Photo courtesy of Emma Koepppel
Tricklebee Café’ Song Circle
A song circle session at Tricklebee Café led by Emma Koeppel
If folk music is made up of songs by members of a community for that community, the song circles Emma Koeppel leads might be considered a form of community organizing.
“Overall, I'd say I hold the hope that a song circle is a place where people can feel an embodied sense of community and be resourced and fed by that sense of togetherness. When we build more places to come together and be nourished, we can have more aliveness, support, and joy in our communities,” Koeppel says of the togetherness she builds every month at Tricklebee Café. At the W. North Ave. pay-what-you-can-afford vegan restaurant, community building is one of the goals.
“I love the deep sense of warmth, compassion, and community that is embedded into everything that Tricklebee offers,” Koeppel adds. She leads 10 to 20 people in an impromptu, sit-down choir at that venue every month. “The ways that Christie and Dave (Tricklebee's proprietors) weave community is inspiring to me and I feel glad to be sharing song in that space each month.”
Broader Movement
Photo courtesy of Emma Koeppel
Tricklebee Café Song Circle
A song circle led by Emma Koeppel at Tricklebee Café
A friend connected her to the owners in the summer of 2024, “and Christie invited me to offer singing at an Uptown Get Down event in August,” she continues. “We all enjoyed singing together so much that I asked Christie if she would be open to me continuing to host song circles at Tricklebee throughout the rest of the year, and she said an enthusiastic yes!”
Koeppel is part of a broader movement of communal singing to which she was introduced not many years ago. “I was introduced to community singing by Sarah Moore at the Pink House Studio in Milwaukee sometime in 2022 and from there my excitement and enthusiasm for community singing deepened and bloomed,” she says. “I started leading community song circles in June of 2023 at the Waukesha Unitarian Universalist Church and held them in Waukesha monthly throughout 2023 and the beginning of 2024.”
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Though she got her start leading song circles in an ecclesiastical congregational setting, Koeppel says that the songs sung at her events in other places don't necessarily infer spirituality.
“I don't have a particular intention that my song circle spaces include a spiritual element, though many of the songs we sing are uplifting, or speak to the complexity of being human and being alive in a world of grief, joy, love, pain,” she says. However, merely being with others singing the same song can be a source of upliftment. As Koeppel puts it, “It is also deeply meaningful simply to be together, and so there's a way that the circles inherently have an element of reverence and sacredness woven into them.”
Guidelines for Singing
That sense of sanctity could possibly get derailed if the song is too difficult to follow. With that in mind, Koeppel follows some guidelines for what she wants attendees to sing along with her.
“One, it is simple enough to teach orally and without music, Two, it has a somewhat repetitive melody that is easy to catch on to, Three, the words aren't overly complicated or lengthy,” she explains. The path a song may follow from its point of origin, though, can take a much more complicated path.
“The cool thing about the community singing movement,” Koeppel says, “is that songs can travel far distances just through oral tradition. Sometimes a song that is shared at a gathering on the west coast makes it all the way to Wisconsin through folks who travel or stop through and sing at various events.”
Furthermore, there are tunes written specifically for song circles. “There is a wide network of artists who create music specifically for community singing, and many of them have their music available online which can be a great resource as well,” she continues. “I have a trusty notebook full of song titles that I usually review before a song circle and pull a handful of songs that are jumping out to me.”
A prime motive for Koeppel's interest in leading song circles is simply the beaty of people coming together with their voices in song. “We are just there to feel what it feels like to be together, and to hear our voices weaving with each other. Overall, I'd say I hold the hope that a song circle is a place where people can feel an embodied sense of community and be resourced and fed by that sense of togetherness. When we build more places to come together and be nourished, we can have more aliveness, support, and joy in our communities,” she declares.
The next free Tricklebee Cafe Community Song Circle starts at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 21.
