Womyn with Wings

Women sing healing power songs

Carien Wijnen & Friends 1995

Women – who came together from all directions especially for this project – sing spiritual songs from different traditions, “Indian” and other cultures, ranging from meditative to ecstatic.

The Album contains eighteen songs (chants), sung acapella, from different cultures, which all have one thing in common: they belong to a wide-reaching, well-established spiritual culture which encompasses life projects in many countries; a culture that ranges from (women’s) resistance camps like Greenham Common and Hunsrück to everyday life in rural and urban Germany.

This recording presents a cross-section of the songs which are sung in my courses. They are spiritual songs, which come from all over the world, including “Indian” and other traditions, whose origin is often not exactly definable. I learnt some of these songs at the women’s resistance camp Hunsrück and was immediately fascinated by their power and the many possible ways of singing them, using repetition and singing in many different parts. This was followed by an exciting journey over many years, on which I got to know many such songs. On the road I realized how difficult it was to find musical notation or recordings of the songs I wanted to sing, especially the songs about the forces of nature and about the Goddess.

Course participants also started asking to have recordings, so that they could carry on singing the songs at home. However, the idea of making a good recording lay dormant in me for quite a while, until I started to teach regularly in Southern Germany in autumn 1993.

16 women singers from my workshops aged between 24 and 59 came together from all over Germany to Schwabia to make this CD. We spent six intense days working on it together. Four days in Wennenden practising; two (long!) days were dedicated to the recording. We chose a church as the place to make the recording, because in contrast to a recording studio, a church has a natural acoustic, where the (over-) tones can resonate freely. We were supported by an excellent sound engineer, who worked patiently and relentlessly on fine-tuning the quality of the recording.

Further recordings will follow. I am happy to be able to invite you to sing along with us – have fun!
 

Womyn with Wings