A Day of Creating Personally and Communally Meaningful Music
with Shireen Amini
Call 541-330-0334 or email jill@hawthorncenter.com to reserve your spot!
• Experience toning, drumming, and singing with a sense of playfulness and purpose
• Learn ancient and modern techniques for empowered musical expression
• Create your own simple medicine songs for healing and change
• Deepen your understanding of the human relationship to music, nature, and community
Music is medicine for the soul, we all know this. However, many of us find our relationship to music-making and our own singing voices to be far from joyful. It’s time to change that. Following the old African proverb, “If you can talk you can sing, if you can walk you can dance,” we will liberate the musical expression that we all inherently carry. You will be offered concepts and practices to empower your musical creativity and anchor in soulful feeling, intuition, and sacred connections with nature. You will be introduced to exciting new understandings of how to bring together the ancient and modern worlds of music for your own personal healing. We will cultivate a sense of safety and freedom as we expand our experience of sound, music, and song in a group setting. These experiences will include group toning, drumming, singing, and movement, all with a sense of purpose and a playful spirit.
You do not need any prior musical experience to participate in this workshop, only a longing to cultivate a more personal and empowered connection with music. For those who may have inhibitions about their sense of pitch or rhythm, this is a perfect environment to step out of your shell due to a principle we call “entrainment,” which basically states that we cannot help but move toward being ‘in tune’ and ‘in time’ when we are surrounded by others who are. Experienced musicians will also find great benefit as they have an opportunity to expand their understanding of the nature of music, sense of playfulness, and discover a deeper sense of purpose in what they do.
The prize takeaway of our time together will be the beginnings of your own personal medicine songs and an experience of group composition, by which we will come up with an original medicine song for our community through a dynamic and inclusive process. A “medicine song” can be described as an energy formula in the form of melody and rhythm (and often times a lyrical message) that comes from outside of us to provide us something that our being needs. This applies to needs on the community level as well. We are all capable of listening to and singing along with songs we love, but in this workshop, we will take it to the next level and have a creative dialogue with the mystical as we bring forward music that moves us and has come for us.
Singing and participation in music is your birthright and it is essential for your well-being. This workshop is about reviving this understanding of music as it may serve life and the highest good. This is not about performance, but rather feeding your spirit in the moment and experiencing a deep sense of unity. Gift yourself with a more empowered relationship to your voice and musical expression and open yourself up to limitless potential for health and joy!
About the Facilitator:
Shireen Amini is a local singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist who spent 8 years serving the Central Oregon community as a performer and teaching artist. She carries with her a bachelor’s degree in Ethnomusicology from UCLA, years of honed musicianship in guitar, piano, voice, and percussion, and a deep study of the songwriting craft. She has developed two successful youth music programs based on principles of empowerment, a choir called the Peace Chords and a drumming program called Roots Rhythm. She has also trained in various healing methods including compassionate communication, energy healing, ritual and grief work. Currently, Shireen is the lead singer/guitarist in the Bend-based Latin band, ¡Chiringa! and also has her own solo project, Shireen Amini Music.
In 2015, after completing her certificate in Sound, Voice, and Music Healing at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, Shireen found her belief in the healing power of music re-energized and a world of possibilities opened up for combining her experience as a musician, community leader, and healing artist. She is now creating innovative music and sound healing offerings. Music can be a deeply transformative tool for individual and communal well-being. Shireen is passionate about bringing the spirit of the ancient and the modern together through this vessel called music and inviting change for the better on all levels. Now residing again in Central Oregon, she is honored to have you join her on this exciting path!