A Week at Our Songwriting Retreat: What It's Really Like
"Does it work?" someone asked me once about my retreats. A startling question, but a fair one.
Several times a year, 20-30 songwriters gather in a remote location with me, members of my team, and a guest artist and songwriter. We come hoping for different things, like to write with more ease and purpose, to find out we're not alone in the difficulty of making and releasing music, to collaborate on something shared.
A morning looks like this: three people huddled around a guitar, talking through a change to someone's lyric. The stage keyboard dragged out onto the porch at sunrise, because whoever wanted it wanted quiet more. A few writers wandering back from the hiking trail a few minutes late for breakfast, and worth it.
For five days, all of us find ourselves seen and heard, a rare thing in lives that are busy and full.
When I meet writers on the first day, we gather in a circle and talk about why we're there. We set intentions for the week, and try to scuff off the layer of social awkwardness so many of us successfully avoid in our normal, daily lives. Dinner that first night is usually patient and calm as we settle into the idea that whatever is going on at home will have to wait. The song circles that evening are small and reassuring, proof that others came with the same trepidation and hope we did.
The middle days fly by with surprising speed, and the transformation from Monday's handshakes to Wednesday's laughter and hugs is something no one ever expects. In all the retreats I've run, I've come to understand that it's unavoidable, the connection that sets in when we're all strapping on our diving gear and going down after genuine creativity. Musical styles and age-related concerns fall away. We forget to see ourselves as different people from different backgrounds. We co-write, we perform together, we eat and share stories together, we bust open the unfinished songs and find ways to finish them together. Collectively, we find what makes our own music and personhood essential to the group.
Thursday night always brings a stranger, a ghost in the room reminding us that Friday is right around the corner. Somehow we'll need to find a way to return to our normal lives even though we've changed. WhatsApp groups are shared, and carpools to the airport. We're both sad to leave and relieved to have a drive or a flight ahead to rest and make sense of the experience and the people who are now part of our lives. We're not sure how, but we determine to stay in touch, both with the writers and artists we found special connection with, and with the part of ourselves that seemed to wake up after all these years.
So, does it work? After six years and over 40 retreats, I know that it does. I can see it and feel it, even though I don't quite know how. Then again, that's just the way music would have it: all the magic and mystery tangled into one beautiful opportunity to make of it what we wish.
Come write with us,
