FFM rehearsals begin Sunday, January 8
It’s a new year and a new session for the Family Folk Machine! Rehearsals begin Sunday, January 8, at 3 p.m. at the Senior Center. If you’ve been thinking about joining us, come check it out!
Category: News
Rise Up and Sing Flyer by Susan Stamnes
Here’s the flyer for the Family Folk Machine’s Rise Up and Sing concert, art done by Susan Stamnes – to share with everyone you can think of who would enjoy coming to this rousing celebration of songs!
Click here for the pdf flyer: Rise Up and Sing
“Rise Up and Sing!” Fall 2016 Concert
In Concert
The Family Folk Machine:
Rise Up and Sing!
A Celebration of Community Singing
Sunday, November 13th, 2016 3:00 p.m.
Iowa City/Johnson County Senior Center
and
Sunday, November 29th, 2016 3:00 p.m.
U of I Old Capitol Building Senate Chamber
The Family Folk Machine presents “Rise Up and Sing! A Celebration of Community Singing” at 3 p.m. Nov. 13 at the Senior Center, and 3 p.m. Nov. 20 in the Senate Chamber of the Old Capitol on the University of Iowa campus.
The program is a loving tribute to the new songbook “Rise Again,” edited by Peter Blood and Annie Patterson who brought us the original “Rise Up Singing” in the 1980s. The two songbooks together are a fantastic resource for folk and popular music in our country and beyond. The Folk Machine concert will highlight some of the songs from the new book that are particularly suited to our mission, to group expression and to singing in harmony.
We hope to see you at our November concerts!
FFM members participate in the Concert across America to End Gun Violence
On Sunday evening, September 25, some of the members of the Family Folk Machine will join other community singers to present the Iowa City iteration of the Concert across America to End Gun Violence. The concert is at 6:30 p.m. in the Parish Hall at Trinity Episcopal Church, 320 E. College Street. It’s designed to be a bit under an hour long and entirely kid-friendly.
Something special happens when we take our FFM songs out and sing them at community events. The songs are meaningful when we sing them as part of a concert program. But singing them at an event with a specific purpose gives them extra meaning. Sometimes it’s very simple: it’s fun to sing about vegetables when you’re standing across from a Farmers’ Market stand full of September bounty. Last night at our rehearsal, I could tell that for me at least it was very powerful to bring some of these songs we already knew into a context where the focus is on supporting victims of gun violence and people in cities that have been ripped apart by gun violence. The songs Avila and We’ve Been Down this Road Before always come to my mind when I hear about unrest in our cities. Last night Wash my Eyes seemed particularly beautiful in this context; not just in asking forgiveness for our complicity with a violence-crazed society, forgiveness so that we can enjoy simple joys like the return of spring and our children sleeping in peace, but perhaps also washing our eyes and our ears through which we consume with fascination and horror the stream of alarming reports about violence without knowing how to integrate this knowledge into our lives in a way that keeps us whole and healthy.
It’s my understanding that more than 350 concerts are being performed on September 25 as part of this nationwide event. It will be good to think of so many people on the same day turning their thoughts to peace and to working together to curb gun violence. At our Iowa City event, representatives of the local chapter of Moms Demand Action will have information about how communities can work to prevent gun violence.
Here’s the link to the Facebook event for our concert: Concert Across America to End Gun Violence. It is free and open to the public.
Story Circle Sunday, September 25
This column ran in the Iowa City Press-Citizen.
The public is invited to participate in an afternoon of Story Circles with the Family Folk Machine on Sunday, September 25, at 3:00 p.m. at the Iowa City/Johnson County Senior Center. The story circles are part of the Folk Machine’s 2016–17 project, Wasn’t That a Time?, supported by a grant from the Iowa Arts Council.
The story circle is a technique for gathering stories, themes, and ideas from a group. In 2014, the Iowa City band The Awful Purdies held story circles with farmers, food workers, and other community members to learn about people’s experiences with food. They took the stories they gathered and created songs for the musical play “All Recipes Are Home,” which they performed with Working Group Theatre. A few weeks ago, the Awful Purdies did a performance presentation for the Family Folk Machine to share their experiences with story circles to help us prepare to lead some of our own.
Our purpose in gathering community stories is to use them as seeds for songwriting. In January and February, as part of the Wasn’t That a Time? project, the Awful Purdies will lead a series of songwriting workshops with the FFM. Listening to stories from our friends and neighbors will give us material to work with when we begin the songwriting process.
On September 25, we will do a little writing and a little sharing in our story circles. Some of our questions and prompts will be asking about life experiences, positive and negative, that have directed our paths. Some of our questions have to do with the role of music in our lives. The event is free and open to the public of all ages (kids most definitely included). After our time of story circle sharing, we’ll linger over refreshments.
Aside from the socially oriented story circles, we will also be gathering stories in written form. This fall, we plan to use boxes stationed around the Senior Center where people can submit written stories or answers to some of our questions. Soon we will have a website for Wasn’t That a Time? with a process for submitting typed stories and ideas. We will be transcribing some of the story circle results for publication on our website along with some of the written responses we receive.
We’re dreaming of writing songs in January and February, but at the same time the Family Folk Machine is working up a fun program of songs for our concerts this fall. We’ll perform “Rise Up and Sing! A Celebration of Community Singing” on November 13, 3 p.m. at the Senior Center, and on November 20, 3 p.m. in the Senate Chamber of the Old Capitol. Our program this fall features songs from the new group-singing book, “Rise Again,” a follow-up to the classic “Rise Up Singing.” We’re working on a nice variety of songs, from Sesame Street to Emmylou Harris to Harry Belafonte to Jean Ritchie. Save the dates!
For more information about the Family Folk Machine or Wasn’t That a Time?, please send an e-mail to jean@familyfolkmachine.org.
First FFM rehearsal of the fall on Sunday, August 21, 3 p.m.
It’s almost time to rev up the Machine! We’ll meet on Sunday, August 21 for rehearsal at 3 p.m. Everyone should come at 3 this first week so that adults can get registered. We’ll learn a few of our songs for the fall, we’ll do some introductions, and we’ll also film our part of the Center’s 35th anniversary video–Celebration! Carrot costumes optional.
For more info or to inquire about joining, e-mail Jean using the “Contact” link.
Community Folk Sing this Saturday, August 13, 3:00 to 4:30 at Uptown Bill’s
The end of summer is approaching, at least if you measure by School Time. Savor some late-summer singing this Saturday! We’ll meet at Uptown Bill’s from 3:00 to 4:30 for our monthly all-request sing-along. Bring instruments, friends, neighbors, and children. We’ll use the Rise Again songbooks (provided by the Senior Center). Refreshing drinks and snacks will be available for purchase!
Consider making a donation to Uptown Bill’s to keep the music playing at this wonderful venue for folk music.
There’s free parking evenings and weekends in the UI lot across the street from Uptown Bill’s.
Community Folk Sings are hosted by the Family Folk Machine (a Senior Center group) and Uptown Bill’s on the second Saturday of each month.
Family Folk Machine/Senior Center awarded Iowa Arts Council grant!
The Family Folk Machine and the Senior Center were just awarded a large grant from the Iowa Arts Council to undertake a songwriting project, “Wasn’t That a Time?” with the Awful Purdies during the 2016-17 program year. The project will begin with a lecture/performance by the Awful Purdies on August 28 at the Johnson County Historical Society. The Purdies will present an introduction to songwriting and demonstrate how to conduct Story Circles. The FFM will host Story Circles in September and October, and in January and February the Awful Purdies will lead the FFM in a series of songwriting workshops. The project will culminate in a joint FFM-Awful Purdies concert on the main stage at the June 2017 Iowa Arts Festival. We can’t wait to get started!
Sing, People, Sing! this Sunday, 3-5 at the Senior Center
Everyone is welcome to join us for the last session of Sing, People, Sing! where we have been getting to know the new sing-along book “Rise Again.” This Sunday we’ll be focusing on the end of the book, with chapters called Seas and Sailors, Sing People Sing!, Struggle, Surfin’ USA, Time and Changes, Travelin’, and Work. We’ll meet at the Senior Center this Sunday, June 26, from 3:00 to 5:00. I’ve been collecting song information from all our sessions to help put together a good song list for our fall Family Folk Machine program.
Hope to see you this Sunday! All singers and instruments are welcome.
Front Porch Music Festival, June 11
The Family Folk Machine is pleased to participate in this year’s Front Porch Music Festival. The festival has lined up a spectacular variety of musical acts for several porches scattered throughout the Longfellow neighborhood. It will be a great day to stroll through the streets. The FFM will sing some of our best group numbers from this spring’s concert from 2:00 to 2:30 p.m. at the porch at 604 Grant Street. If you’d like to check out the whole schedule, look here:
Here’s a Little Village article from last summer about last year’s festival, if you want to get a sense of the inspiration behind the event:
Front Porch Music Festival to serenade Iowa City neighborhood
Hope to see you there!