To understand what Participatory Lithology is, and how we propose it, please see the summary of our first week of activity (March 21-27, 2020). In this project we have considered four roles: collectors, classifiers, entertainers, and sponsors. Let’s see here what entertainers can do.

Resident (at home) DJ

If, withouth looking it up on a search engine, you can think of a song mentioning rocks, stones, or minerals, you can write to micalosapevo@pibinko.org indicating

• Song title
• Link to a song video

and, if possible

• Lyrics in the original language
• an English translation of the lyrics, if the song is not in English (we encourage non-English songs!)
• an Italian translation of the lyrics , if it is not in Italian
• The indication of a sample from the participatory lithology gallery that you would related to the song.

…we don’t need each and all of these additional inputs, but the more you can send, the better

Your proposal will be evaluated by the Participatoryt Lithology working group: Jack O’Malley, Mauro Tirannosauro, the Jug Band Colline Metallifere & friends). If the song fits in the context of the project, it will be added to a playlist from which one song per day is published in the Lithobag blog series. You will be indicated as the selectors for your song and we will thank you for our participation.

If the song you propose has not yet been published, but is already in the playlist (as of Apr. 4 we have about forty to go), your suggestiong will be summed to that of other “resident at home DJs” who proposed it, and you will all be credited for your suggestion when the song will be out on the Lithobag.

NB: If the song you propose will be the result of some online keyword search…ok, that is not forbidden but (1) Mauro the T-Rex will immediately notice and (2) what is the purpose of an online search in the context of Participatory Lithology?

Musicians and/or singers

We like DJ sets, but we like more the live stuff.

With the Jug Band dalle Colline Metallifere (i.e. Metalliferous Hills Jug Band) since 2018 we started a project where live music and outreach on environment, agriculture, and similar topics are merged in a single situation. Please check the JBCM site to get an idea. Among other exhibitions you should start from the events we held in Milan+ Brescia , then in Milan+Germania in 2019, and -more recently, in Roccastrada + Massa Marittima (Tuscany).

Bringing this format in Participatory Lithology, we started by writing some lyrics on songs that we use as jingles and promotion for the project. For the moment we have a first performance featuring Francesco Ceri from Matti delle Giuncaie. By Apr. 4 we will have a second performance out. For a third song, with English lyrics, we are looking for an English mother tongue vocalist/musician (Jack O’Malley from the JBCM is quite fluent, but it would be cool to find somebody born & bred in an English-speaking country).

So: if you like the Metalliferous Hills Jug Band vibe, and you would like to collaborate on new performances for Participatory Lithology, please write to micalosapevo@pibinko.org

Other forms of entertainment

Since the recreational part of participatory lithology was born inside a musical collective, it is easy for us to think in terms of musical options. However, if you are not musician, but you have other forms of expression, and you can think of a creative way to convey Participatory Lithologuy, you can still write us…we’re curious.

What’s in it for you

The entertainers for Participatory Lithology (as well as other professional profiles participating, such as photographers and “classifiers”) are not here just for fun, or because they have a lot of free time in a lock-down phase. We know that what we are doing has an interesting non-local visibility: all project contents are issued in Italian and English, and you can check out from this page the coverage that pibinko.org activities have received in the past (and in these few weeks for P.L.). Then, if our prospective sponsors will see value in the project, we will have support that will share across participants. We will see!

In the article header: The la Hungry March Band from Brooklyn, NY, in Cagliari, Sardinia, 2005.

We are writing from Tatti, a small (pop. 209) village in Southern Tuscany, Italy. To give you some bearings, we are some 100 km “South by Southwest” of Florence. As a sort of resilient response to the COVID-19 crisis, we have launched on March 21 a project called “participatory lithology“. This is our project logo:

The project is networking people from our village with geologists all over the globe in order to help us classify unknown mineral samples we have in various households in the village (and there are many in this area, which used to be a mining district), and potentially extend this exercise to other areas. The Chief Officer for our project is Mauro il Tirannosauro, i.e. Mauro the T-Rex:

A key component of the project is music: since 2007 we create projects using music as a facilitating element, while doing outreach on environmental issues and promoting lesser known aspects of territories we relate with (starting from, but not limited to, Southern Tuscany).
In the case of Participatory Lithology, in addition to creating playlists of existing songs mentioning rocks, stones, or minerals (we found about 40 in less than a week, which we are now publishing in a daily blog series called Lithobag), with folks from the Metalliferous Hills Jug Band we are also writing lyrics for new songs.

These lyrics, for a start, follow the melody of well-known tunes. This is more or less what we see happening with many musical performances circulating around the web in this period as a reaction to the COVID-19 crisis. However our lyrics are not about the crisis, but about our project and the people working on it. Then,  we have our rock-blues band and may turn these into completely different songs at some point… anyway: at the time of writing we have two songs with Italian lyrics, which are being performed by Italian artists (see the first one here).

Where do English mother tongue folks come in?

A couple of days ago we created lyrics for an English cover, and it would be interesting to have this performed by an English mother-tongue person. Given the “inspiration” song we started from, ideally we are looking for folks from the USA…but we will be glad to consider other options (Canada, UK, Ireland, Down Under, Channel Islands…or any nationality as long as you are very, very, fluent in English).

What’s in it for you?

The project is running as a completely community-based and self-funded initiative, and this is not a rich community, so we cannot provide remuneration for this, at least with our current levels of funding. At the same time, we are having increasing interest on our project, so visibility in an international network is assured. Please check out the “In the media” section to see the type of coverage we have received for past projects, and last week for participatory lithology. Then, if the project develops as we would like, we would be glad of delivering you some Tuscan wine/food from our area.

Learning more about Participatory Lithology

• A summary of the first week of the project, including the “geomusical” aspect is presented here http://www.pibinko.org/between-a-rock-and-a-hard-phase-our-first-week-with-participatory-lithology-mar-21-27/
• And our musical “channel” is here http://www.pibinko.org/jugbandcollinemetallifere/category/lithobag/

Note

Given the current social distancing constraints in most of the environments where our potential performers reside, we figure this performance may be made either by one single person who can play and sing, or by two or more performers if they happen to be under the same roof in this period.

Please write to jugbandcm@pibinko.org if you are interested.