On Monday 30th September, I found myself at the end of a very long drive, in the pitch blackness with Jess Dives. We were on our way to the Humankind Songwriting retreat, at the Kinochmoidart estate in Ardnamurchan of the Scottish Highlands and Jess had very kindly offered me a ride.

We were late for dinner, however the welcome was just as warm from Iona Lane and Katie Spencer, the songwriters that were leadingthe retreat.

After a quick dinner at the kitchen table, chatting to the lovely Marie Lewis who would be our chef for the week, we headed upstairs to settle into our rooms and join the song circle for the evening.

The next couple of days passed by very quickly. They were full of laughter and good food and songwriting- in groups when assigned a co-write activity or by ourselves, in a corner of the house, working on the main assignment for the week, a song based around the theme of “landscape”.

What follows is a list of my highlights and a look into what I wrote that week.

the song sharing circles

Each evening, there was a gathering in the main living room. Beside a log burning fire we would share songs, sometimes going around in a circle, each person taking a turn and others palying together.

I think the main thing I’ll take away from the retreat is a renewed feeling of joy surrounding making and sharing music. I don’t go to many open mics these days, but that feeling of being listened to and really seeing other people was one of the things that drew me to songwriting. Also- the simple pleasure of having a good laugh. I suppose I find this feeling also on stage in a more proffessional setting, but there is nothing like the back and forth of a communal setting, each person contributing in their own way.

I also took my cello on the retreat and played at these circles, as well as with Jess, in our free time, on some of her songs. I really did find the renewed love for my instrument that I was looking for.

I was due a reminder of this I think, and that’s priceless.

Being in the middle of nowhere

Just before the retreat, I took up running. This turned out to be a very fateful decision. I went on a run the first morning of the retreat, just as the sun was rising. There will always be a special place in my heart for a crisp, frosty morning and blue skies. The view of the hills surrounding the estate were so awe-inspiring.

I’ll never forget that feeling of freedom and clarity. I think there was something about the experience in general that was summarised in that moment. The only reason I was at the retreat was because of the bursary I was awarded. This was the biggest success in my music career so far, and still is. A recent graduate, I often feel stuck in a place between adolescence and adulthood. But I’ve learnt there is a freedom to be found in hard work paying off, and even more when that work is what you love. I’ll always keep chasing that feeling.

We also went on a couple of walks on the retreat as a group. I’ll always cherish a moment created by Iona, when she encouraged us to stay in complete silence for five minutes, by a lake on the estate. That moment of group mindfulness was so effective, I still remember the view of the river from where I was sitting and its gentle trickle. I still enjoy the sentiment that music is ultimately sound and really listening is a skill we ought to practice more often.

Time to write

I’ve had quite a lot of time to write this year. However,none of it has been very intentional.

The retreat really ingrained in me that time to write is important, whether that is a daily practice or a set ammount of time. As someone from a non-musical family, the main thing that gave me the confidence to properly pursue music was having role models who were professional musicians, most of whom I met in the liverpool open mic scene in the summer of 2023. Having Katie and Iona show that creative practice is valuable and valid was so beneficial. I feel myself settling into the musician I want to be.

Furthermore, the spaces available to us at the retreat to write were so perfect. I could write a love letter to the wooden staircases, the tree stump in the garden and the sofa in front of the fire.

The songs

I wrote two songs on the retreat that have stuck with me.

The first was the song I wrote as my assignment for the retreat, called ‘Visiting’. Iona and Katie set us the goal of writing a song inspired by “landscape” to be shared on the last evening of our retreat. After our first free-writing session, I knew I wanted to write a song about a place in Canada I used to go to on family holidays.

These holidays were a priviledge and something that was a sacrifice. However, they were important to my parents and became important to me and my siblings too. That small rural town became a second home to me. In fact I had a therapist who asked me to identify a “safe place”, and being within the pine trees, surrounded by snow was that for me.

The feeling of being a visiter, and outsider, is very familiar to me. Most obviously, being a tourist in this town made me feel guilt and shame and a feeling of not belonging whenever we went. There was the awareness of how tourism was pushing out locals as well as the guilt of the environmental cost of air travel, all on the surface due to my notacebly britsh accent.

I have felt alienation in other ways. Being neurodivergent has manifested for me most as a feeling of shame and guilt. I often feel I don’t belong when a group is involved, sometmes for no reason at all. I often feel that it is my fault that I feel this way- and the cycle continues. Also, being posh girl in merseyside has always made me feel like an imposter. Although born and bred on the Wirral, I never got the scouse twang and every time I have to explain where I’m from, it pokes the old bruise.

I wanted this song to be about that feeling. More specially, about feeling at home in strange places, for example in Canada. The song develops into an expression of wanting to break free of this dynamic- expressed through the metaphor of “leaving Liverpool for good”. This feeling then becomes the visiting, rather than the home.

More formally, I wanted to incorporate counterpoint and call and response into the song, as well as an intricaate, intentionally voiced guitar part. I wrote the song in DADGAD as surprsingly, it’s a tuning I haven’t explore much, despite open D being my favourite. These insight came after watching Iona and Katie’s concert on the penultimate night, taking these two aspects from their respective styles.

The demo for this one is lost- but may return someday, when the right time comes.

The second is a song called ‘Whiskey song’, which I wrote from an object prompt. One of the excercses involved taking a random object from a table of things brought by each one of the retreat attendees. I picked a guitar, which ended up being made by Jos, a lovely Dutch songwriter, who was a massive fan of Jon Martin. He called it the barrelcaster, as it was made from the wood of a whiskey barrel, from the highlands.

I used the guitar to write a song about whiskey, Jos, old men and making guitars. It’s a bit raunchy actually and I think it captures the vibe of the guitar well, it’s aromatic qualities and pretentious allure.

It’s the first song I’ve written on an electric and I’m proud of it. It’s in DADF#AD and has a call and response hook.

All in all I came away from the retreat with a renewed sense of musicianship, new friends, a deeper love for Jessica Dives and an even deeper desire to retire to the countryside a la Paul McCartney and Linda Ram era.

Lots of love and more to come,

Grace x