“Sound Play & Story” is series of workshops designed to engage creativity and memory through sound, music and words. The four modules are flexible and can be spread over eight workshops—two per week—or broken up and done as one-off pop-ups.
Here’s how I like to break it down:
- Circle Singing: Improvisation & Harmony
- Create an Environment, Tell A Story: Using Found Objects as Prompts
- Tangible Writing: Using Physical Images to Enrich Your Story
- Merging Pictures: Generating a Song, Poem, or Story from Photographs
With the Circle Singing (Module 1), we open up playful improvisation, establishing trust within the group. We don’t have to be experts—we just need to listen and support, while occasionally taking a solo turn.
With the Found Objects (Module 2), we ask: What does this sound like? What does this conjure? Can the sound of the object conjure something different than what it actually is? What story does it tell or inspire you to tell?
Tangible Writing (Module 3) is the inverse of Module 2. It explores how to incorporate an object, place, or sound into creative writing to immerse an audience in the story or emotion you wish to convey.
In Merging Pictures (Module 4), participants take a personal photo or image and use techniques such as sound, music, and specific “close-up” imagery to enrich their storytelling—whether recounting the photo’s real-life context or crafting an entirely new narrative inspired by it.
The four modules, naturally, build on each other. Typically, I introduce each topic with background and history, followed by a short (25-35 minute) creative generation portion in the first 50-minute session. Then we follow it up with a deepening session, refining the previous work, while bringing fresh elements into the mix. But, each module can also stand alone as a meaningful 50–90 minute workshop, requiring no prior experience.
If you’d like more details, I’d be happy to discuss lesson plans and other specifics. Right now, I’m working with seniors, but this program originated from workshops I led with teenagers creating sound design and scores for theater productions in Los Angeles. It’s adaptable for students of all ages! At its core, it’s about using play as a gateway to creativity—helping people to access and express the artistic potential and stories within them.
In Sound Play & Story we open to creativity, using the sounds we make and the sounds around us, to fuel memory and imagination. Then we tell our stories — of fact or fiction — in song, poetry, or prose.
About Me
I’ve been a singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles since the ’80s. My essays and lyrics have been published in anthologies, and I’ve shared the stage with luminaries of jazz, folk, alternative rock, in addition to releasing multiple projects and touring under my own name. I’ve worked extensively in schools across California and been in a few films and TV shows. My joys are cross-generational communication and fostering ways for others to open up to their own stories.
I also love performing standards from The Great American Songbook (Gershwin, Cole Porter…), plus soul and rock classics from the 60s and 70s (Sam Cooke, Smokey Robinson, Roberta Flack, The Beatles…), which is a great way to engage seniors, especially those with memory challenges. For those sorts of engagements I can bring an acoustic guitar or scale it upwards with a small PA system, and more. Please let me know if that would be helpful to you.
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