Feature Article

The Lyrics Alive Story
By Mary Bomar & Bob Ritter

About the author:
Mary Bomar (Cismont, VA) and Bob Ritter (Indianapolis, IN) met in 1989 in Nashville, Tennessee and since then have been performing their brand of contemporary folk/Americana music, and are veterans of the small club and coffee house circuit. They married in 1990 and in 1993 released a CD entitled " The First Step", a collection of thought provoking songs, which gained wide recognition. Since 1996 Mary and Bob have focused much of their musical energy on LYRICS ALIVE. They can be reached at Lyrics Alive, Inc. - 812.794.4768 or at bomaritter@yahoo.com

Lyrics Alive is our four-day lyric writing program/workshop for school age children. We work primarily with 5th grade students in public and private schools, even though we’ve had great success with 4th, 7th, and 8th graders, too. The format of the workshop is pretty simple. We ask the teachers to have each class, as a group (so everyone has a chance to be involved), come up with two ideas or poems before we come to the school. We can work on eight lyrics per workshop.

When we arrive, we spend the first 2 days in the classroom (one hour per class) in lively sessions, brainstorming and editing the students’ ideas/poems into lyric form. We gather the students’ thoughts on the musical style the lyrics call for and while we’re away from the school we set their lyrics to music. On the third day we play the songs for the students and rehearse for the school concert that takes place on the fourth day. The third and fourth days are the "fun" days as the kids get so excited about hearing their lyrics come alive with the music and getting to perform their songs in front of the whole school. That’s why it’s called "Lyrics Alive".

Lyrics Alive evolved from our work with The Country Music Foundation’s Words & Music Program during the late 80’s through the mid 90’s. In that program, the CMF had a curriculum that was sent to interested schools which culminated in students writing poems or lyrics and volunteer songwriters setting their unedited words to music. It was a wonderful program but we didn’t get to work directly with the students and due to numerous sets of lyrics, only a limited number could be set to music. During that time we had started to work in a similar way with 2 schools near Mary’s home area of Charlottesville, Virginia. The classes would write poems as a group, send them to us; we would edit and set them to music and play them for the school in a concert.

In one case, one student had written about a sibling who had a tragic death, a death this student felt responsible for. The student had rarely spoken of the loss until deciding to write something for us to put into song. It started an amazing healing process for the student, and a realization that what we were doing was very powerful. Our goal had been simply to show how fun and challenging lyric and song writing could be, but something was happening that was much bigger than we imagined. We saw this as a wonderful opportunity to use a great gift God had given us to help students across a broad spectrum, from creative inspiration, to the give and take of teamwork, to, in some cases, emotional healing.

That school asked us to come back the following year (1997) but requested that we work in the classroom with the students for more than one day. From that our four-day format was born. Still calling it a "Words & Music" workshop, we started contacting schools within a day’s drive of Nashville. Two national educational conferences, hundreds of letters and follow-up phone calls and no takers; God, is this really what you want us to do? Fortunately, Bob had a "real" job at a Nashville hospital so we could make ends meet. Through 1997 and 1998 we continued with the two Virginia schools to great success but no new schools signed on. We considered going non-profit to lessen the costs to schools but at the time that task seemed too daunting.

In the meantime, Mary came up with the name "Lyrics Alive", and our workshop, with it’s unique curriculum, had it’s own identity. Finally in 1999 a private school in Lexington, Kentucky gave us a chance. We coordinated through a fantastic Language Arts teacher and created 8 amazing lyrics and songs with the students. After the workshop concert we were told of the positive effect Lyrics Alive had had on several students – one shy student whose creative writing talent was exposed and some others who struggled with situations away from school but felt boosted by their involvement in the creative process. Yes, this is what I want you to do. Patience! More contacts and calls and in 2001 a school in Huntsville, Alabama signed on, again to great success, which firmed our resolve but still left us a long way from a full time endeavor.

The year 2002 was one of great change, challenge and opportunity to live on faith. We added Nelson County, Virginia schools to our roster, decided to leave Nashville, and in June bought an old farmhouse in rural southeast Indiana on land once owned by Bob’s great-great grandfather. His mysterious ways! The hard part was that Bob still commuted every other week to work in Nashville in order to keep our schedule available to pursue Lyrics Alive.

In early 2003 longtime friend and Nashville businessman Henry Bedford answered countless prayers for help and guidance. Mary, while house sitting in Nashville, called Henry simply to visit. She told him about what we had been doing and showed him some of our promotional materials. He told her "This is a no-brainer. You need to be in every school in the country!" He helped us polish our business approach and offered help in setting Lyrics Alive up as a non-profit.

With Henry’s help, our vision, and God’s ultimate grace we booked 9 schools for the 2003/2004 school year, all being greatly successful. In January 2004, Bob made the ultimate leap of faith and left the hospital job, the type of work he had done for over 20 years. Scared to death and excited at the same time, we’ve enjoyed the chance to truly "walk by faith and not by sight". Being able to focus on Lyrics Alive full time has enabled us to add more schools to our roster. The 2004/2005 school year will have us working 13 to 17 workshops, some possibly in a major children’s hospital.

Lyrics Alive recently was granted it’s non-profit status, allowing us to request grants, donations and sponsorships that will help make the workshop affordable and available to interested schools. While Lyrics Alive is not registered as a religious organization, our work in these workshops gives us the chance to practice our own personal ministry of being a positive influence.

So many teachers have been amazed at their students’ participation in Lyrics Alive. "Cindy wrote that?", "I didn’t know Jimmy had that in him!" or "I’ve never seen that side of these kids!" are just a few of the comments we’ve heard. We feel so blessed to be able to use God’s incredible gifts to do something really good for young people. Our biggest challenge is not getting in the way and letting God work through us. It’s a challenge we accept and look forward to.

--Mary Bomar & Bob Ritter