Witchcamps are from the Reclaiming Tradition, and have been happening in Australia for around five years now. At CloudCatcher Witchcamp this year I joined Suzanne Sterling and Sue Dunwoody to learn more about chant writing and techniques for singing.
Over four sessions we learned about the importance of warming up and cooling down your voice, various tips for improving vocal range and stamina without damaging your voice, and different ways of constructing chants and small songs.
This includes:
• beginning with some lines of writing, choosing a line or two and using that to base a song around (see Compassion be here now) ;
• beginning with a tune and finding words for the tune (see Signs of Autumn);
• using trance as a basis for writing a song or chant (see Finding my voice);
• focusing on devotion to a deity (see Anpu/Anubis);
• basing a chant on a specific line obtained from elsewhere (see Step into the Mystery); and
• focusing on current events and what needs to be changed (see Chant for Change).
I love writing songs and singing, so the path was wonderful for me to explore my technique and push at some edges. I found myself feeling quite vulnerable doing this in front of people, which had an interesting impact on my voice. Best of all, I came away with several chants, some of which I quite like!
The Anpu devotional song I recorded at camp, and you can tell the difference if you listen to that song in comparison to the others.
[CloudCatcher, photo by Luke Brohman 2015: http://www.cloudcatcherwitchcamp.com.au/]
Green and Grey 