Basking in the glow of support from my 123 Kickstarter backers. All I can do is smile and offer this chorus of gratitude:
(a wee bit of Shawn Colvin’s “Diamond in the Rough” as sung into my iPhone in a luxuriously reverberant stairway)
a huge machine
I once had a tiny Russian voice teacher who liked to tell me, as she pushed her little fist into my belly, “The other girls, they can be lazy, but you, you have a huge machine, you cannot be lazy!” (I can still hear her insisting — insert your own favorite Russian accent here — “You khave a khuge maCHINE!”) And I do have a huge machine, a huge drive to use my big voice to bring other people’s voices, other people’s songs into the world. But how to keep such a huge machine going?
Using Kickstarter to raise the funds for my new album, and thereby inviting others into the album-making process, has taught me one part of the answer to that question. There I was in the recording studio the other day when my phone rang and my text message buzzer buzzed with dear ones letting me know that my Kickstarter project had reached its goal. Seeing the number of backers and the number of dollars add up, receiving this kind of support for bringing my songs into the world feels like filling up the fuel tanks on that huge machine. I am so grateful to every one of my 123 backers.
Whether they contributed $1 or $1800 they have given me not only their money — and used email and Facebook and Twitter and podcast waves and word of mouth to bring others in as well — they have provided a clear sense of fellowship in this (otherwise potentially isolating) process. We (yes, we! I and all 123 stakeholders) are 104.5% funded and very much looking forward to being able to put these funds to good use: studio time, album design, pressing, printing, postage.
If you’d like to be kept abreast of this and other projects as they unfold, please put your email address in the little box on the sidebar where it says “Care to hear from me?” In the meantime, I continue to brim with gratitude for each and every one of the 123 luscious souls who are helping me give voice to the songs that move through me.
Coming home to the land of love
We brought it on home and wrapped up the Kickstarter phase of my new album.
Now it’s on to the next phases of this wonderful birthing process: finishing the recording, getting the CD itself together, sending goodies to all my Kickstarter backers, and having a CD release concert to benefit Berks Women in Crisis (May 16th! Stay tuned for more info on that)!
“The Land of Love” was written last March. It was inspired in part by the synergy of preparations for Pesach (Passover, when we retell the ancient story of moving from slavery into freedom) and enjoying Martha Beck‘s concept of learning to tune in to which experiences in life give us a feeling of having shackles on and which give us a feeling of those shackles falling away. Hint: Aim toward having more experiences that give you a “shackles off” feeling. So, this song is a way of calling myself and all of us to our truest home: the wandering wilderness of infinite possibility.
Using Kickstarter to raise funds for the new album has definitely been a “shackles off” experience.
I feel heartened by the 123 people who backed me and helped me reach my goal. It’s a money goal, but it’s also much more deeply a goal of inviting the world to support bringing this new creation into being. It’s a way of inviting you to journey with me, always, toward the “land of love.”
Here we go!
These are the words
With three weeks to go to meet my Kickstarter deadline and fund my new album “at the edge of the unknown,” I am sharing more here of what is emerging in the studio. Here is a first draft of “These are the words” (complete with me singing sharp in places ’cause that happens when I get excited).
How often do you get to witness this kind of raw work from an artist in any medium? I welcome your feedback (artistically, producerly, spiritually, and otherwise) and the offer to refer a friend to back me on Kickstarter still stands. They get the satisfaction of backing me, you get extra goodies.
About the song: “These are the words” was written as a final assignment for the class I took on the Book of Deuteronomy in my last year of rabbinical school. All semester we looked at Deuteronomy as the words that Moses wanted to leave the people who were about to journey on without him. To do this, Deuteronomy retells previously told stories seemingly for the purpose of imparting some kind of lesson and giving us something to carry with us. Our wonderful teacher, Dr. Judith Kates, told us to look back at our time in rabbinical school and retell the story of that journey “Deuteronomically.” My musings took me even further back to tell an origin story about songwriting itself and its healing and transformative role in my life.
A Kickstarter update: As of this writing, I have 67 backers and have raised $4388 toward my goal of $7000. Many thanks to all my backers…now get your friends on board!
Let me hear you!
I want to share with you some of the new music on the album I’m incubating (and kickstarting):
In the coming weeks, I’ll be posting a few “rough drafts” of different (very different) songs. “Hashmi’ini” is the first of these and the first opportunity for you to:
- have a taste of just what it is you are backing. Haven’t backed me yet, how about it?
- get an instant extra reward! If you have already backed me and refer a friend who backs me, I’ll send you an mp3 of the “rough draft” track of your choice right away. You don’t even have to wait for my kickstarter to be fully funded. You can refer up to three friends and get three different songs. Stay tuned for more songs in the coming weeks. Let me know on facebook or twitter (@minnabromberg) who you referred and give me their email so I can confirm it with them; also make sure I have the best email for you to receive the mp3.
- be a “guest producer.” How’s this for crowdsourcing? If you’ve got an ear for this sort of thing, feel free to use facebook or twitter (@minnabromberg) to weigh in on what works and what doesn’t work for you. The reverb, the length, the style, it’s all fair game. What would you want more of or less of production-wise?
About the song
“Hashmi’ini” weaves together parts of two different verses from the Song of Songs which deeply touch at the heart of my work in the world. In each the lover beseeches the beloved to let her voice be heard.
הַשְׁמִיעִנִי אֶת-קוֹלֵךְ כִּי-קוֹלֵךְ עָרֵב
“Let me hear your voice, for your voice is sweet” — Song of Songs 2:14
הַיּוֹשֶׁבֶת בַּגַּנִּים חֲבֵרִים מַקְשִׁיבִים לְקוֹלֵךְ הַשְׁמִיעִנִי
“O garden dweller, friends listen for your voice, let me hear you!” — Song of Songs 8:13
Birthing “at the edge of the unknown”
It’s time to birth a new album! Watch the video above to learn how you can help. Then go to my Kickstarter page to pledge your support.
I have about a dozen or so songs that I’m in the midst of recording. Some are more in my Torah-inspired singer-songwriter vein (including “Gone Tarshisha”), others are more like devotional “gospel” chants in English and Hebrew (like “I Lift Up this Waiting”) and at least one is “just” a love song. The only song that I’m planning to include that has been recorded before is “The Turning Song” which is on my live album “Live at Lena’s” and has been used in at least two weddings!
The album will be eclectic but with a certain warm-hearted thread running through it. I am looking forward not only to being able to share my new tunes with my fans, but also continuing to use this collection of songs in my ongoing teaching work: helping individuals and groups find their truest voices and their own most authentic songs.
The funds will be used primarily to cover my studio time. I am working with a wonderful recording engineer, Marty Mellinger, who is an excellent musician, composer, and producer in his own right. He is also helping me with some of the arrangements for the songs and playing some keyboards parts as well. His studio is in an old schoolhouse in nearby Leesport.
So far I would estimate that we are about halfway done with the recording studio work (though such things generally take twice as long and cost twice as much as your highest estimate).
Once the cost of studio time is covered, any remaining funds will go to duplicating the CDs themselves and to fulfilling all the premiums I hope you will be selecting in thanks for your donation.
I welcome all patrons, matrons, patriarchs and matriarchs of the arts, and anyone else who wants to be a part of bringing this project to fruition.
Bringing our whole selves to At-one-ment
This year for Kol Nidre, I’ll be offering Libby Roderick’s healing anthem “How Could Anyone” as a starting point for bringing our whole selves to the work of teshuva — the return to wholeness. Here’s my version:
We have tried finding and offering only our best, only our strengths, and that was good and important work to do. We have tried listening only to the strongest voices whether in our own heads or in our families and communities. But by the time Yom Kippur — the day of atonement — rolls around, it is clear that our best will not ultimately be enough. We must also be willing to bring our very worst and find a way to include those parts as well — all those parts of ourselves that hold our deepest passions and our deepest fears, all those people in our families and in our communities who we would just rather tune out. We come to see that wholeness means listening to all voices, not just the pretty ones — whether internal to our selves or confronting us in the face of an other. Every voice is valuable in this process of returning.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if we want to find our truest voices and sing our truest songs, we have to be willing to let the worst singer sing.
How can I keep from singing
As I head into the home stretch of preparations for Rosh HaShanah (the Jewish New Year) — the turkey and lamb roast are in the oven, the sermons are also cooking slowly, my head is filled with High Holy Day memories and melodies – I keep coming back to this song. I keep coming back to listening for the “new creation.” I keep coming back to re-enthroning love as lord of heaven and earth. Many blessings to all on this birthday of the world for a sweet and healthy and thriving new year! Enjoy.
Yah is my strength and my song….
As we approach Rosh HaShanah, it’s amazing to review everything I’ve been blessed to do this past year. First is my adaptation of Rabbi Shefa Gold’s Ozi 
v’zimrat Yah that I used with a variety of groups this summer — including patients at a local mental hospital — to help them find their way out of narrow places of helplessness to find enough voice and strength not only to support themselves, but to help support each other. I also used it at a workshop Alan and I co-taught at a pastoral care program for seminary and rabbinical students at JTS this summer as well as part of leading havdalah at the Hazon New York Environmental Bike Ride at the end of the summer. Here I am singing it:
Ozi v’zimrat Yah — Rabbi Shefa Gold’s setting of this beautiful line from Exodus 15:2 — the Song at the Sea — with my English additions.
As this year’s holidays approached, I also had a chance to work with rabbinical students at the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, giving a workshop there to help the students prepare their voices — both their physical and spiritual ones — for their upcoming High Holiday pulpits. Working with rabbinical students and rabbis has been especially rewarding for me, and I also helped some rabbis with voice lessons via Skype this year.
A key goal of all this work, ultimately, is healing. I was priviledged to be able to give workshops and concerts in healing and spiritual contexts, including at a Palliative Care conference at a local hospital and with the Berks Visiting Nurses. I’ll be doing a workshop for hospice staff in November. I also ran a voice workshop in my hometown of Sag Harbor, NY, which was especially fun. And on Shabbat Shira weekend I had a concert here in Reading as part of a special weekend with our new Community Singers group bringing together singers from across the local synagogues. Here’s part of that performance
It’s amazing to think that it’s only been a bit more than a year since my ordination at Hebrew College and will be only my second High Holidays at Kesher Zion synagogue here in Reading, PA. What an exciting year, and I am so hopeful for more to come!
Shannah Tova u’metukah.
