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:
“This course was a pivotal event in my life, and there’s definitely a before and an after STU.
It’s difficult to describe what STU has specifically changed, because it’s a long-lived experience that deepens one’s understanding of every possible aspect of life, self awareness, spirituality, healing, nature, human consciousness.
I met and sang with powerful, like-minded people that I feel I will be linked with all my life (even if we don’t talk or meet often), and this special, invisible bond between us is the result of the journey we took together. This has given me a sense of community and strengthened my own sense of belonging.
In my professional life as a musician, singer and healer, I use all the tools I learned in the course. The knowledge we gathered is like a toolbox that I can open when needed (when composing music, when performing a ritual, when helping a friend, when leading a choir, when connecting with nature, when singing, when doing self healing etc...).
This has been a fantastic journey led by Briony, and I definitely recommend it to anyone that feels ready to deepen their connection to the vastness of life and their understanding of who they truly are through voice.”
“Singing the Unseen was a truly liberating course for me. Finding my voice, the words and sounds that await to be sung through me, from the elements, from the seasons, from the earth, from beyond. I learnt to get out of my own way and practice this art of being with the unknown, over and over. To strengthen and flex that muscle, while letting go deeper and deeper with every step. Widening the aperture for joyous magic to emerge. I was held by a group of what are now lifelong friends, Briony’s loving and skilful presence and the abundance of practices and tools she brings with her in her uniqueness. This course is indeed a life blessing.”
“I’ve been singing all my life, in choirs, at weddings, at funerals. It was something I loved but never pursued further because i felt limited and bored with learning a part and regurgitating it. I had formal music training when I was younger but felt stifled and intimidated by the rigid ways of learning. As it did not resonate with me, I dropped it and didn’t continue it further. After this I had a long gap of not singing much at all.
4 years ago I did a year-long intensive ‘Singing the Unseen’. It was a year of learning the exciting craft of collaborative vocal improvisation, creating music with multiple voices from thin air, inspiration and whatever our souls wanted to communicate. It was woven with ceremony, nature connection and community and I came to know myself as a ritual singer and improviser. For the first time in a long time i felt connected with my voice and excited to be singing again. I was inspired by what can emerge from the unseen, by how healing it is to sing and to sing in community and to explore what might want to express itself. I am super grateful to Briony for this offering.
I have since continued my training in collaborative vocal improvisation including facilitator training. Wanting to delve further into the healing aspect of voice use, I completed my Diploma in Group Voice Arts Therapy this year.
I am excited to continue the journey of offering wellbeing focused voice work and improvised group singing in future. ”
“It really was a special experience. I learnt so much about myself and my voice, how valuable singing is to my own health and wellbeing, how woven into life singing can be, how essential, how supportive, how rapturous! Being with a group of singers over a year around the Celtic earth festivals, less focused on the musicality yet often making beautiful music together, being in our bodies, on the land, tuning in, singing with the trees, the stones, the fire, finding voice in ritual leadership and ceremony, singing as we tended our grief and being held in a bath of vocal sound, all such deep experiences that have left their imprint, forging new pathways of connection and community. All of the people I met on Singing the Unseen have a special place in my heart and some of them continue to be a vital part of my life today. I’m more confident collaborating with other singers, I use the practices I learnt regularly for my own self care and I support others to discover their voice (and many of the things i’ve mentioned above) through my own work as a holistic therapist. This course changed my life - truly!”
“My experiences throughout Singing the Unseen have stayed with me and I often reflect on them. Many have had a profound long lasting effect and allowed me to understand my life from a different perspective. The work we did which included the natural world was particularly special for me and I continue to draw strength from the connections I made. I have always been interested in how our voice reflects the relationship we have with our self and I can say without a shadow of a doubt that my own personal development has been hugely fast tracked by the deepening of this relationship. Briony has a very special talent with this work and I recommend it to anyone who is curious.”
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.