Resources

Do please let us know if you have sug­ges­tions for oth­er web­sites we should link to!

Lockdown resources

The song­lead­ers and oth­ers have researched var­i­ous arti­cles and links to web­sites which could help peo­ple think about how to be active under cur­rent restrictions.

Black Lives Matter

Hiroshima/Nagasaki Commemoration

August 2020 brings the 75th anniver­sary of the atom­ic bomb­ings of Hiroshi­ma and Nagasa­ki; events are being organ­ised to com­mem­o­rate the date.

There is a Japan­ese tra­di­tion to float lanterns on the water at dusk to com­mem­o­rate ances­tors and in par­tic­u­lar those who died in the atom­ic bomb attacks. This year peo­ple are being invit­ed to place a lantern in their win­dow if they can’t take part in a gath­er­ing because of social dis­tanc­ing rules. Oth­er sug­ges­tions fol­low here — …..please keep safe­ty as a priority.

  • Visu­al infor­ma­tion and dis­play – like the lanterns, also posters / oth­er dec­o­ra­tions / placards
  • Vig­ils – in pub­lic or pri­vate, with or with­out fasting
  • Pri­vate or pub­lic per­for­mances – of poet­ry / read­ings / songs
  • Vir­tu­al talks and work­shops – in par­tic­u­lar those held local­ly e.g. see the links above to Edin­burgh Peace and Jus­tice Cen­tre and Scot­tish CND
  • Sup­port­ing ICAN – help build pres­sure on the UK to sign the nuclear weapons ban treaty. www.icanw.org
  • Craft work – make peace cranes / lanterns / badges / banners
  • Die–ins at the times of the bombs – 8.15 on 6th August and 11.01 on 9th August

What­ev­er you choose to do, take a pic­ture and ampli­fy the impact by shar­ing on social media and send it to Chris Pear­son for the website.

Other issues

This web­site has a huge bank of infor­ma­tion about non­vi­o­lent strug­gles from all over the world. They are cat­e­gorised in var­i­ous help­ful ways and eval­u­at­ed accord­ing to suc­cess cri­te­ria. Plen­ty of inspi­ra­tion here!

Info for event organisers

Doc­u­ments help­ful for organ­is­ers of events

Political/community choirs and singing groups

  • Big Big Sing
    Use­ful list of choirs
  • Calder Val­ley Voic­es
    World music songs, with social sen­si­bil­i­ties. Gospel, African, East European.
  • Chechele World Music Choir
    York-based acapel­la choir spe­cial­is­ing in singing tra­di­tion­al music from around the world.
  • Côr Cochion Caerdy­dd
    (Cardiff Reds’ Choir) came togeth­er in 1983, when events in Chile, South Africa, and at home in Wales demand­ed that they use their voic­es in protest.
  • Côr Gob­aith
    Aberys­t­wyth street choir, singing and cam­paign­ing for peace and social and envi­ron­men­tal jus­tice near and far since 2006.
  • Har­monise
    Edin­burgh-based choir.
  • Lon­don Gay Mens Cho­rus
    “Well worth Com­ing Out for.”
  • Loud and Proud
    Edinburgh’s LGBT Choir. It pro­vides a won­der­ful oppor­tu­ni­ty for les­bian, gay, bisex­u­al and trans­gen­der peo­ple and their friends to sing and socialise together.
  • Nation­al Street Choir Fes­ti­val
    (for­mer­ly the Street Music Festival)
  • Not­ting­ham Clar­i­on Choir
    Formed in 1988 as a result of a project of local musi­cians to make the vinyl album Eng­lish Rebels, cel­e­brat­ing the rad­i­cal tra­di­tions in British politics.
  • Open Com­mu­ni­ty Singing Group
    Edin­burgh-based singing group led by Pen­ny Stone. Meets week­ly on Thurs­days from 18.30–20.30 at Eric Lid­dell cen­tre on Morn­ing­side Road.
  • Out Aloud, Sheffield’s Gay Choir
    Out Aloud is Sheffield­’s Gay Choir. It was formed in 2006 and enables les­bians, gay men, bisex­u­al and trans­gen­dered peo­ple in Sheffield to enjoy singing as a com­mu­ni­ty. There are no audi­tions and you don’t need to be an expe­ri­enced singer or read music.
  • Pink Singers
    Lon­don’s Les­bian and Gay Com­mu­ni­ty Chorus.
  • Raised Voic­es
    Lon­don-based polit­i­cal choir of women and men.
  • Sangschule
    Tra­di­tion­al song group based in Lin­lith­gow, West Loth­i­an. They wel­come any­body who enjoys singing with oth­ers and who is inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about the Scot­tish musi­cal tradition.
  • Sea Green Singers
    an Oxford-based singing group of free­dom and green songs. (The group is named after the colour of the rib­bons worn by the Lev­ellers, a rad­i­cal move­ment with­in Cromwell’s Mod­el Army.)
  • Sheffield Social­ist Choir
    With 60–80 mem­bers, they learn and sing songs which reflect the fight for free­dom, human rights and jus­tice around the world.
  • Song­works
    A com­mu­ni­ty of singers who meet week­ly to sing for the sheer joy of it. They meet at the Colum­cille Cen­tre, Morn­ing­side, Edinburgh
  • Straw­ber­ry Thieves
    Polit­i­cal choir based in South-east Lon­don. Their site has words, sheet music and midi files for many of their songs. 
  • Vel­vet Fist
    Lon­don-based women’s choir. No longer active.
  • Wild­fire
    Edin­burgh-based group, open to women of all ages and back­grounds who like or want to learn to sing in a col­lec­tive group. They sing polit­i­cal songs, songs of strug­gle, peace and free­dom as well as Scot­tish tra­di­tion­al mate­r­i­al. Demo­c­ra­t­ic deci­sion making.

Songs and lyrics

  • Anti­war songs
    A col­lec­tion of over 3000 paci­fist and anti­mil­i­tarist songs from all over the world and of any time, based on free con­tri­bu­tions by read­ers and col­lab­o­ra­tors (com­men­tary large­ly in Italian).
  • New Songs for Peace
    UNESCO-endorsed project is intend­ed to encour­age peo­ple to think about peace, talk about peace, and write a new song that we will col­lect and self-pub­lish in a book. 
  • Quak­er­song
    Web­site of Annie Pat­ter­son and Peter Blood, cre­ators of Rise Up Singing, North America’s favorite group singing songbook.
  • Reclaim­ing Chants @ Weave and Spin
    Lyrics to chants from the Reclaim­ing pagan activist com­mu­ni­ty, co-found­ed by Starhawk. 
  • Sing Out
    Mag­a­zine and resource cen­tre devot­ed to (mian­ly north Amer­i­can) folk song.
  • Songs For Change
    A call to song­writ­ers old and new to put into words and music their obser­va­tions of what’s going on in the world today; to write songs that reflect our times; indeed songs which have the pow­er to change our world. This web­site is a forum for writ­ers to s
  • Songs for Envi­ron­men­tal Edu­ca­tion
    Envi­ron­men­tal songs! Envi­ron­men­tal music! Nature songs! Earth songs!
  • Songs for the Great Turn­ing
    Songs which can be used in the inter­ac­tive group process­es devel­oped by Joan­na Macy known as the Work That Recon­nects, which facil­i­tates, a shift toward a life-enhanc­ing human pres­ence on plan­et earth.
  • Union Songs
    Rebel songs, slave songs, songs of free­dom, work songs, songs of dis­sent, songs of strug­gle, protest songs. They are the work of famous poets as well as men and women whose names have been forgotten.

Musicians, singers and songwriters

Campaigns we have supported

  • Cam­paign Against Arms Trade
  • Gude Cause
    Project to com­mem­o­rate the cen­te­nary of the 1909 wom­en’s suf­frage march in Edinburgh.
  • Make Pover­ty His­to­ry
    The biggest ever anti-pover­ty move­ment came togeth­er under the ban­ner of MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY in 2005. Great steps for­ward were made, but the fight against pover­ty continues.

Other organisations

  • Nat­ur­al Voice Prac­ti­tion­ers’ Net­work
    We believe that singing is every­one’s birthright and we are com­mit­ted to teach­ing styles that are accept­ing and inclu­sive of all, regard­less of musi­cal expe­ri­ence and ability.
  • Polit­i­cal Song Col­lec­tion
    Based at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Glas­gow: “a major col­lec­tion of mate­ri­als relat­ing to polit­i­cal song and songs of social jus­tice. The col­lec­tion com­pris­es print, man­u­script, and audio­vi­su­al media, dat­ing from the 18th cen­tu­ry to the present day.”
  • WRPM (Women’s Rev­o­lu­tions Per Minute)
    Has sup­plied music per­formed, com­posed and pro­duced by women since 1977. WRPM sup­ports Inde­pen­dent Women Musi­cians and their cat­a­logue includes record­ings by many hard-to-find artists, includ­ing Hol­ly Near, Judy Small and Sweet Hon­ey in The Rock.