New Horizons Band Guelph

MUSICKING

NHB Guelph Workshop Day - May 2, 2025

Explore new instruments and experience the healing power of musicking

The term “musicking” refers to the act of making music together in community and recognizes that making music together is more than just combining sound and silence. Making music together is a social experience that has a positive overall impact on the participants wellbeing. This one-day event will offer the opportunity to have some fun learning a new instrument, connect to the rhythm of music, experience the healing potential of sound, and discover the power of music as therapy.

Participants will sign up for 3 of the 4 workshops offered allowing for 3 full one hour unique musicking experiences throughout the day. Breaks between each workshop will allow for social time and refreshments as needed. We understand the different needs of our diverse membership and encourage participants to bring their own food needs for the day as lunch will not be provided.

Workshops will be 
West African Drumming with Tom Wolf, 
Harmonica 101 with John Williams, 
Clinical Music Therapy for Cognitive and Emotional Health: Enhancing Function, Connection, and Well-Being with Mary Meads of Wellington Music Therapy, and 
Cultivating Wellbeing through Sound and Music with Gary Diggins.

Date: Friday May 2^nd
Time: 9:30AM-3:30PM 
Location: Guelph Youth Music Center, 75 Cardigan Street
Cost: $65 
 

WORKSHOP DESCRIPTIONS

CLINICAL MUSIC THERAPY FOR COGNITIVE AND EMOTIONAL HEALTH:
Enhancing Function, Connection and Well Being

Join us for an engaging workshop focused on how music therapy can play a vital role in supporting cognitive function, social connections, and emotional well-being. In this session, we will explore the theory behind music therapy, delving into how it stimulates brain activity, enhances memory, and fosters meaningful social interactions. Participants will learn about the profound impact of music in reducing stress and anxiety while promoting emotional health. To close, we’ll engage in an experiential music therapy activity, allowing everyone to experience firsthand how music therapy can support both overall well-being and targeted goal specified areas. 

Mary Meads, MA, RP, MTA
Registered Psychotherapy & Certified Music Therapist
Clinical Lead of Wellington Music Therapy Services

Mary (she/her) founded Wellington Music Therapy Services in 2015, with hopes of extending the powerful reaches of Music Therapy deep into Guelph and the surrounding areas. She loves connecting with community partners and families, developing new programs, advocating for the profession, and problem solving with team members to ensure the best possible Music Therapy & Community Music programs and services for our clients. Mary’s clinical work focuses on Older Adults Living in Long-Term Care settings, specializing in supporting those living with dementia. Her passion for the field stems from a strong personal connection to music and mental health, and a vision to allow access to high quality music therapy for all those who want it.

HARMONICA 101

A crash course for absolute or near beginners on the harmonica - a little joy that fits in your pocket! We'll learn from scratch with fun group breathing and rhythm exercises. Will approach how to play a scale, a simple folk melody, and maybe even take a look at the blues style, and create joyful sounds together in a group setting. 

John David Williams plays and teaches the clarinet, harmonica, and diatonic accordion. John studied classical clarinet at the University Toronto, and later, his ears and heart turned towards acoustic traditional musics of various kinds: Blues, Klezmer, Traditional Jazz, Fiddle folk dance music. The love of these traditions brought him to study the harmonica and accordion as well as expand his clarinet playing beyond his classical roots. He has played, recorded, and toured with many acclaimed and award winning bands including Lemon Bucket Orkestra, Jaron Freeman-Fox and the Opposite of Everything, and The Boxcar Boys. Most recently, with Vinta (a quartet that plays music for European folk dancing) John and his bandmates are the recipients of the Canadian Folk Music Award for Instrumental Composers of the Year for their album Beacons.
 

CULTIVATING WELLBEING THROUGH SOUND AND MUSIC

Down through time and across the planet, diverse communities have used vocal and instrumental sound making as a therapeutic practice. In this interactive workshop, Gary will engage participants in improvising with user friendly instruments so as to better understand how we individually and collectively might use musical practices to cultivate states of wellness. We will explore the benefits of sounding in these contexts:
• Reducing stress.
• Assisting in bereavement processes.
• Improving our powers of concentration and mindfulness.
• Fostering contemplative and meditative states of being.
• Improvising as a practice of adapting and listening. 

Gary Diggins began his musical career in the Detroit area working as an opening act for performers ranging from Alice Cooper to Sly and the Family Stone. In his early twenties, Gary met a Columbian shaman. That encounter shifted his orientation from the performing arts to the healing arts. His interdisciplinary studies led him into the fields of psychology, spiritual directorship, grief counselling, and ethnomusicology.

For the past four decades, he has maintained an expressive arts practice that blends the therapeutic use of sound with counselling. His service is called Soundwork as Soulwork. As an educator, Gary has taught internationally at various learning institutes and universities. He mentors practitioners in person as well as online.

Gary’s has written five books related to music as medicine. His current guidebook is entitled Liminality - Traversing the In-Between - A Guidebook for Therapists and Expressive Arts Practitioners. 

Gary plays a range of acoustic instruments collected from around the world. His musical collaborations have taken him to India, Africa, Europe, South Korea, Israel, and throughout North America, including a performance at New York’s Carnegie Hall. Gary and his family currently live on a rural property near Meaford, Ontario with three cats and a dog named Sita. 

WEST AFRICAN DRUMMING

We'll first assess everybody's experience level and from there go through the rhythmic possibilities and how they can be applied in West African drumming and all of the music we play. We'll use these concepts to then frame some traditional rhythms and then apply them to a full ensemble piece.

Tom Wolf has been a drums and percussion instructor/facilitator for over 40 years, landing his first post at Neil's Music in Georgetown, On. at age 14. He advanced in his teaching career at the Ont. College of Percussion and Music, inter-mingled with various studio work and live performances. Touring across the country and stints with a couple of house bands provided valuable experience, honing time and musicality, not to mention shear endurance. A steady roster of private students in addition to 3 separate tenures at O.C.O.P. provided countless hours of teaching experience with all ages and levels of aspiring percussionists. Tom ventured into hand percussion, then later West African Drumming while taking on a position with Drum Café. Michael McLarty, his first mentor in this music, encouraged Tom to start sharing this rich musical culture in his own community. For the last several years he’s been teaching classes in Georgetown, Erin, Burlington and Guelph areas, as well as being a regular fixture at Hillside Festival doing workshops and performing. Additionally, he’s been studying and performing with master drummers such as Amadou Kianou, Mamady Kieta and Mohamed Diaby to mention a few. Tom is looking forward to offering this experience to help aspiring drummers to develop their skills and enjoyment of West African Music and Dance and percussion in general.