss body-based approach to teaching and developing musicianship, which is extremely powerful work. 

But what you bring specifically to the voice is something quite unique. To me it’s body-based, soul-based, healing-based, and community / collective-oriented. Your vocal work has a spiritual dimension that Dalcroze Eurhyrhmics only hints at. It’s very beautiful. I’m quite certain that the need and the desire for what you offer is immense.”

— Marcia Daft, Music Education Specialist

“I mostly wanted to express my deep gratitude for what you do and what you have opened in my life. CVI has literally changed my life. The structures, the skills, the tools I learned in circles with you have opened up my musical and my daily life. I have been able to finally experience and be part of nourishing, exciting musical collaborations! My song writing, my teaching, my performing is transformed by my willingness to stand in the void and let music move through me.” - Emily, choir leader and singer songwriter

“I feel so much more free vocally and like I’m accessing music from a new perspective. You’re a wonderful, nurturing teacher and have so much wisdom that ripples out far beyond the vocal realm.” - Pearl, vocal improvisation teacher

“Thank you for a revelatory and transformational weekend Briony! Much has moved in me. 🙏🏻” Mark

“And then after our course was done the peer group continued…and this has been such an incredible blessing in my life.  I can’t even say how much it has meant to me over the last year and a half.  Those beautiful people and voices are in my heart (and I hope my life) forever.” - Anon

“The benefits of the course are rippling out in my life in subtle and crystal clear ways. I feel more confident in all areas of my life.” - Lucy

“If everyone in the world did this, there would be no problems. I’m just so high from it! I don’t know of anything, any therapy, that makes me feel this way.” - Isabel

“It’s amazing what’s there. It’s amazing what’s there when I start listening instead of leading.” - Anon

“How rich to have witnessed all these people sharing their voices and words and movements, it really was spectacular. I'm so so glad I came, I trusted you and was right to trust you.” - Anon

“It truly is a temple, bringing up such deep stuff.” - Isabel 

“It’s all leadership and listening I reckon, and that’s what you teach. Finding our voice, facing out fears, following our hearts, listening deep within, expressing our love, it’s all what you do 🙂” Dave

“Thank you so much for such a brilliant course and for holding space so beautifully and so generously. It really has been an eye-opener for me in terms of how powerful the voice can be for healing.” - Bex

“I am the youngest of 4 and always held back. Until I finally realised it wasn't my shadow I was standing in and suddenly really enjoyed performing! Briony Greenhill helped so much.” - Jane

“I’m discovering a reservoir of power actually, which I suspected was there but I hadn’t actually felt or experienced coming through in the way that it is, both in my voice and in my day to day. It’s very much like something has been stirred and invigorated and given some channel to start moving in the world, and this is really really really exciting, and really beautiful. I’m just absolutely delighted by it.” - Tom Hirons, writer and storyteller

“Suppressing non-verbal emotional expression increases autonomic arousal, leading to a higher likelihood of being diagnosed with cancer, high blood pressure, ulcers and other major and minor health problems (Pennebaker and Chew, 1985)” - from Conor O’Brien’s Masters Dissertation about CVI in the context of Music Therapy.

“I just want to say thank you for bringing me to a place where I can work to uncover bits of myself that I’m longing for, and that’s what the work does. Last night was so utterly, utterly unique and sort of, sacred for me, because to build those connections and have that closeness to people who I hardly know, to be honest, is - it makes it worth being alive. Your own, amazing solo was an unexpected gift.” - Anonymous

”Briony, I thank you for all the roads you have taken in life that have brought you to where, and how and who you are.❤️ The breadth and depth of what you teach is so vast and yet the experience is so supremely intimate, such a sweet and desired juxtaposition.  My soul is showering you with gratitude for opening up this world to me!🙏🏼 “ - Elaine 

Increase your experience of pleasure and aliveness

Use singing and dancing to clear blockages from the voice and pelvis

Chimney sweeping the core of you, clearing out shame, limitation, trauma, inhibition and blockages

Cultivate more freedom of expression

Love your voice, enjoy your body

Invigorating your life, relighting your fire!

Through Belly Dancing · Resonant Body Voice work · Twerking · Sensual Dance · Improvised Singing · Sisterhood support · Reading list · Home practices and video playbacks to work with in home integration · Private Facebook support group · Buddy Support System.

This is the 4th online Upper Mouth Lower Mouth. Past participants have said:

“My sexual energy is at an all time high”

“I can actually feel her now, which is amazing”

“AYYYYYYYYYY YAHHHHHH BABBBBBBAYYYY! I love it, I love it, I love it!”

“I love how creative, alive and connected I feel after getting into my body”

“Release of pelvic tension, a sense of freedom and a wonderful shared experience with other women!”

“I felt the entire program was held with a lot of integrity and care, thank you.”

“My yoni felt like it could open and I could connect deeper with myself”

“I enjoyed the fun and play of it all.”

“I am less abashed in inhabiting the larger and lower, the more primal sounds of my voice. AND I LOVE IT”

“I allow myself more and more to speak my truth”

“Each time we got into our bodies through the pelvis and twerking I felt SO MUCH more expansive, alive and creative. Halle-f***ing-lujah!”

“I feel I have been speaking more of my truth. I have given myself permission to sound whenever it is needed and not be embarrassed. I have a deeper sense of the intense healing that can come from my voice and the voice of others.”

The upper and lower mouths, two gateways to the core of us, are frequently veiled in shame.

The unveiling of that shame, at either end, brings great joy and pleasure. Both mouths are connected, in their shaming and limitation, and in their reclaiming.

The Lower Mouth and Female Sexuality

The pelvis frequently houses trauma from our sexuality and reproduction. The Resonant Body voice work is a method to heal pelvic trauma, by taking the voice into the pelvis, using the voice as a channel for expression and emotional release, and discovery of what the pelvis is holding, and facilitating dialogue between the body and mind.

Pelvic dance arts such as belly dancing and twerking restore the fitness of the pelvic muscles, and practice movements that stimulate pleasure within the body, and spread that pleasure around the body.

Our capacity for pleasure can grow and dim at different points in life.

There are times when we need to actively tend to and nurture the body’s capacity for pleasure, in order to keep it - enhance it, even! - for example as we age, or as we recover from experiences which have left us numbed.

In intimacy, pleasure energy is shared between partners. The more pleasure is arising in your own body, the more you will turn your partner on, and to put it bluntly, sex will be hotter. Your capacity to generate and feel pleasure is a variable in life, and pelvic dance arts really help.

In short, you as a woman can lead sexual enhancement in your relationship/s - including with yourself! - through your capacity to generate and experience pleasure within your own body; which will turn your partner on, they will turn you on, and together you will experience more turn on, sensation and pleasure. If you are single and mostly self pleasuring, the quality of your pleasure matters! This will equally improve your relationship with your own body and pleasure, which can have a knock on effect on your creativity, well-being, the awakening of your body’s potential and perhaps, if you want, lead you to your beloved, among other adventures.

Meanwhile, energetically, pleasure travels through the central column of our body between the upper and lower mouths. This channel can easily be blocked.

The body can become numb. We often store our undigested feelings in the body, and it creates areas of numbness.

The Resonant Body method takes breath, awareness, voice and sensitisation throughout the body from the pelvis to the head. This can be a release of trauma and grief. 

The result is that you are an open channel through your core. 

This enables you to improvise freely, express yourself authentically, and have coherence and integrity in your person. It also makes you an open channel for sexual energy and connection. 

Watch out! It’s powerful!

These are the core of us, and precious.

This will be a confidential, clothed group of adult women of all ages. You can always mute and turn off your video if you feel shy. The two-hour weekly group sessions involve singing, dancing, talking, and listening, and nothing more.

It’s a 20 live hour online program priced at £15/€20/$20 per hour. The playback videos will be shared the next day each session.

About the Teachers

Reine Kabban

Reine is a fully trained dancer in Classical Belly Dance, Tribal Fusion and ATS (American Tribal System), a mother and a singer. She's been training and performing dance for 8 years and teaching for over 5 years. She has a background in yoga, meditation, and breath work for more than 15 years, including 2 years living and training in an ashram. 

She currently holds regular retreats in womb work, sexual healing, belly dance, woman's empowerment, emotional release through voice and movement, and so much more.

She holds space very naturally, with depth and ease, creating a  powerful journey with softness and poise. She is simply herself and gives permission to those in her space to claim themselves too. To be wild, be daring, be raw, be sensual, just be.

Leela Stephanie

Leela Stephanie is an erotic life coach, facilitator and love priestess. She helps people own and explore their sexual energy as their superpower. She believes that embodying one’s uniqueness with love and sacred sexuality is the most impactful change one can vibrate and transmit in the world. With over 10 years of teaching sensual arts, she uniquely combines this experience with her academic, yogic and temple arts trainings. With loving presence and playfulness, she facilitates individual and collective journeys into discovering, healing and owning one’s unique free, authentic and sexy powerful self.

Briony Greenhill

Briony Greenhill is a teaching artist who supports healing and transformation through voice and improvisation. She teaches internationally, is creator of the Resonant Body method, an acclaimed recording and performing artist, and a SomaSource leader.

“SomaSource Leaders are body-centred psycho-spiritual educators, artists, activists and healers who have an integrated understanding of how to creatively work in developmentally attuned and culturally sensitive ways with diverse people throughout life’s cycles.” - Golden Bridge.

Briony is also now pregnant for the first time, at 43, which she puts down to 3 seasons of UM LM in more ways than one.

Briony’s students have said:

“It was deeper than an Ayahuasca Ceremony; I grew more than in workshops with leading psychologists, and it’s the safest I’ve ever felt in a group.” - Robin

“I’m discovering a reservoir of power” - Tom

“I genuinely think now that I have released something monumental. I feel as if this black mass that I've carried all my life has lifted. Thank you for bringing me to a place where I can work to uncover bits of myself that I’m longing for; that’s what the work does.” - S.

We are delighted to announce our first ever celebration of the growing community of vocal improvisers in the UK! 

Welcome! You found us! Let’s dive in… 

Vocal improvisation opens a world of possibility for musical and interpersonal exploration in a myriad of directions. This gathering will offer a unique opportunity to experience some of its many flavours, such as collaborative vocal improvisation (CVI), circlesinging, body music, embodied movement, live looping, nature connection and play.

Our gathering is proudly and intentionally both a festival and a retreat. It embraces the excitement of coming together in person and sharing creative vocal expression, while also honouring the more inward, nurturing, perhaps sacred connection invited by this practice. 

Collaborative Vocal Improvisation - the art of making spontaneously co-composed vocal music with others - is rising in popularity in the UK and around the world - because it feels brilliant. And terrifying. And liberating. And next level for keen singers.

Here is a Guardian Article about this work, and a short video about Briony’s teaching. 

Studying CVI with Briony encompasses:

• Using and developing our chops - our skilled creative use of our abilities with rhythm, harmony and melody

• Deeply cultivating the unique magnificence of the voice using the Resonant Body method

• Growing into the ability to improvise live in front of an audience from a place of relaxation and presence

• Deepening our listening

• Support for the deep inner work that the art form asks of us

• Personal growth and transformation

• Refreshing the spiritual connection with music - returning to the source, sourcing from the void

• Making really good music, delightfully and surprisingly so - out of thin air in the moment, alone and with others.

• Emergent co-creation - potentially entering a higher state of surrender where we are sung.

• Finding your unique authentic expression and style

Intermediate - advanced workshops with Briony are for performing / recording artists, choir leaders, singer-songwriters, music graduates / teachers / keen students, experienced singers, and people with some experience of improvisation who can sing in tune, keep a beat, and are ready to jump in.

About Briony Greenhill

Briony is “one of the world’s leading proponents of collaborative vocal improvisation (CVI)” - Laura Barton, The Guardian. She has been teaching CVI internationally for a decade, and students call her a “master” whose work is “life changing”. 

Briony’s recent album was featured on Woman’s Hour, The Guardian, Radio 3 and Mojo, and all songs were sourced in improvisation. She has performed live with some of the world’s leading vocal improvisers.

She’s a founding member of The Well, the new International Vocal Improvisation Guild; co-founder of the UK’s first Vocal Improvisation Festival, and maker of what is perhaps the world’s first Vocal Improvisation app, Your Song. She has released the world’s first entirely improvised 5 and 6 voice albums.

Briony teaches vocal musicianship - chops for singers - from beginner to advanced levels. As a qualified SomaSource Leader, Briony is experienced in supportively holding the inner themes that can emerge through work with vocal improvisation: grief; personal and collective trauma, a wide range of emotions, a multitude of parts. She draws from somatic trauma healing, IFS, and Soul work to compassionately support students as they face what stands in the way of their access to their free, natural, unique, magnificent voice that is our birthright, and an open pipe to the songs of now. It can be transformational.

Vocal Improvisation can be applied to community singing, therapy and healing; ritual and ceremony; recording and performing arts; collaboration with other singers, instrumentalists and inter-disciplinary artists; composing and songwriting, and music education.

Students have said:

“Working with Briony has been such a gift for me. Her expertise in the field of voice work is inspirational and I have felt so supported by her generosity, strength and tenderness. As someone who also works with the voice, I have felt so ignited by her guidance and knowledge. I took part in her Vocal Improvisation Retreat and it gave me so much for my own creative path. I feel so blessed to have worked with Briony and consider her to be a fantastic leader in this field. I will continue to work with Briony as it nourishes my creative path as a musician and as a vocal facilitator.”

— Nessi Gomes, Artist, Teacher

“I’ve loved every minute of working with you and I think all instrumental students should do this. In fact I wish every person could experience this way of being. I have taught music at the conservatory level and at the early childhood level; at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Levine School of Music, The Wolf Trap Institute for Early Learning through the Arts, etc. I trained in Juilliard, New York in Dalcroze Eurhyrhmics, a Swiss body-based approach to teaching and developing musicianship, which is extremely powerful work. 

But what you bring specifically to the voice is something quite unique. To me it’s body-based, soul-based, healing-based, and community / collective-oriented. Your vocal work has a spiritual dimension that Dalcroze Eurhyrhmics only hints at. It’s very beautiful. I’m quite certain that the need and the desire for what you offer is immense.”

— Marcia Daft, Music Education Specialist

“I mostly wanted to express my deep gratitude for what you do and what you have opened in my life. CVI has literally changed my life. The structures, the skills, the tools I learned in circles with you have opened up my musical and my daily life. I have been able to finally experience and be part of nourishing, exciting musical collaborations! My song writing, my teaching, my performing is transformed by my willingness to stand in the void and let music move through me.” - Emily, choir leader and singer songwriter

“I feel so much more free vocally and like I’m accessing music from a new perspective. You’re a wonderful, nurturing teacher and have so much wisdom that ripples out far beyond the vocal realm.” - Pearl, vocal improvisation teacher

“Thank you for a revelatory and transformational weekend Briony! Much has moved in me. 🙏🏻” Mark

“And then after our course was done the peer group continued…and this has been such an incredible blessing in my life.  I can’t even say how much it has meant to me over the last year and a half.  Those beautiful people and voices are in my heart (and I hope my life) forever.” - Anon

“The benefits of the course are rippling out in my life in subtle and crystal clear ways. I feel more confident in all areas of my life.” - Lucy

“If everyone in the world did this, there would be no problems. I’m just so high from it! I don’t know of anything, any therapy, that makes me feel this way.” - Isabel

“It’s amazing what’s there. It’s amazing what’s there when I start listening instead of leading.” - Anon

“How rich to have witnessed all these people sharing their voices and words and movements, it really was spectacular. I'm so so glad I came, I trusted you and was right to trust you.” - Anon

“It truly is a temple, bringing up such deep stuff.” - Isabel 

“It’s all leadership and listening I reckon, and that’s what you teach. Finding our voice, facing out fears, following our hearts, listening deep within, expressing our love, it’s all what you do 🙂” Dave

“Thank you so much for such a brilliant course and for holding space so beautifully and so generously. It really has been an eye-opener for me in terms of how powerful the voice can be for healing.” - Bex

“I am the youngest of 4 and always held back. Until I finally realised it wasn't my shadow I was standing in and suddenly really enjoyed performing! Briony Greenhill helped so much.” - Jane

“I’m discovering a reservoir of power actually, which I suspected was there but I hadn’t actually felt or experienced coming through in the way that it is, both in my voice and in my day to day. It’s very much like something has been stirred and invigorated and given some channel to start moving in the world, and this is really really really exciting, and really beautiful. I’m just absolutely delighted by it.” - Tom Hirons, writer and storyteller

“Suppressing non-verbal emotional expression increases autonomic arousal, leading to a higher likelihood of being diagnosed with cancer, high blood pressure, ulcers and other major and minor health problems (Pennebaker and Chew, 1985)” - from Conor O’Brien’s Masters Dissertation about CVI in the context of Music Therapy.

“I just want to say thank you for bringing me to a place where I can work to uncover bits of myself that I’m longing for, and that’s what the work does. Last night was so utterly, utterly unique and sort of, sacred for me, because to build those connections and have that closeness to people who I hardly know, to be honest, is - it makes it worth being alive. Your own, amazing solo was an unexpected gift.” - Anonymous

”Briony, I thank you for all the roads you have taken in life that have brought you to where, and how and who you are.❤️ The breadth and depth of what you teach is so vast and yet the experience is so supremely intimate, such a sweet and desired juxtaposition.  My soul is showering you with gratitude for opening up this world to me!🙏🏼 “ - Elaine 

Saturday 10am-4.30pm

Sunday 10.30am - 4pm

Please arrive 15 mins early each day to settle in as we’ll begin and end promptly.

Collaborative Vocal Improvisation (CVI) is a thrilling, inspiring, challenging, ancient, and contemporary approach to singing with others. Singing together without a song, composer or conductor, those roles become shared in the moment with spontaneously created music and emergent shared leadership. It involves deep listening to self, other and the space between us, and an adjustment to improvisation: new for many people, often quite scary, and usually thrilling and hugely nourishing.

Intermediate-Advanced students tend to be singer-songwriters, choir leaders, performing / recording artists, music teachers and / or music graduates. You may or may not have much experience of improvisation: this weekend is designed to start at the beginning but also dive into the depths of this artform.

Led by Briony Greenhill who is one of the UK’s leading teachers of CVI. She has studied extensively with CVI pioneers Rhiannon, David Worm, Joey Blake, and Improvisation pioneer Bobby McFerrin, as well as improvisation teachers in France and India, and leading piano teachers in California. She continues to pioneer the therapeutic application of CVI through her collaboration with The Elements CVI ensemble, her integration of CVI teaching with her SomaSource therapeutic training with Dr Melissa Michaels, and what unfolds in her teaching. 

She is creator of the Resonant Body method for cultivating the magnificence of each unique, natural voice, and vocal and personal healing.

She has released three entirely improvised albums - Listen, Sketches and Remembering; with a fourth on the way: Voice Unknown, a collection of live improvisations about paradigm shift. Her debut studio album, Crossing the Ocean, was released Feb 25 2022 and has been made by taking recorded improvisations and reproducing them adding instrumentation. In doing this Briony has discovered she’s also a producer, arranger and composer. Briony is a founding member of Confabulare, the new international CVI Guild, and is co-creating first ever UK CVI festival in October 2022.

To hear about all this when it’s ready, subscribe to the mailing list.

Practicalities

Please take a covid test before leaving home on both mornings regardless of your vaccination status - make sure you have your home kit :)

Please bring a packed lunch not to share :(

Hot drinks will be available

It’s best if you don’t drink alcohol on the preceding evenings. CVI works our presence and if it’s a bit foggy from drinking… no es bueno.

Students have said:

“One of the most powerful experiences of my life! I feel changed on a cellular level!” (ok it was a 4 day retreat not a weekend…)

“Briony really made us all feel at home – starting off with exercises that didn’t force me outside of my comfort zone, and a no judgement pact, really allowed me to feel comfortable with the group, which then gave me the confidence to try out some solos.”

“It was seriously fun, crazy, inspiring, opening and meditative, all at the same time.”

“Some singing teachers teach you sing with your voice. Briony teaches you to sing with your heart and sing from your soul.”

“You made it feel like a womb. Protected, loved, nourished, warm and holding.”

Please direct questions to info@brionygreenhill.com.

Cost: £100. Comps £75 (5 available).

Two assistant places are available at half price. If you'd like to be the assistant, please email info@brionygreenhill.com. The assistant arrives 30 mins before and leaves 30 mins after on each day and helps with set up, pack down, tea and kitchen overview and facilitating the group to clean up after lunch.

Ashprington Village Hall, nr Totnes, Devon, UK

Saturday 10am-4.30pm

Sunday 10.30am - 4pm

(Please arrive 15 mins early to settle in as we’ll start promptly.)

Collaborative Vocal Improvisation (CVI) is a thrilling, inspiring, challenging, ancient, and contemporary approach to singing with others. When we sing together without a song, composer or conductor, those roles become shared in the moment with spontaneously created music and emergent shared leadership. It involves deep listening to self, other and the space between us, and an adjustment to improvisation: new for many people, often quite scary, and usually thrilling and hugely nourishing.

This beginner-intermediate introduction is for people with little to no experience of improvisation, who may feel a bit shy to share the voice, but are up for having a go. To access this art-form you need to be able to sing in tune and keep a beat. This work can help cultivate the natural magnificence of your voice, and reduce self-judgement and help you love your voice.

Led by Briony Greenhill who is one of the UK’s leading teachers of CVI. She has studied extensively with CVI pioneers Rhiannon, David Worm, Joey Blake, and Improvisation pioneer Bobby McFerrin, as well as improvisation teachers in France and India, and leading piano teachers in California. She continues to pioneer the therapeutic application of CVI through her collaboration with The Elements CVI ensemble, her integration of CVI teaching with her SomaSource therapeutic training with Dr Melissa Michaels, and what unfolds in her teaching. 

She is creator of the Resonant Body method for cultivating the magnificence of each unique, natural voice, and vocal and personal healing.

She has released three entirely improvised albums - Listen, Sketches and Remembering; with a fourth on the way: Voice Unknown, a collection of live improvisations about paradigm shift. Her debut studio album, Crossing the Ocean, releases Feb 25 2022 and has been made by taking recorded improvisations and reproducing them adding instrumentation. In doing this Briony has discovered she’s also a producer, arranger and composer. Briony is a founding member of Confabulare, the new international CVI Guild, and is co-creating first ever UK CVI festival in October 2022.

To hear about all this when it’s ready, subscribe to the mailing list.

Practicalities

Please take a covid test before leaving home on both mornings regardless of your vaccination status - make sure you have your home kit :)

Please bring a packed lunch not to share :(

Hot drinks will be available

It’s best if you don’t drink alcohol on the preceding evenings. CVI works our presence and if it’s a bit foggy from drinking… no es bueno.

Students have said:

“One of the most powerful experiences of my life! I feel changed on a cellular level!” (ok it was a 4 day retreat not a weekend…)

“Briony really made us all feel at home – starting off with exercises that didn’t force me outside of my comfort zone, and a no judgement pact, really allowed me to feel comfortable with the group, which then gave me the confidence to try out some solos.”

“It was seriously fun, crazy, inspiring, opening and meditative, all at the same time.”

“Some singing teachers teach you sing with your voice. Briony teaches you to sing with your heart and sing from your soul.”

“You made it feel like a womb. Protected, loved, nourished, warm and holding.”

Please direct questions to info@brionygreenhill.com.

Cost: £100. Comps £75.

Two assistant places are available at half price. If you'd like to be the assistant, please email info@brionygreenhill.com. The assistant arrives 30 mins before and leaves 30 mins after on each day and helps with set up, pack down, tea and kitchen overview and facilitating the group to clean up after lunch.