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During Covid lockdown, Sarah Bentley discovered the world of community singing. For the last few years, she’s found connection and a creative outlet through leading singing circles.
The full transcript of this episode of KUT News Now is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
This Is My Thing: Community Singing!
Show intro and theme
Michael Lee [00:00:10] I’m Michael Lee and you’re listening to This Is My Thing. On This Is My Thing, we talk to people about the things they do just for themselves. It’s not their job and it’s not a responsibility. It’s just a thing that brings them joy or feeds their soul.
This week, community singing!
My guest today is Sarah Bentley, who discovered the world of community singing during the pandemic lockdowns and has now been leading singing circles for several years.
Sarah Bentley [00:00:37] I’m Sarah Bentley, and my thing is community singing.
Sarah Bentley Community singing is just a group of folks getting together, singing. Usually we do it without lyrics or music. So typically, community singing is taught in the oral tradition, and we’ll use like a call, an echo or a call and response type teaching style. And it’s just a way to people to get together, enjoy themselves. And oftentimes there’s sort of a theme or purpose behind the gathering or the circle.
Michael Lee [00:01:17] How long have you been doing these circles?
Sarah Bentley [00:01:19] I have been doing community singing circles for, I want to say, about three years. Ironically, I discovered it online during the pandemic. You wouldn’t think community singing and online would go together. And it’s it’s definitely much better in person. But I was looking for ways to be connected with folks and discovered a woman named Heather Houston, who’s based out of Santa Cruz. And she has a organization called Sisters in Harmony. And I just started joining her Zoom sessions, and I did her Sisters and Harmony Song leading training in 2021. So I guess it’s been a few years.
Michael Lee [00:02:23] When you found this, were you looking for a community? Were you looking for singing? Were you looking for both?
Sarah Bentley [00:02:31] I think I was looking for community and I was looking for singing. I had been a singer songwriter in my 20s and kind of put it down when I was trying to get pregnant with my daughter and really missed singing. But I also knew I didn’t want to go back to playing in bars. So when I discovered community singing online, first of all, that the format of the songs is a little different than a typical like, singer songwriter format. And I realized that the way I used to write songs was actually much more of a community singing format, which means that’s not always like for verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge. It might just be a chorus that you kind of riff on. So I was very excited. I felt like coming home when I first learned about community singing and it just felt really good to finally, I guess I felt validated in my singing style and what I was looking for. But also it was the pandemic. So I was also looking for connection with folks. And interestingly, I think even though we’re like five years out from when the pandemic started, I feel like people are still really hungry for meaningful community connection. So we’re going to do another one of mine. I’m trying to create a space where I do create spaces where people can just come and be themselves, where non performative. It’s non auditioning, it’s not about sounding good. You don’t even have to have any experience singing. The only thing that you have to have is an enjoyment of singing and wanting to be around other people that enjoy singing. Like you don’t have to show up here and know how to sing well. Or, you know, maybe you can’t hit a high note. It’s okay. You can just sit back and breathe and let one of your your friends over here that can hit it, do it, you know? So it’s like this this thing that we’re doing together where it’s not about you doing it better than anyone. It’s not about you even doing all of it. Sometimes I invite my singers to just sit and listen or to just hum or just to witness other folks singing, because all of that is part of it. It’s not one part. Is it better than the other? See. It’s more about sharing it to to share yourself and to share your experience. And, you know, I’ll end up singing songs from folks who are in California or the Pacific Northwest that are doing community singing. And they’re sort of like this, the sharing that feels more collaborative than it is. Yeah, and look at me.
Michael Lee [00:05:11] So you’ve kind of become a part of not just a community locally in Austin that’s doing this, but a wider community across the country. Across the world.
Sarah Bentley [00:05:20] Yeah. Yeah. Well, both I’ve personally connected with people across the country. I’ve actually been out to a gathering in the Santa Cruz Mountains that’s called Song Village, which is a gathering of people like me that lead community singing. And it’s, it’s, there’s a lot more of it in on the West Coast. And there’s a nice contingent in North Carolina. There’s there’s folks all all over the U.S. and and Heather Houston who I mentioned earlier she has a sisters and harmony global group that I mean she has people from all around the world that she brings on to her Zoom calls. So it does feel like a movement, like an underground movement.
Michael Lee [00:05:59] Were you expecting that part of it when you when you entered the world?
Sarah Bentley [00:06:03] No, I wasn’t.
Michael Lee [00:06:05] What does it feel like to be part of a movement?
Sarah Bentley [00:06:07] It feels really good. It feels powerful.
Michael Lee [00:06:32] What is this giving to your to your heart and to your soul. That you’re not getting elsewhere?
Sarah Bentley [00:06:39] I don’t think I realized how much how much creativity would go into it. And so I. I did the, The Artist’s Way workbook book a few years ago, probably around the same time that I was starting this. And it was the first time I started calling myself an artist. I mean, and I had been a singer songwriter, but I never, you know, there was always just like feeling like, well, I’m not good enough. But the way that they talk about being an artist and the artist’s way is creativity is is it’s an action. It’s like and it’s, it’s, it’s like the flow state. I think you I imagine you must talk about the flow state with other people on this you know that’s part of why it’s our thing is that we lose ourselves in it and it just you know, we kind of feel like we’re a part of something else. And, you know, I wasn’t raised in any type of religion, but it feels like a universal connection or a connection to the Great Spirit or the universe. When I’m when I’m actively doing that. And then I also honestly enjoy, like, choosing what songs I’m going to do, you know, I have fun, like picking a theme often based on the seasons or maybe what’s going on, you know, in our social environment. So it just gives me a creative outlet to and I guess that just feels like my energy gets to move. So it feels almost like a spiritual exercise.
Michael Lee [00:08:30] You know, you’re not the first person to talk about finding something as a creative outlet and also feeling like they’re finally able to call themself a creative or an artist. And it’s it’s interesting to me how many people do artistic or creative things but still feel like they don’t have permission to to call it that. I love it when people say that this gives me a creative outlet that I didn’t know I needed, but also kind of it makes me a little bit sad sometimes when people say, I never thought I had creativity in me or I never thought of myself as an artist, I, I, I wish people would let themselves feel that or call themselves that more.
Sarah Bentley [00:09:07] I think people don’t think they’ve they’ve made it until they’ve had some level of like national recognition or international recognition and, you know, they’re trending or whatever. And then that’s when they feel like they’ve made it and they can call themselves an artist. But being a creative is literally just creating something.
Michael Lee [00:09:27] Yeah. I think that our society does this… plays this dirty trick on people that values creativity a lot when it’s seen by a lot of people and when it is not, it values it almost not at all. I think as as kids, we all do creative things and we’re all encouraged to do that. And then at some point we’re sort of encouraged to just stop unless we’re going to make a lot of money at it.
Sarah Bentley [00:09:52] Right. Well, it’s interesting because I’m raising a kid now and, you know, she’s taking piano and, you know, she did violin before she played drums. You know, she you know, she’s doing saxophone and middle school band now. And it’s like I don’t expect her to, you know, be a great pianist or whatever. But when I see her, I’m going to get teary when I see her sitting at the piano and just like, enjoy it. It’s like, that’s what it’s about.
Michael Lee [00:10:21] Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s perfectly fine to not be great at something that you like doing.
Sarah Bentley [00:10:29] Exactly. Yeah.
Michael Lee [00:10:32] I wish more people would give themselves freedom to do something that’s fun, even if they’re not great at it. Time. It was four years ago that you kind of discovered this world online.
Sarah Bentley [00:10:51] Yes.
Michael Lee [00:10:52] Did you expect it to become this big a part of your life?
Sarah Bentley [00:10:55] No, I did not.
Michael Lee [00:10:59] When did you realize it was this big part of your life?
Sarah Bentley [00:11:02] I mean, so when I first started, I just had a few friends over in my backyard. Folks didn’t really know what it was that we were going to do. And but as soon as I, you know, kind of like committed to renting a space and like, put it out on Eventbrite like. Immediately. It pretty much like sold out and filled up just by word of mouth. Yeah. I think at one point I was like, I’m going to quit my job and, you know, go do this full time. But, you know, while I do make some money, it is definitely not enough to, you know, support my my family.
Michael Lee [00:11:36] Do you think it would change for you if it was your job, your pay, the rent job?
Sarah Bentley [00:11:41] I think it would. I think I will continue to do this, and I think it’ll be my retirement job when, you know, I don’t have to make ends meet.
Michael Lee [00:11:50] Do you think you’re just going to keep doing it forever now?
Sarah Bentley [00:11:52] I think so. I mean, I don’t see why I would stop. My husband’s super supportive. Like my best friends is one of my roadies, you know, like you see? You know what I mean? I do kind of like I have the sisters in Harmony. Like, we have a WhatsApp group that has hundreds of people on it at this point. I don’t see any limits on where community singing can go. Like, I’m trying to figure out how to bring it into my workplace.
Michael Lee [00:12:21] I mean, I guess you could just start singing next time you’re there.
Sarah Bentley [00:12:23] Yeah!
Michael Lee [00:12:23] See what happens.
Sarah Bentley [00:12:24] Yeah.
Michael Lee [00:12:32] Thanks for listening to This Is My Thing. I’m Michael Lee and I produce the show. Special thanks, of course, to Sarah Bentley for sharing her love of community singing with us. We’ve got more This Is My Thing coming soon. We’ll be talking to a ceramicist who has turned his dining room into a ceramics studio, a cake baker who’s a member of a long-running cake club, and more. Keep listening. If you’d like to tell us about your thing and maybe be a part of a future episode of the show, that’s easy. Just go to the This Is My Thing show page at KUT.org. You’ll find a form on that page to let you tell us about your thing. And there are other forms on KUT’s website, too, like the one you could fill out to become a member of the station. Please consider it! Our members make this and everything we do possible.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
