150. The Change with guest Mary Cohen

A Breath of Song

Song: The Change
Music by: Mary L. Cohen
​Notes: “My dad played the copper fish mold.” — aren’t you curious now? Listen in as Mary Cohen and I explore family music, personal structures for improvisation, creating connections between incarcerated and not-incarcerated people, and more… We wander a bit through grief and disconnection and finding what is, in a conversation that’s real and messy and touches on fear and joy, building a caring community for ourselves, our neighbors, the global world… living with regret and streaming grace to the person we were when we made a mistake; restoring connection. It’s a glimpse of the rich variety of resources Mary draws on as she shapes her life… I hope to add some into mine.
Songwriter Info: Mary L. Cohen, Professor of Music Education at the University of Iowa, is lead author of Music-Making in U.S. Prisons: Listening to Incarcerated Voices (2022). She co-founded the International Music and Justice Network: IMAJIN Caring Communities, a group of researchers from 18 countries who study music-making in prisons, and you are welcome to join by contacting Mary to get on the group email list ([e-mail]). From 2009 to 2020 she led the Oakdale Community Choir with incarcerated and non-incarcerated participants where participants have written over 150 songs, and the Oakdale Choir performed over 75 of these songs, available with the Creative Commons License. To continue working toward the choir’s goals of building communities of caring through singing and songwriting, she founded the Inside Outside Songwriting Collaboration Project where partnerships between incarcerated and non-incarcerated songwriters create original songs, build relationships, and learn about transformative and generative justice. She has been a keynote for conferences in Germany, Canada, and Portugal, interviewed by the BBC3 Music Matters, and has over 40 publications in journal articles, book chapters, and conference proceedings. She leads weekly music groups inside the Juvenile Detention Center of Linn County.
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Sharing Info: The song is free to share, and Mary welcomes networking support and invites you to further your education and activism regarding environmental justice, restorative/transformative/generative justice, and simply acting with kindness to all you encounter.
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Song Learning Time Stamps:
Start time of teaching: 00:05:45
Start time of reprise: 01:07:58
Links:

• Oakdale Community Choir website: https://oakdalechoir.lib.uiowa.edu/
• Dave Camlin's new book is Music-Making and Civic Imagination: A Holistic Philosophy. His website: https://www.davecamlin.com/civic
• There is a new 30 minute documentary film by Daniel Kolen about the Oakdale Community Choir called "The Inside Singers." The 3 minute preview of the film is available at https://vimeo.com/169192145.
• Iowa PBS did a short 8'30" video story on the Oakdale Community Choir. Find it here: https://www.pbs.org/video/the-oakdale-community-choir-coralville-iowa-bfe7bd/
• Andy Douglas, local Iowa City nonfiction & spiritual author wrote Redemption Songs: A Year in the Life of a Community Prison Choir about his experiences singing in the Oakdale Community Choir
• Forthcoming (fall 2024) book by mother of filmmaker Daniel Kolen who created "The Inside Singers", Amy Kolen wrote Inside Voices: A Prison Choir, My Mother, and Me
• For people interested in abolition of the prison industrial complex, here are some good resources:
  • Mariam Kaba's We Do This Til We Free Us
  • University of Santa Cruz's Visualizing Abolition resources (including the Music for Abolition collection)
  • Critical Resistance online at https://criticalresistance.org/
  • The book Mary wrote with Stuart Paul Duncan Music-Making in US Prisons: Listening to Incarcerated Voices
• To hear two versions of the Oakdale Community Choir performing "The Change" visit https://oakdalechoir.lib.uiowa.edu/original-works/
  • Most recent one was December 14, 2016 concert themed "Look on the Bright Side" track 13
  • The first version was Fall 2014 and is available under "Original works" link (scroll down a bit) along with the Fall 2016 version. The simple score of the song is available on that link too.
• Voice Science Works with lots of tools for voice habitation: https://www.voicescienceworks.org/
• "The Real Work" (song) by Gretchen Sleicher, words by Wendell Berry https://songsforthegreatturning.net/originals/therealwork/
• InterPlay: An active creative way to unlock the wisdom of the body founded by Phil Porter & Cynthia Winton-Henry
• Music for People: A free improvisation program founded by David Darling (whose niece Emily Darling was Mary Cohen's first yoga teacher & owns Darling Yoga in Overland Park, Kansas)
• Sandy Kemp: Sending Healing streams of Grace. Sandy is an educator, healer, intuitive, mentor, and nurturer.
• Plantiful Pantry

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Nuts & Bolts: 6:8, minor, round
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