Bard and Fir Acres

As a member of the Network of Writing & Thinking at Bard College, and as Artist-in-Residence at Fir Acres Workshop in Writing & Thinking, I had the opportunity to design and conduct classes and workshops where writers were introduced to the elements of music.

An example of a workshop engaging non-musicians at the Bard Institute for Writing & Thinking Network, was “Sing Goddess!: Translating Homer’s The Iliad Back into Music.”

The premise of this workshop was that Homer was a bard, and that The Iliad was probably sung. (Music can be a mnemonic device that might have allowed Homer to recall many days’ worth of verse.) I had our workshop participants break into groups, tackle segments of a canto of The Iliad in various translations and, working with rhythm and melody, create, or rather re-create song from the epic poem. We shared the results (embedded), which are both humorous and instructive.

Additional Bard Writing & Thinking Network and Fir Acres workshops since 2006:

“Finding Music in Your Freewrite” (Bard and Fir Acres) 

·    “The Lucky Find” (Fir Acres) 

·     “Soundings 1: Getting in Touch with Your Inner Ear” (Bard) 

·     “Soundings 2: Music as Muse” (Bard) 

·     “Beyond the Sincerest Form of Flattery: Imitation as Creative Act” (Fir Acres) (see FIVE WORDS IN ORANGE NEON page) 

·     “Lyrics, Sound and Sense” (Fir Acres) 

·     “The Sound of Silence: Writing to Understand John Cage” (Bard) 

·     “Where’s the Beat?: Bringing Fresh Ears to Cage and the Avant-Garde” (Bard) 

“The Caged Bird Sings: Writing and Thinking Behind Bars” (Bard