Music Workshops

Email Michelle Mangione

Michelle Mangione has developed percussion/songwriting music workshops and is available for various venues including peace camps, addiction treatment facilities, elementary, middle and high schools and special education facilities - focusing on music as a tool for  self-expression, communication and healing.

For Mangione, each workshop is different. She tailors the class to the people in it, providing a safe environment and a  variety of instruments, including percussion (even at times a full drumset) guitar, bass, keyboards, cello, harmonium…whatever is needed. She also works with vocals and lyrics, often using poetry or lines written by the class during the workshop. 

Michelle encourages people to bring their own instruments when it is possible.  She asks the class to find their creativity by helping them to express themselves musically and lyrically - in a safe environment. She works with all aspects of a song: rhythm, melody, chord structure and lyrics. She encourages individuals to share their own musical or lyrical compositions.

Michelle's first taste of a music workshop environment was as a teenager, when she and her sister brought guitars to live-in care facilities for the elderly and just "played the stuff they knew". Much to their surprise, it didn't matter that the people they were singing to didn't know most of the songs,  they just seemed to love the music and the human interaction.

Later, Mangione moved on to visit her mothers' special ed. classes, where she experimented, having kids put on their own versions of the percussive show "Stomp". She brought mops, trash cans - anything to make noise with. Again, the music combined with human interaction seemed to have an energy like nothing else. 

Since that time, she has developed percussion/songwriting music workshops for various venues including elementary, middle and high schools, special education facilities, peace camps, and addiction treatment facilities. 

Past workshops include:

Tools for peace - peace camp -Tehachapi, CA
Malibu Recovery Center - addiction recovery center - Malibu, CA
Monte Vista Middle School - Santa Ana, CA
Mayfair Middle School - Lakewood, CA
Loyola Marymount University - special education inclusion - Los Angeles, CA
Playa del Rey Elementary School - West Los Angeles, CA