11-16 November 2025, 2-7 February 2026, 24-29 March 2026, June week 2026 dates awaiting finalisation.
All at Bala Brook Retreat Center, South Devon, UK.
With Vocal Improvisation, we can sing our inner lives, heal and grow. We can sing what is alive in a group, a room, an event/ceremony, 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. Vocal Improvisation has a potent place in ritual, community and healing.
For the fourth time, Briony Greenhill will lead a group of students through a year long program that focuses in-depth on these aspects of vocal improvisation. Most say it’s life changing. The 20 day program helps participants become deeply at home within the artform of CVI. For some, it supports through a major life stage change. For some, it becomes a journey of Soul Initiation.
Course content
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
Studying and practicing ritual, co-creating ritual, studying the Wheel, calling in the directions, praying, blessing and sound healing - all through improvised singing. In the first week we don’t do much healing work; rather we lay the ground.
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 better.
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.
Course Cost
Tier 1: £5000
Tier 2: £4000
Tier 3: £3000
2 Assistant places are available for people who have worked with me before, for £2500.
We invite you to select your tier in integrity. You will not be assessed.
The fee includes:
All teaching
Monthly group support calls with Briony on Zoom
Student buddy pairs providing support and continuity throughout the course
Comfortable accommodation at Bala Brook Retreat Center. Tier 1 has private, probably en-suite accommodation. Tiers 2 and 3 may be sharing.
3 healthy and delicious meals a day + tea and snacks; plant based and mostly organic food cooked onsite by the wonderful Mary Shuldham, who adds some optional wild and organic meat sometimes.
Access to Briony’s app, Your Song, for the duration of the course
One night per week at a beautiful lake side sauna nearby.
Payment plans are available.
Up to 18 students.
To participate, you need:
To be able to sing in tune, keep a beat, and want an adventure. To make available time and space for practice; a minimum of 30-60 mins 3-5 times per week is advised. The more time you make, the deeper you go. To be able to meet the attendance and financial course requirements. To be at least moderate to good mental health: this is strong work, and it’s not advised if your life is in crisis: other forms of support are likely to suit you better in this moment. The time will come another year.
To Apply
Please complete the application form below, and
Please send us 2 recordings of 1 minute each: 1 minute of you improvising alone, and 1 minute of you singing a song you know well. Both unaccompanied, the voice memos app on your phone is quite fine. Please send these to us at info@brionygreenhill.com, and email us there if you have any technical difficulties with this.
Singing the Unseen has happened in 2019, in 2023-4 and in 2024-5.