Playing for Change

 “With a voice like yours, why are you singing on the streets?” asked Mark.  “Man I’m in the joy business.  I come out to be with the people,” replied Roger.

Mark Johnson and Whitney Kroenke co-created Playing for Change in 2002 to “inspire and connect the world through music” using a mobile recording studio and camera to record street musicians.  In 2005, Mark came across Roger Ridley singing Stand by Me, in California and was inspired by the conviction in Roger’s voice to create a “Song Around the World” by recording musicians from around the world singing or playing this song and compiling them in a stunning music video. 

The team continued to record more Songs Around the World and also created a Playing for Change band made up from musicians from many countries.  Next came the Playing for Change Foundation to build music and art schools for children around the world in an effort to “create hope and inspiration for the future of our planet.”

One of my favourite Playing for Change videos is War - No More Trouble by Bob Marley. It includes Bono from U2 as well as the Omagh Youth Choir, a member of the Arab-Jewish Orchestra and musicians from many other countries.

The Omagh Youth Choir from Northern Ireland was created in 1998 after a car bombing killed 29 people and left hundreds injured.  Local music student Daryl Simpson wanted to bring people together so he set up a youth choir to bring Protestant and Catholic kids together to share music and to learn about each other.  He says that he used music to bring” healing and comfort and to raise a positive awareness of a community working together for peace. “ You can view the choir singing U2’s song Love Rescue Me on youtube.  The choir still performs all over the world in an attempt to open hearts and minds by their beautiful example.

The Arab-Jewish Orchestra was formed in 2002.  It consists of twenty young musicians from various parts of Israel.  Using instruments and music from both the east and the west, they create a new music that speaks of peace and harmony which you can view here

Well, once you are on Youtube, things start appearing.  I discovered Shades of Praise the New Orleans Interracial Community Gospel Choir.  It was formed in 2000 by Philip Manuel and Michael Cowan.  They wondered if by bringing people of different races together to sing, they might create an environment where relationships formed, thus creating racial harmony.  Their first performance was scheduled for September 12, 2001, the day after 9/11.  And so they became a voice of hope on that day of mourning.  Over time, the choir has become known for its joyful, high energy gospel sound.  The obvious closeness of the choir members gives audiences a “glimpse of what New Orleans could be.”  When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, the choir who were a family of sixty people by now, searched each out and helped each other with housing, raising money, jobs and healing.

The Island of Ireland Peace Choir was also formed in the aftermath of the Omagh car bombing.  It has Catholic and Protestant members from both the North and South who want to spread the message of peace through music.   You can hear them singing in Belgium at the Christmas Peace Truce 1914 – 2014.  They work at building community relations and demonstrating how different denominations can work together to bring peace to Ireland.  Their mission is to be a “potent symbol of their shared aspiration for a new style of society on this island where difference and discord gives way to something more inclusive and harmonious.”

And then I discovered theVancouver Peace Choir.  The vision of this choir is “to create a space to inspire balance and acceptance in our world.”  You can see a totally unique performance with Randy Wood from Saddle Lake First Nation (Alberta) performing  The Rumble.

I knew by then that I could keep on searching and peace choirs would show up everywhere. But back to Bob Marley and my favourite Playing for Change video.  In War – No More Trouble, Marley took the lyrics from a speech made by Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie before the United Nations General Assembly in 1963.

          Until the philosophy which holds one race

          Superior and another inferior

          Is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned

          Everything is war…

He goes on…

We don’t need no more trouble….

What we need is love

To guide and protect us on

If you hope good down from above

Help the weak to be strong now.

My partner and I and a friend were performing this song at an open mic at the Midland Cultural Centre.  It took some thinking to turn this Song Around the World into three of us with guitars and a flute in the same room, and bringing the energy of the world into that room. The audience were paying attention and the energy was good so I took a chance and started to ad lib the lyrics at the end of the song.  “What we need is love…”  Looking around me I saw the woman who serves the coffee and snacks.  “What we need is coffee,”  I sang and the crowd applauded for her.  Seeing the mentally challenged young man who was playing the shakers behind me, I sang, “What we need is shakers.”  Again, more applause.  “And mandolins, and organizers… I sang about everything I could see in that wonderful group and ended with “What we need is community.”   We all applauded for that. The music pulled us together and helped us to be aware of the community  that we had formed there in that space.

So if you’re tired of hearing “bad news” on the radio, TV or in the press, I invite you to spend a little time listening to these inspiring people creating music, creating peace, creating harmony and a world that we want to live in.  And then let that inspiration work in you and see what happens.