The Lyre as a Pathway to Balance

Weaving between Inner Tones and Joyful Music

Tuesday, August 13th – Saturday, Aug 17th, 2024
Camphill Village, Copake, New York
with Anna Cooper and Sarah Boyd

Participants who attend LANA's summer lyre conference will experience a blend of inner and outer activity in two general sessions featuring special playing techniques and skill building as well as some beautiful ensemble music with Anna Cooper, some gentle movement and inner listening work with Sarah Boyd, and two sessions of smaller ability-based lyre groups. In addition, we will have daily lunchtime workshops on topics of general interest. A highlight of our musical activities will be working together with our youth towards a performance of Colin Tanser’s beloved 3-movement work, Everyman, composed for lyres and children’s choir.

Our venue will be the beautiful Camphill Village Copake in New York’s Hudson Valley, which will be a lovely support to our work during these intensive days together. Considering both content and venue, we are anticipating that this will be one of our most valuable and enjoyable summer lyre conferences ever!

Fees:
LANA Member $385 ($375 after June 30) / Deposit: $100
Non-Member $435 ($425 after June 30) / Deposit: $125
(To learn about membership in LANA, go to: https://lyreassociation.org/membership)

For more information and to register online, visit https://lyreassociation.org/accessories/lyre-2024-conference-registration

Email: lyrists@gmail.com – Financial Aid and questions

Report From an Improvisation Workshop with Veronika Roemer

Triform Camphill entrance

From April 5th through 7th, in Triform Camphill Community in Hudson, NY, I attended a weekend lyre workshop with Veronika Roemer entitled "Improvisation – Between Chaos and Rigidity." Participants included eight lyrists from the local area in addition to players who traveled from Pennsylvania and downstate New York.

Childrens Workshop Attendees with Veronika roemer and Monica talaya

On Friday afternoon, prior to the main workshop, Veronika offered a children's improvisation session, attended by Monica Talaya and five of her students, aged 10 and 14. My 9-year-old son was able to join as well. The children explored a variety of instruments, including the psaltery, drums, and xylophones, while learning to follow rules and listen to each other carefully. The children enjoyed making music in a circle accompanied by singing and lots of movement that included pairs of children meeting in the center of the circle with their instruments. Unforgettable was the moment two boys elegantly "danced" to make a powerful sound with their wooden sticks. The instruments were then switched from wooden sticks to iron bars and finally to gongs, and we learned how very gently we must use our mallets to draw beautiful sounds from the gongs.

Adult Workshop Attendees with Veronika Roemer ( far right, standing)

From Friday evening through Sunday morning, we had the main workshop. We began every session with singing and "Strömendes Gestalten" (translated literally as "Flowing and Forming"), which is a kind of conducting for the plenum playing of the lyre. Specific gestures are used to indicate streaming the lyre strings, playing single tones, and changing pitches and volumes, etc. Someone commented that even more so than conventional music conducting, this style of conducting allowed her to “hear what she envisioned”. Veronika explained that this unique method of conducting was developed by Julius Knierim out of his work with children with special needs. The fact that anyone who holds the lyre can immediately participate in group music making through such accessibility and openness is one unique aspect of the modern lyre.

Exercise in Conducting with body movement

Over the course of two days, Veronika guided us step by step, allowing us to focus on various musical elements one at a time, and we experienced a number of interesting results emerging out of our improvisations. We began our exploration with pentatonic scales, then moved to diatonic and chromatic ones. We then explored different melodic and other musical forms as well as various rhythms, meters and beat. One climax was having two people "conduct" with their entire bodies by stepping forward and backward (as shown in the picture.)

Veronika was inspired to offer this workshop on improvisation after she had attended a workshop on this topic in Germany offered by Martin Tobiassen and Christian Giersch last summer. She also shared with us things she had learned from Pär Ahlbom many years ago as well as gems she has gleaned from translating a book by Reinhild Brass entitled The Pedagogy of Listening (available in English later this year).

I returned home with many wonderful seeds of ideas and inspirations, though I realized that it will actually take the rest of my life to unpack and fully master what I learned during this one weekend! I would like to thank Veronika for having so generously shared with us her own lifelong work. I would also like to thank Akiko Suesada from the Triform Camphill Community for hosting us on their beautiful campus.  

Saeko Cohn, Chestnut Hill, NY

2024 LANA Summer Lyre Intensive

“Weaving between Inner Tones and Joyful Music:
The Lyre as a Pathway to Balance”

We are very pleased to have an opportunity this summer of 2024 to host our lyre conference in beautiful Copake, New York, at Camphill Village Copake

Tuesday evening, August 13, through Saturday noon, August 17.  
Please Save These Dates!

Anna Prokhovnik Cooper and Sarah Boyd

We will be welcoming back internationally-recognized master teacher of the lyre, Anna Prokhovnik Cooper, living at present in Bretagne, France, who was the master teacher for our LANA Summer Lyre Intensive 16 years ago in 2008. Anna has taught the lyre in many different countries, has worked in Camphill Villages, hospitals, schools, and institutions, as well as having taught music in a Waldorf school for 16 years. She has a deep respect for the art of teaching, always striving for better techniques and ways of communicating with the lyre. One of Anna’s most heartfelt wishes is to be able to bring joy and enthusiasm to lyre playing and to music.

Joining Anna and accompanying her lyre work with us, we are very happy to be able to welcome Sarah Boyd, a professional reflexologist and holistic practitioner who has combined her interest in well-being with the art of listening, the lyre tone, movement, and bodywork. From working during "the conflict times" in Belfast to the present day in France, Sarah will bring a refreshing mix of skills to complement and balance our intensive work with the lyre this summer!

Soon we will have more detailed information about our conference as well as links to registration. In the meantime, we want to share our excitement for both the content and the venue for what we are confident will prove to be one of our most valuable and enjoyable conferences ever!  Please plan to join us.
~ Sheila P. Johns, for the LANA Board

Calling for Stories! Copy deadline March 18...

The next issue of Lyre Notes is coming soon!  We welcome your news, stories, short articles, photos, and announcements of lyre happenings around the world and in your region, plus reviews about items in our music sales store, and ads from LANA members. The copy deadline is March 18th.

We look forward to hearing from you!!  Contributions may be sent to lyrists@gmail.com.  

Thank you! -Catherine Read, Lyre Notes Editor

Regional Weekend Lyre Workshop with Veronika Roemer

Improvisation – Between Chaos and Rigidity
Regional Weekend Lyre Workshop with Veronika Roemer

Veronika Roemer

 Since the summer of 2018, Martin Tobiassen and Christian Giersch have been offering an annual weeklong lyre intensive in Germany called “Sommerakademie”, and last year’s topic was “Improvisation”. Veronika Roemer participated in this course and is offering to share some exercises and musical impulses from the course!

We will be exploring the following elements as a basis for both solo an group improvisation:

• Various tonal systems, scales, intervals, and musical forms 

• Rhythm 

• Musical Gestures – Gestures as Music

• Impulse – Beginning – Ending

• This workshop will be most suitable for intermediate to advanced lyre players, although this would include anyone who is comfortable to independently create, play, and repeat a musical phrase! Please reach out to me or to Veronika if you are not sure if this is for you.

Date: April 5 -7 (Friday evening – Sunday lunchtime)
Location: Triform Camphill Community, 20 Triform Rd., Hudson, NY 12534
Cost: sliding scale $60 – $100

I’m very excited that Veronika has agreed to offer this special workshop, which is limited to 12 participants.  We currently have 6 spots remaining, so we warmly invite a few others to consider joining us. Please register with me as soon as possible, and contact me if you need accommodations.

We are looking forward to hearing from you!
Christina Porkert – cep@fairpoint.net or 518-758-2428 (landline, no text)
Veronika Roemer  – vbrtnstn@gmail.com

LANA Membership Report

As of February 2024, LANA currently has 122 members, 14 of ​whom have joined in the past year! Our members come from all over the country​ and the world and make up a strong community of people who are interested in supporting the work of the lyre. As of January 2024​, we switched to a calendar year renewal system to help streamline the renewal process for our membership team. We also sent out a survey to our renewing members​ and the responses we got will help direct our work. In many of the responses​, we heard a strong desire for more in​-person regional gatherings​, and we hope to be able to support that wish in the coming year!    

--Sarah Stosiek for the Membership Working Group from the Rights Realm of the LANA Board

Music Review: - John Clark's 'A Ballad Book’

**Now in Stock at the LANA Store** – A Ballad Book for Singers, Lyre or Other Melodic and Accompanying Instruments, selected and arranged with chord indications and optional Preludes/Interludes, by J. S. Clark.
Review by Sally Willig

John Clark has brought to the lyre community a wonderful and needed compilation of songs in this first volume for those who love the old English and Scottish ballads.  In his introduction, John describes  ballads as “sung narratives or stories, and their use and development have accompanied the unfolding of Western music since medieval times until today.”  He has researched the melodies and lyrics, with the help of  the Oxford Book of Ballads by James Kinsley (1922-1984).  The  ballads run the gamut of life experience with dramatic tales of love, death, heroism, evil, comic relief, and  so on.  This volume contains  31 songs with Clark’s own originally composed “optional” preludes and interludes, along with guitar chord indications.  John gives hints and suggestions in his introduction, but also leaves room for the musician to make artistic choices in instrumentation, tempi, and dynamics.  A few of the Ballads are:  “Thomas the Rhymer,” “Fair Margaret and Sweet William,” "The Carpenter’s Wife (The Daemon Lover),” “Unquiet Grave," “The Wee Wee Man,” “The Cherry Tree Carol,” and many more. 

Music is a  wonderful way to bring the cultural history and atmosphere of the North to audiences.  John Clark has made it possible to bring  the lyre to this popular genre.  I also see possibilities for adding other instruments to further embellish the songs and underscore the storylines. Playing and singing  several of these pieces as a set for a musical sharing or more formal concert would be very entertaining. This music book would also make a lovely gift  for the folk music enthusiast.  Intermediate to advanced lyrists will enjoy playing these songs.  It is also possible to divide the accompaniment into two parts for more ensemble fun. 

The Presence of the Lyre at the 2024 WECAN Conference

Saeko and Assistant at the LANA table at WECAN

On February 9 and 10, I brought a suitcase full of sheet music, music books, pentatonic lyres, and accessories, such as lyre strings and tuning forks, to the Vender Hall at the Waldorf Early Childhood Association of North America (WECAN) conference in Spring Valley, New York. This conference that convenes annually at the Green Meadow Waldorf School has been a beloved tradition among Waldorf early childhood educators for many decades, and this year, it was sold out, attended by over 330 individuals from all over North America. For the attendees, this is a weekend extravaganza of professional development workshops, reunions, and networking, accompanied by meals in the Threefold Cafe, puppet plays, and a eurythmy performance. 

Equally beloved by both attendees and the locals alike is the conference's Vender Hall. This was my second WECAN conference as a LANA representative, and there was a certain feeling of reunion among some of the old time vendors. Similar to four years ago, I very much enjoyed meeting the many people who stopped by our LANA table, browsing music books, taking 7-string lyres in their hands, and listening carefully into the sound that is hardly audible in the chatter-filled Vender Hall. 

One teacher shared with me that at the end of the summer in a school where she works in her native country of Hungary, parents of the rising first graders gather to carve wood and make pentatonic lyres for their children! I was touched to hear such a beautiful story. In general, I received the impression that many of the Waldorf kindergartens and nurseries are already equipped with various types of pentatonic lyres, but teachers are often too busy to care for them, tune them, or to actively use them in their classrooms on a daily basis.

It was a pleasure to introduce some of our useful resources for these teachers, such as Julius Knierim's Quintenlieder: Music for Young Children in the Mood of the Fifth, Gerhard Beilharz and Mechthild Laier's A Guide to Playing the Pentatonic Children's Lyre (both German titles in English translation), and Channa Seidenberg's I Love to be Me. (These books are available for purchase at our LANA online music store.) In the future, perhaps we could offer a lyre concert or music for the Madonna pictures for this particular audience, along with a workshop on the Mood of the Fifth. In this way, more early childhood educators could experience firsthand the healing impulse that lives in each one of the lyre tones every time someone plays, sings along, or even just strums the seven strings for children. 

FINAL NOTICE – LANA Study Group Begins February 24 – RSVP Required

LANA is initiating a study group for members and friends! It will be held via Zoom at regular intervals, and the subject matter will be related to the lyre, to music inspired by anthroposophy, and to the Movement for Musical Renewal.

Madonna Tempi Raphael

Our first study will be a reading and review of Reinhold Faeth’s article entitled ‘The Madonna Pentagram’, where he outlines the reasons for revising the order of the Madonna Sequence images.  It was published in Zeitschrift Seelenpflege, January 1998.  In 2002, Raffael-Verlag, publishers of ‘Madonnen Bilder’ prints and cards, adopted a revised sequence of these paintings, based on this article. Our study will use the English translation by David Barford and Rose Edwards, January 2003. Because the order of the pictures differs from that traditionally used, we felt it would be helpful to share this article and give others the opportunity to work through this important and well-presented content.

The study will begin on Saturday, February 24 and continue monthly for 4 sessions. In order to accommodate LANA members from different parts of the world who have already expressed an interest to participate in this study, we have made the time decision as follows: 1300 EST, 1200 CST, 2100, 1900 France, 2000 in Israel, and 700 (Sunday) in Wellington, New Zealand.

Please RSVP via email to Debbie Barford dsbarford@yahoo.com.

Zoom invitation will be sent upon receiving your RSVP, along with further suggestions for study materials.

The article is linked here.

Sets of Madonna cards and large prints are available in the LANA Store.

–Debbie Barford, on behalf of the LANA Board

Mentoring Moment – Winter Lyre Care

From the Lyre Newsletter for Michaelmas-Advent 2004 Volume #48:

As we are still in the winter season, be aware that heated indoor air can be a major hazard for your lyre! Lyres, as well as other instruments made of wood, can crack if the wood dries out too much over time.  To prevent this possibility, add some humidity to the air your lyre lives in.  The best way is with a humidifier for your whole house, or for the room where you keep your lyre.  If that is not possible, or in addition to room humidity, add moisture to the air inside your lyre case.  You can use a Dampit, or “snake” made for violins and cellos and available at music stores.  Or, make a homemade case humidifier with a piece of sponge inside a film container punched with holes. (2024 note: Since film containers are no longer in common use, the D’Addario small instrument humidifier is another option.)

Dampit humidifier

D'Addario humidifier

Protect your lyre further by wrapping it in a piece of silk.  Include the case humidifier or Dampit in the “package”.

LANA Study Group Begins February 24 – RSVP Required

LANA Study Group Begins February 24 – RSVP Required

LANA is initiating a study group for members! It will be held via Zoom at regular intervals, and the subject matter will be related to the lyre, to music inspired by anthroposophy, and to the Movement for Musical Renewal.

Madonna Cards published by Raffael-verlag

Our first study will be a reading and review of Reinhold Faeth’s article entitled ‘The Madonna Pentagram’, where he outlines the reasons for revising the order of the Madonna Sequence images.  It was published in Zeitschrift Seelenpflege, January 1998.  In 2002, Raffael-Verlag, publishers of ‘Madonnen Bilder’ prints and cards, adopted a revised sequence of these paintings, based on this article. Our study will use the English translation by David Barford and Rose Edwards, January 2003. Because the order of the pictures differs from that traditionally used, we felt it would be helpful to share this article and give others the opportunity to work through this important and well-presented content.

The study will begin on Saturday, February 24 and continue monthly for 4 sessions.

The study will begin on Saturday, February 24 and continue monthly for 4 sessions. In order to accommodate LANA members from different parts of the world who have already expressed an interest to participate in this study, we have made the time decision as follows: 1300 EST, 1200 CST, 2100, 1900 France, 2000 in Israel, and 700 (Sunday) in Wellington, New Zealand

Please RSVP via email to Debbie Barford dsbarford@yahoo.com

Zoom invitation will be sent on RSVP, along with further suggestions for study materials.

The article is linked here.

Sets of Madonna cards and large prints are available in the LANA Store.

--Debbie Barford, on behalf of the LANA Board

LANA Board News

Catherine Read

It is with great pleasure that we welcome Catherine Read back to the LANA Board of Directors. She will be a great asset as part of the publications team within our Cultural Realm of LANA. 

Catherine Read has been playing lyre since 2008 as part of teaching the Waldorf Curriculum at home (from Kindergarten through Grade Eleven, described in The Genius of Home, SteinerBooks).  She has attended Lyre Summer Conferences and played for Advent Garden festivals.  Catherine was previously on the Board of the Lyre Association of North America from 2002-2009, and was on the Faculty of the Dorion School of Music Therapy from 2005-2009.  She was a founding member of Resonare, a music foundation course out of Anthroposophy, and was the founding editor of Soundings.  Catherine is currently liaising with the Tir-Anna lyre workshop to support an internship in lyre building of the Derscheid Legacy lyres.

Colleen Shetland

We would also like to express our gratitude to Colleen Shetland who has joined Christof-Andreas Lindenberg as an Emeritus member of the LANA Board. She has been a very active part of our Board for over 20 years, serving as LANA president during our 2015 international conference in Detroit, and making a key contribution to the development of our association. We are very grateful to Colleen for her years of service to LANA!  

Music Review – Joy in the Holy Nights

My husband Joel and I returned home from our early December travels to a marathon of Christmas activities and music!  Besides accompanying rehearsals for the Oberufer Three Kings Play (with music from Upper Esk, performed on Epiphany), we played for four Christmas services and many of the morning services and contemplations taking place during the 12 Holy Days following.

Throughout these activities, we had a wonderful time exploring John Billing’s Joy Songbook, just released on the LANA website as a digital download. Our community loved hearing the selection of traditional European Christmas carols – some, shorter for interludes in the service; others, longer with embellishments.  Thank you, John, for this timely book of carols arranged for lyre!

Please send your reviews and stories from the season to Lyrists@gmail.com.
Margo Ketchum
Devon, Pennsylvania
Lyrists@gmail.com / 610-608-9281

Second-Hand Lyres for Sale

The Lyre Association recently received a list of currently available second-hand lyres from Gundolf Kuehn in Germany.  Gundolf does a beautiful job of refurbishing used lyres, and all his instruments are very high quality and typically come with new strings.  There are many lyres available on this recently updated list, and Gundolf reported that he has hired a new employee who is training to become a lyre maker, which increases his lyre workshop to four builders/refurbishers.

Gundolf is happy to send pictures of the lyres via WhatsApp.  His email address is gundolf.kuehn@t-online.de.

Christmas JOY from John Billing

New in our store as digital music! Download available for $15 here

Traditional European CHRISTMAS SONGS

Arranged for LYRES and other Instruments

BY JOHN BILLING

As on the CD “Joy” (available here)