Some retreats involve hot stone therapy and beauty mud baths.

Others offer spiritual enlightenment or just peace and quiet.

Acclaimed Texas singer-songwriters Kevin Welch and Jimmie Dale Gilmore hold out a different promise - a chance to share (and grapple with) the elusive art of song with a makeshift family of about a dozen student songwriters under the expanse of the West Texas sky.

"Music Is a Family: A Songwriting Retreat" takes place May 17-20 at El Cosmico, Austin developer Liz Lambert's vintage trailer, safari tent and teepee hotel and campground on Texas 67 just outside Marfa.

"It's gonna be really cool out there," Welch said. "It's nice to get out in that atmosphere of creativity."

Both men have experience conducting songwriting workshops across the country.

But this is the first time that Welch, who lives in Wimberley, and special guest and Austin resident Gilmore have done one together and in Marfa.

Registration costs $1,250 per person and includes meals and accommodations. For more information, call 432-729-1950; online at http://www.elcosmico.com.

Welch, who holds songwriting workshops nearly monthly in Wimberley, calls the Marfa excursion "a grand experiment." The locale may be new, but he expects the mix of participants to be wide ranging.

"I've had people that are total beginners to seasoned, touring professionals come from Australia, England, Canada, all over the United States," he said. "I've had people as young as 14 and people in their 70s, just anybody who is interested in the whole process and kind of tweaking their awareness when they're writing, whatever kind of song they're wanting to write."

Originally posted here:

Songwriting workshop attracts all