Songwriting Retreats / Songwriting Camps for Songwriters & Musicians
Teachers & Classes 2025
Our Teachers in 2025
Cosy Sheridan • Pat Wictor • Taina Asili • Sloan Wainwright • David Roth • Vito Petroccitto • Steven Prasinos • Mark Dann • Julie Snow • Glen Roethel • Sue Riley • Charlie Koch
The curriculum will include
Songwriting courses from Cosy Sheridan, Pat Wictor, Taina Asili, David Roth, Sue Riley, & Steven Prasinos
Vocalizing with Sloan Wainwright
Guitar from Vito Petroccitto and Charlie Koch
Mentoring with Glen Roethel, Mark Dann, and Julie Snow (also sharing an art class!)
More TBD!
All course titles and descriptions will be on our website very soon!
Songwriting: Starting with the StoryHow do we find the story inside us? And once we found it, how do we coax it into the world? How do we gently blow on a little flame of one or two lines and make it into a song? Singer-songwriter songs are story-based and lyrically-driven. In this workshop we will look at the different ways we can go looking for our stories. We will use prompts and free writes, as well as guided imagination. And then once we’ve found our story we will look at how we can build a song structure that is a vehicle for the engine of story.
Songwriting: Chords and Melody How can we find interesting chord progressions and melodies? Sometimes the way three chords are played on the guitar can be magic for inspiring a song. There is more than one way to play C, F, and G — and the guitar can help us find that perfect convergence of notes and chords underneath. We don’t have to know a lot of complicated music theory to do this. In this workshop we will look at interesting chords and melodies used by some singer-songwriters to make their wonderful songs, and then we will apply them to our own writing. This workshop is specifically for songwriting with the guitar.
Cosy Sheridan Bio
Cosy Sheridan has been called one of the eras finest and most thoughtful songwriters. She has performed at coffeehouses, festivals and concerts in every corner of the United States, and her music has regularly topped the folk radio charts. “You can’t continue touring for twenty or so years, unless you know what you’re doing, and do it well.” (The Chicago Examiner). She plays a percussive bluesy guitar style, often in open tunings and occasionally with two or more capos on the guitar. Backed by the strong rhythms and harmonies of her bass player Charlie Koch, her concerts are wide-ranging, entertaining and tuneful. The Albuquerque Journal called her “a buddhist monk in a 12 step program trapped in the body of a singer-songwriter.” She first appeared on the national folk scene in 1992 when she won the songwriting contests at both The Kerrville Folk Festival and The Telluride Bluegrass Festival and then released her critically acclaimed CD Quietly Led. She is the founder and director of the Moab Folk Camp in Moab, Utah. She teaches workshops in songwriting, guitar and performance all over the country. She and her husband Charlie live in Harrisville, New Hampshire. ~ CosySheridan.com
A Cappella Vocal Improv: Have Fun, Unlock Creativity
A cappella vocal improv – singing spontaneous music with others – invites us to explore musical imagination, share musical vocabulary, create patterns, make mistakes, and try things we wouldn’t ordinarily do, such as like singing wordlessly, using invented language, and using our voices like musical instruments. In this class we’ll do larger-group improvisations (Circle Singing) and smaller-group improv too, using games and exercises developed and inspired by Bobby McFerrin, Rhiannon, and others in the vocal improv world. “What if I don’t know how to improvise?” Well, you do – in fact, you do it all the time! Everybody improvises in life, in conversation, work, and relationships. We rise to unexpected challenges all the time, summoning our creative abilities at will. Vocal improvisation is just expressing musically this natural human ability we all have. It isn’t about being brilliant – it’s about listening to each other, singing together, and helping the piece unfold. Vocal improv is also a great way to make friends, expand your mind, and grow your heart. No musical improv experience necessary. All you need is an open mind and the ability to carry a tune.
Prosody: Helping Words and Music Play Together Writing songs presents the unique challenge of making music and words serve and reinforce each other. We all know that incredible feeling when the words and music fit perfectly, and we all know that lack of satisfaction when they don’t. How do you make music and words play together? There’s a lot of trial and error in helping these two very different fundamental parts of songwriting to cooperate. This class is designed as a tool kit, to make the trial and error more productive. We’ll look at the intersection of words and music from several standpoints: big-picture (overall “mood” or “emotion”), and in close detail, examining the rhythmic, melodic, and even chordal implications of words and lyric lines. We’ll also do the reverse, looking at the verbal implications of music. We’ll do hands-on exercises and games designed to help you build skill with prosody in your own songwriting, and to help you create your own exercises and challenges for yourself, to keep advancing your skills.
Pat Wictor Bio Brooklyn-based singer-songwriter Pat Wictor makes his home in many worlds. An American citizen born in Venezuela, an expatriate through his teens, and a traveler all his life, he is used to mixing unusual combinations of ideas and experiences into a seamless whole. Grounded in rural blues and gospel traditions, Wictor’s lean, poetic songs and expressive guitar playing are seasoned with jazz, pop, improvisational surprise, philosophy and social commentary. He first gained attention as an innovative lap slide guitarist, making him a sought-after collaborator and session musician. For seven years he toured internationally as one third of Brother Sun, the powerful harmonizing trio with Joe Jencks and Greg Greenway. Wictor’s newest CD, FLARE, a concept album examining political division in America, was called “brilliant” by WFUV’s John Platt. FLARE climbed to #1 on the Folk-DJ charts in 2022, with “How Will They Tell It” as the #1 song. His previous release is a duo CD titled Counterpoise, a collaboration with jazz vocalist Deborah Latz. The two first sang together at a vocal improvisation workshop led by Bobby McFerrin. Wictor’s CD This is Absolutely Real: Visions and Versions of Phil Ochs, reached #2 on the Folk-DJ charts and was nominated for Best Tribute Album by the Independent Music Awards. Wictor currently tours solo and in a variety of duos, and is a music educator of note, teaching workshops on guitar, songwriting, body percussion, and vocal and instrumental improvisation. ~ patwictor.com
Join us for five days of deep listening, bold thinking, and fearless creation as we explore the power of music to reclaim our voices and ignite social change. In this course, Taína Asili shares the songwriting methods she has developed over her decades-long career as a musician, poet, and activist—crafting songs that break barriers, inspire movements, and unite communities. Through an interactive blend of discussion, creative exercises, and collective music-making, we will explore how artists have used their voices to challenge injustice. Taína will also guide participants through hands-on songwriting exercises to prepare for a powerful radical music jam!
Rhapsodies of Radical Imagination
What does the world we wish to create look, feel, and sound like? In course, we will use the power of our senses to envision and express the world we long to create. Guided by Taína Asili, we will engage in dynamic writing exercises and sound exploration to craft lyrics, melodies and rhythms that channel our visions for justice, healing, and transformation. Participants are invited to use their senses,voices, and visions to create songs that invite us to imagine a world that values people and the planet in sustainable and just ways. Let’s dream a liberated future—one note at a time!
Taina Asili Bio Taína Asili is a New York-based Puerto Rican singer, filmmaker and activist carrying on the tradition of her ancestors, fusing past and present struggles into one soulful and defiant voice. She combines powerful vocals with a multi-genre fusion – confidently weaving between salsa, rock, reggae, cumbia, reggaeton, and hip hop – with multilingual songs that beat with the heart of social change. Asili’s music offers a sound that spans continents, exuding strength of Spirit, inspiring audiences at venues across the globe – From Carnegie Hall to the Women’s March on Washington to the main stage of San Francisco Pride. With energetic and infectious rhythms, Asili’s music urges people to get on their feet and dance to the rhythm of rebellion. ~ ~ tainaasili.com
Singing with Your Heart, Soul, and Body
Inside each of us lives a beautiful and unique instrument, so let’s sing together with joy and freedom! In this playshop we will move our bodies, soften our hearts, open our mouths and let our voices out to play. With an emphasis on vocal health and self-care, we’ll use a combination of vocal warm-ups and work-outs – traditional and non-traditional – to help relax, release and strengthen the voice, making it more flexible and reliable. Individual attention is offered as well as to the group as a whole, and each student will be supported in developing their own personal vocal practice. This class is for singers AND non-singers alike. sloanwainwright.com
Sloan Wainwright Bio Folk-pop artist Sloan Wainwright belongs to a musical dynasty of impossibly gifted singer-songwriters. Her family tree (brother and folk-music luminary Loudon Wainwright, sister-in-law Kate McGarrigle, nephew Rufus Wainwright, nieces Martha Wainwright and Lucy Wainwright Roche) reads like a who’s who of contemporary folk music. Sloan’s incredible gift is not only her unique songwriting ability but her dramatically voiced rendition of her original songs. Defying standard categorization, Sloan consistently demonstrates her easy command of a variety of American musical styles — pop, folk, jazz, and blues — held together by the melodious tone of her rich contralto. The end result is a unique and soulful hybrid. With a solid and impressive discography of 11 original CD releases to her credit, Sloan continues to write, sing and perform live. In addition, Sloan has written numerous musical compositions for theater and dance and teaches at many of the best-known master songwriter series and workshops. Her open spirit and first-hand experience are welcomed year after year in the musical classrooms of such prestigious song camps as Richard Thompson’s Frets and Refrains, Moab Folk Camp, The Swannanoa Gathering, SummerSongs, the Cape Cod Songwriters Retreats, WUMB Radio’s Summer Acoustic Music Week (SAMW), and Lamb’s Retreat (MI).
David Roth (Photo: Michael & Suz Karchmer)DAVID ROTH
Grain of Salt
Got some unfinished business with a song-in-progress? Do you love playing and talking about music? Here’s an interactive and participatory workshop for any songs or parts thereof that you might wish to have some input on. We’ll hear these works right where they are and become a collective think-tank about what’s working so far and what might benefit from a closer look. It’s also an opportunity to hone your listening and feedback-giving skills as we work with each songwriter and ponder the many elements — lyric, rhythm, chord progression, key, arrangement, etc. – that make a song click. In the end, you always get the final say with what feels right for your song even as we find it communally useful to bat things around in a friendly, constructive, and supportive way. And of course, everything is always taken with…
David Roth Bio David strikes many chords, hearts, and minds with his unique songs, offbeat observations, moving stories, sense of the hilarious, and powerful singing and subject matter. His music has found it’s way to Carnegie Hall, the United Nations, several Chicken Soup for the Soul books, the Kennedy Center, Peter, Paul, & Mary and Kingston Trio CDs (and 15 of his own), NASA’s Goddard Space Center (“Rocket Science” went up on the Space Shuttle Atlantis’s May 2009 mission to repair the Hubble Telescope), and the classic folk song books “Rise Up Singing” and “Rise Again” (sequel). David has also taught singing, songwriting, and performance at the Augusta Heritage workshops, SummerSongs (NY – where he currently serves as Executive Director), Common Ground on the Hill (MD), the Woods Dance & Music Camp (Canada), WUMB’s Summer Acoustic Music Week (NH), Moab Folk Camp (UT), Rowe Center (MA), Pendle Hill (PA), Lamb’s Retreat (MI), the Swannanoa Gathering (NC), the National Wellness Institute (WI), and for many other songwriting groups and associations around the country. David is also founder/director of the Cape Cod Songwriters Retreats and creator/host of Cape Cod’s “Full Moon Open Mic” which, for the past 20 years has provided a forum for musicians to connect and be heard while at the same time collecting donations (more than $17,000 to date) for local non-profits to help neighbors in need.~ davidrothmusic.com
Shadowsongs
In psychology “shadow” is a Jungian term referring to unfamiliar or unwanted aspects of the self. By exploring ones shadow the songwriter can find inspiration. This exploring requires courage. Without this courage we are in a rut or have writer’s block. With this courage we find the seeds for songs that are fresh and energetic. Such songs are healing for the songwriter and for like-minded listeners. In this week-long class we will study the process of converting shadow material into song. We will see how compassion and curiosity make the shadow less threatening. Each class will begin with a meditation cultivating these attitudes. We will practice transforming shadow seeds into songs that may be confessional (direct), narrative (stories), silly (exaggerated) and so on. We will see how surprisingly universal shadow material is. In a playful, supportive and confidential environment students will be free to choose to share their explorations or not. The student will likely leave the class with a compelling song and a clearer understanding of how inspiration works. The class is not group psychotherapy but rather a study how the heroic songwriter ventures into the cave of oneself for the sake of art.
Steven PrasinosBio Steven Prasinos is a retired psychologist, author, and singer/songwriter. He had a successful psychotherapy practice for over 35 years and, as an author, has published numerous professional articles, often exploring the integration of psychology and spirituality. He has given talks on dream interpretation, psychology and the soul, and the psychology of music. He is also a published science fiction author and watercolorist. As a songwriter Steven has been writing songs for over 30 years and has placed first or second in several songwriting contests. He performs throughout the area as “Dr. Steve, the Psinging Psychologist”. Steven lives with his wife Nancy in rural Connecticut. They have 2 lovely daughters. For more information visit~ drstevesongs.com.
Chord Crunching
Here’s a course about chords and how they shift, featuring exercises in chord movement and their relationship to the keys from which they come. This is theory in a nutshell as it applies to the singer songwriter, and in this class we’ll explore chord movement, have plenty of hands-on fun, play our instruments a lot, and go through paces that are sure to get you thinking musically outside the box. Plan to improve your skills and have plenty of fun in the process.
Vito Petroccitto Bio
Singer/songwriter/musician Vito Petroccitto attended the very first SummerSongs and all this time later joins our stellar staff with an impressive resume of musical experience and expertise. Whether on a telecaster or a Taylor, Vito has opened for acts like Robert Plant, Govt. Mule, Railroad Earth, Jefferson Starship, Montgomery Gentry, Lee Bryce, Eddie Money, The Doobie Brothers, and Orleans. He’s also toured or performed with Sloan Wainwright, David Roth, Pete Seeger, Professor Louie and the Cromatix, Frank Gadler (NRBQ), the Willi Amrod Band with the James Brown horns Fred Wesley, Pee Wee Ellis, and Maceo Parker. In 2020 he appeared with Mark Ruffalo in the HBO Series “I Know This Much Is True”, performing an “approved by” Paul Simon version of “Bridge Over Troubled Water”. His versatility lends depth and staying power to a lifelong career of passion, remarkable and wide-ranging technique, boundless energy, and a genuine soul-smile to every endeavor. ~ iamvito.com
MENTOR-AT-LARGE
Mark is available all week for one-on-ones regarding a wide variety of subjects, including any aspect of record-making (home studio advice up thru larger-scale recording studio projects), guitar setup evaluations and minor on-site-tweaking, music theory (that makes sense for singer-songwriters/guitarists), as well as playing bass for you in the nightly coffeehouse! Also, advice on all sorts of music software, and Mac OS issues in general.
Mark Dann Bio
I got hooked on tape recorders as a young child. Quite a bit later, I started recording songwriter-oriented albums in the Greenwich Village music scene. That led to opening a pro-level recording studio in NYC that I ran for over 31 years. In the midst of countless recording projects of all kinds and scope over all this time, I’ve been constantly playing gigs, and building and repairing guitars. ~ markdann.com
MIXED MEDIA FUN AT MID-DAY
Paper, paint, magazines, glue! This year we will play with materials and create make belief CD covers! (remember them?). Last year we worked with paper journals, and these will be available as well. This tends to be a quiet, creative time for us to breathe and to dip into our visual worlds together.
Julie Snow Bio
Julie Snow has been coming to SummerSongs since we began in 1999. She is a singer/songwriter with two CDs made later in life following a long career as a clinical social worker. She started taking a mixed media art class over 6 years ago which continues to inspire her ongoing explorations in collage. ~ Julie on YouTube
MENTOR-AT-LARGE
Guitar? Performance? Songwriting? Cowriting? Harmony? Arranging? Production? Bands, duos, trios, websites, YouTube? Copyright, BMI, ASCAP, SESAC, publishing, CDBABY, SoundExchange? … When I first attended SummerSongs, the one-on-one sessions were invaluable! Hey, you’ve got questions too, right? Let’s talk. Sign up for a time slot, and we’ll get busy.
Glen Roethel Bio
Glen Roethel, guitarist/vocalist/songwriter/entertainer/producer and founder of streamable.cc (for livestreamers) and dreamable.cc (musician support for any creative or marketing effort) helps kindle the energy of the SummerSongs experience and keep creatives afloat. Study Party Guitar, ensemble playing, songwriting, slow jam, harmony, guitar, performance, livestreaming, and more with Glen at SummerSongs (NY), Cape Cod Songwriters Retreat (MA), Moab Folk Camp (UT), emPower Music Festival (MO), or Cosy Sheridan’s Song Sessions (NH); let loose in a late-night jam-singalong-dance party after a joyful day of learning and performance. Glen is an award-winning songwriter, a jury-selected performer at NERFA and the Singer-Songwriter Cape May festival, and a Gold prize winner (and 2024 finalist) at the Mid Atlantic Songwriting Contest (MASC) with Us! (his socially-minded trio with Summies Judy Kass and Amy Soucy). Roethel is also a Grace Note Award and Posi Award recipient at the emPower Music Festival. You’ll see or hear his songs in a Presidential Museum and also in New Thought music and Hal Leonard Corp songbooks. To Glen’s credit are multiple self-produced CDs and beautiful compilation CDs, plus instrumentation, vocals, production, and co-writes on gorgeous and award-winning recordings by Penny Nichols, Sue Riley, David Roth, Sloan Wainwright, Jan Garrett & JD Martin, and many others. Oh, and come to Ireland with Glen, Sue Riley, and Sloan in October 2025 and 2026! ~ glenroethel.com
SONGWRITING 101
Do you feel drawn to songwriting and wish that you understood how to get started? Are you looking for some guidelines about how to craft your poem into a song? Do you wonder where melody comes from? Are you already writing songs and want some tips on how to better understand the craft of songwriting? Do you have the beginning of a song and wonder how to come up with a catchy chorus? I’ll give you some ideas on how to embark on the wonderful path of songwriting. We’ll go over some basic structure ideas, do some free writes to get to the heart of what we want to write about, and then create our songs. Bring paper and a pen to class. Let the songwriting begin!
Sue Riley Bio
Sue believes in the power of music to touch hearts and heal lives. As one of the co-founders of emPower Music & Arts, Sue helps host the yearly emPower Music Festival and Posi Awards recognizing excellence in songwriting for artists who create songs with messages of peace, interfaith, and joyous living. A prolific singer-songwriter, Sue has created 8 CDs of original, award winning, uplifting positive music. Her newest CD, There Are Moments was produced by Glen Roethel and released in 2020, just in time for the Covid shut down. Sue is a grateful member of the SummerSongs Board of Directors. sueriley.com
Charlie KochCHARLIE KOCH
Songs to Make You Love Chords This is a class aimed at improving your guitar skills. The first song we will work on will teach us how to make transitions within a single chord. The next song will teach us how to use chords which move us from one chord to another. A third song will combine what we have learned in the first two songs, and so on. My ambition is to have everybody playing and singing at the same time. It should be fun and you will learn some cool tunes!
Charlie Koch bio Charlie Koch is Cosy Sheridan’s husband and bass player. He has taught guitar courses at various acoustic music camps, including PSGW, David’s P Town music retreat, Desert Song, Colorado Roots Music Camp and the Moab Folk camp. He loves chords!
COSY SHERIDAN
