Peter Mulvey ~ Songwriting retreat
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5 sessions + song circle limit 21 participants / all experience levels welcome $500 prepaid / Meals included / lodging available at local B&Bs, cabins
Upcoming event: songwriting retreat with peter mulvey
In the many workshops I've taught, over and over, people ask me what to do about their inner critic” says veteran songwriter Peter Mulvey. “How do I banish it? How do I get it to shut up, long enough for me to get this song done? And my over time, I've come to believe that the best thing to do is give your inner critic another job: turn him into the Noticer.
Rather than saying 'such-and-such is different and therefore wrong', you can put that guy to work saying 'isn't this interesting: such-and-such is different... and it seems to have X effect. What would change if we changed it? What would change if we changed something else and left it the same? What if we double down? What if we reverse course exactly?' The Noticer is a lot more fun to have around."
In the course of a workshop, Mulvey takes his own songs apart, nuts and bolts, and shows with verve and vision what parts of them are working, and, how, and why. The time flies by, and there are plenty of examples from the work of great artists, all employed to cast process into relief, to dispel unhelpful mysteries, and to stoke curiosity about the helpful mysteries. Students are encouraged to bring their own work, especially songs they're frustrated with, and Mulvey gives the same keen, flexible attention to the students' work. There will also be spontaneous, brief writing exercises and a weekend-long song prompt. Expect to come away artistically revivified.
Inspiration meets craft.
Find your songs. Sing them. It's time.
A rare retreat weekend at beautiful Blue Rock Studio in the Texas Hill Country with one of a kind songwriter, Peter Mulvey.
Group sessions, performance opportunities, individual consultation.
5 sessions + song circle
limit 21 participants / all experience levels welcome
$500 prepaid / Meals included / lodging available at local B&Bs, cabins
ABOUT PETER
Peter Mulvey has been a songwriter, road-dog, raconteur and almost-poet since before he can remember. One of four brothers, he was raised working-class Catholic on the Northwest side of Milwaukee by parents who met as teaching volunteers in Central America. Inner-city life fell hard on him but harder on his classmates, leaving him with a restless view of the long journey America still needs to make, if it wants to live up to its promise.
Coming up through public schools and then a Jesuit university, he took a semester in Ireland, and immediately began cutting classes to busk on Grafton Street in Dublin and hitchhike through the country, finding whatever gigs he could. Back stateside, he spent a couple years gigging in the Midwest before lighting out for Boston, where he returned to busking (this time in the subway) and coffeehouses. Small shows led to larger shows, which eventually led to regional and then national and international touring. The wheels have not stopped since.
Eighteen records, one illustrated book, thousands of live performances, a TEDx talk, a decades-long association with the National Youth Science Camp, opening for luminaries such as Ani DiFranco, Emmylou Harris, and Chuck Prophet, appearances on NPR, an annual autumn tour by bicycle, emceeing festivals, hosting his own boutique festival (the Lamplighter Sessions, in Boston and Wisconsin)… Mulvey never stops. He has built his life’s work on collaboration and on an instinct for the eclectic and the vital. He folds everything he encounters into his work: poetry, social justice, scientific literacy, and a deeply abiding humanism are all on plain display in his art.
