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  • Music and Memory Loss: An Interview with Percussionist David Naylor
    October 27, 2021

    Music and Memory Loss: An Interview with Percussionist David Naylor

    David Naylor, Percussionist

    After suffering a debilitating illness, David Naylor found himself in a hospital unable to remember who he was. During his recovery, he saw an online photo of himself sitting behind a percussion setup that would become known as the "Gathering of Drums." At the center of this setup was a Zenko Drum in the Akebono tuning - that seemed to David to serve as the "heart" of the collection. Upon being discharged, David returned to his home and was filled with wonder upon finding himself before these instruments in real life, unable to remember anything about how they came to be assembled or how he'd played them. And thus began a journey to reinvent and rediscover himself though music. 

    David Naylor, Percussionist

    After hearing a little about David's story, We Play Well Together's Joule L'Adara invited David to join her on an Instagram Live to share more. What unfolded was a fascinating conversation about what's possible when we let go of the past stories of who we are and can live fully in the present moment. 
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    For a beautiful deep dive into mindfulness, memory, and rhythm, listen to this 75-minute long-form IG Live interview edited for YouTube with photos of David's percussion setup and live playing interspersed with the story-telling. Watch the video here... 
    Read now
  • Join Multi-Instrumentalist Todd Boston Tuesdays and Wednesdays live online!
    October 20, 2020

    Join Multi-Instrumentalist Todd Boston Tuesdays and Wednesdays live online!

    The Quiet Mind

    THE QUIET MIND

    Feel Connected - Reduce Stress - Be Inspired
     
    Featuring instruments distributed by
    We Play Well Together
     

    JOURNEY TOGETHER INTO THE SOUND

    AND SILENCE

    Our relationship with vibration, sound, and music is intrinsically connected to who we are as humans. Join award-winning musician Todd Boston in a weekly experiential class on the power of sound, music and meditation. We will be joined by special guests.
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    Learn practical tools to deepen your connection and relationship to sound as a tool for transformation, healing, and growth. Explore how music and meditation can expand your abilities of deep listening, intuition, and how to integrate it into your healing practice and day to day life... 
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    By tuning our voices, instruments, and hearts we can go deeper into the subtleties of listening. This state of focus and deeper listening can open us to hear our intuition and inner voice in more clear and profound ways. Bring your voice, percussion, and/or instrument.

    REGISTER HERE - CLASS BY YOUR DONATION

    Read now
  • Community is Everything. Get to know ours with our free live weekly meetups.
    July 2, 2020

    Community is Everything. Get to know ours with our free live weekly meetups.

    We take a moment to breathe together in a time of great upheaval - when we are expressing our collective grief and outrage at the systems of injustice in our society. In addition to being a musical instrument distribution company, We Play Well Together is committed to creating community and holding brave space for connection across distance and difference. In times when words divide, sound and music can bring us together into wholeness. We invite sound to be our greatest teacher. We hope that by initiating weekly free gatherings, we can contribute to our collective healing, self-inquiry, and create an ongoing open invitation to gather while amplifying our commitment to love and compassion for all. 

    We are here for you in community. 

    Introducing: Sounding Circles Sunday

    A Free Weekly Virtual Vocal Gathering 
    (You don't even need instruments for this!...) 
    Read now
  • How I De-Stress with Monochord
    May 17, 2020

    How I De-Stress with Monochord

    A Self-Practice for Difficult Times

     By: Feeltone Trainer Joule L'Adara

    During the worst days of the Coronavirus outbreak when around 1000 people per day were perishing of Covid-19 in the small geographic area around me in NYC, I needed a practice I could use that would meet me in the heightened state of that moment. I needed to shake, wail, moan, make crazy sounds, run around my apartment, roll on the ground, cry, howl. Only if I did that for a good 5 minutes at full intensitiy until I utterly exhausted myself, could I then start to make more soothing sounds to comfort my nervous system. Another five more minutes of sounding, I could finally handle sitting in a mediation in stillness. I'd expressed what I'd been collecting inside me since the last time I practiced. I'd emptied out. And now there was open space within to be with the stillness. 

     

    Later, I realized I could bring the monochord into this practice. In my daily self-care monochord practice, I first need to express my pent-up stuff on the instrument. I play it robustly! (She can handle it!) I make grand sweeping gestures up and down the strings, I bang across the surface with the palms of my hands, I use my thumbs, claw at the instrument with my fingernails, and make all kinds of crazy sounds with my voice and breath. It's super cathartic! It draws the excess energy I have from all the angst, fear, anger, trauma, and the unnamable emotions... transforming it into something epic, explosive, and even at moments: surprisingly joyful...

    Read now