• Skip to main content
  • Skip to header right navigation
  • Skip to after header navigation
  • Skip to site footer
  • Pay Dues & Fees
  • Log In
  • Log Out
Local 1000 Logo

Local 1000 AFM

The Traveling Musicians Union

  • Pay Dues and Fees
  • Hire a Union Musician
  • Join Now
  • My Profile
  • About
    • About Us
    • Executive Board and Office Staff
    • Committees
    • Our Work in the Music Industry
    • Contact Us
    • Member Directory
  • Why Join?
  • News
    • Event Calendar
    • News
    • Member News
    • Submit Member News
    • eNewsletter
    • New Deal
  • Members Only
    • Member Resources
    • Contracts and Forms
    • Bylaws & Reports
    • Pay Scales
    • Edit My Public Profile
  • Donate
Carry it On - New Local 1000 Song

Carry it On – New Local 1000 Song and Highlander Retreat Report

29 September 2014 by Local 1000

“Why didn’t we do this before?”

Carry It On p1
Carry it On p1

by Steve Eulberg

 

That is the question I kept asking myself after we completed the final portion of our Members Retreat at Highlander this past May.

 

We are a union local composed of a great many song-singers and songwriters, but in my decade-plus as a member I don’t recall a time when when we have written a song together.

 

But I’m getting ahead of my story.

 

For the third time, members gathered for a few days at the historic Highlander Center, in New Market, Tennessee.  They came from across the continent, this time to ponder how to “Carry It On.” How do we learn from the legacy of our brother, Pete Seeger, tilling the soil to bear his fruits in our work for this world.

 

Carry it On p2
Carry it On p2

We were guided by our colleagues, who were his colleagues of different cohorts:  Charlie King, John McCutcheon and Spook Handy.

 

We dreamed of our near and long-term future as an interwoven web of musical artists, supporting and challenging each other to Carry It On.

 

And we concluded with a group song-writing exercise that was imagined after our brother, Si Kahn, called forth the necessary creativity for a performance earlier this Spring.

 

Together, we each had 15 minutes to begin a song, or to begin a parody.  When the alarm sounded, we came back to share these ideas with each other.

 

From the parody of a sea shanty, to a work chant, to melodic ballads, to rap and a fully-worked out guitar accompaniment, we were all amazed to here what was released when we reach for it.

 

Agreeing to trust each other, I used the technology of my smart phone to capture all these “song seeds” before we started trying to move forward on the group part of the creation exercise.

 

I originally imagined that we would choose one of the songs to complete, but the gathered circle of collaborators overruled that idea:  “We have everything we need with ALL of the parts that have been shared.”

 

Soon the ideas tumbled over each other, coming from different voices around the circle:  “Tret, you’ve got the chorus!”  “What about this other part as the pre-chorus?”  “Steven and Elise, you have verse 2, Aaron you have verse one!”  “Sandy, yours is the finish of verse 2; Renee—you’ve got the break-down, and we love that echo that you and Jeni are adding!”  “Charlie, yours sounds like the last verse; Scott yours goes before that…Steve Deasy, you’ve got the melodic bridge.”  “Eulberg, you got anything?  Let’s weave that with the rapping part for the break-down.”

 

We ran through it a couple of times, then recorded the demo (which is available to be heard on our website.)  All of this happened in the final couple of hours of the retreat.  Then Billy Kemp offered to transcribe it so you can see it here!  (And you can download it and sing it—A song By Local 1000, for Local 1000!)

 

The song-singers and singer-songwriters of the AFM, wrote a song together, on demand, in a short period of time.  This is the kind of bringing our full selves to our art that our sister, Holly Near, challenged and encouraged us to do with her keynote in our second retreat two years ago.

 

Our next Gathering is scheduled for May 4-6, 2015 at the Ashokan Center in Olivebridge, New York.


Carry It On!

 

Download the MP3 of Carry it On by clicking here

Download the sheet music for Carry it On as a PDF by clicking here

Download song lyrics for Carry it On here

Category: Union News

About Local 1000

The Local 1000 of the American Federation of Musicians union.

Previous Post:Fair Trade Music article by Daphne Carr on newmusicbox.orgFair Trade Music article by Daphne Carr on newmusicbox.org
Next Post:New Deal Summer 2014New Deal Summer 2014
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Copyright © 2023 Local 1000 AFM All Rights Reserved · Website by Wickam Group