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The Imaginary Song Hunt

The Imaginary Song Hunt

Von: Lotos Lab
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Gather every Wednesday to rummage through music history’s wondrous, mystical, and neglected corners, unearthing forgotten stories, strange texts, and enchanted fragments of song with Stef Conner.

The Imaginary Song Hunt is a monthly adventure into the lost, half-remembered, and beautifully mysterious corners of music history. Much of the music we explore survives only in fragments – cryptic manuscripts, patchy evidence, inherited traditions, and folklore. We often can’t know exactly how the old songs sounded… but it’s great fun to make an educated, imaginative guess.

That’s what the Hunt is all about: using real historical clues to spark creative reconstructions, new performances, and playful musical detective work.

Each month unfolds across four or five Wednesday sessions:

Week 1 – Main Episode (YouTube & Podcast):
Interviews with experts, manuscript deep-dives, and my own attempts at wrestling ancient evidence into fresh musical ideas.

Week 2 – Bonus Content:
Extra context, clues, translations, commentary, and behind-the-scenes materials to help fellow Song Hunters on their own creative paths.

Week 3 – Live Zoom Singing Session:
Open to all voices, no experience required. Learn by doing, and feel ancient song in your body through guided communal singing.

Week 4 – New Creative Release:
A music video or brand-new piece inspired by the month’s mystery.

Bonus Weeks – When there's a 5th Wednesday

Extra goodies: mini episodes, medieval weirdness, manuscript surprises. Something different every time.

Along the way, Song Hunters encounter:
mystical incantations, strange notations, beautiful manuscripts, ancient instruments, tragic ballads, songs for forgotten saints, tavern tunes, musical riddles, heart-piercing laments, creepy curses, and wonderfully odd modern songs with ancient or folk twists. Our explorations are rooted in evidence, but always leave space for imagination, intuition, and delight.


If you love singing, stories, folklore, history, ancient magic, ritual, creative experimentation, or the joy of making something new from something old, this is absolutely for you!

Copyright 2026 All rights reserved. Musik
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  • Could you sing like Sappho – with Ian Rutherford (ISH 4, June 2026)

    Could you sing like Sappho – with Ian Rutherford (ISH 4, June 2026)
    Jun 3 2026

    In this episode of Imaginary Song Hunt, we learn about the life and music of Sappho with Reading University’s Professor of Greek, Ian Rutherford.

    Who was Sappho and where do we find the details of her biography? What is a Sapphic Stanza and how should we sing it? Did people dance to Sappho’s music? We tackle all these questions and more in this exploration of history, poetry and rhythm.

    By the end we get a teeny little bit closer to answering the question of how to sing Sappho.

    🎧 The Imaginary Song Hunt is a series about reimagining lost songs from history, using evidence, creativity, and a willingness to step beyond what’s written down.

    👉 For everything Imaginary Song Hunt including side trails, bonus performances and Stef’s Zoom choir, join the Lotos Lab Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Lotos_Lab

    👯‍♀️ For all the news and updates sign up for the Imaginary Song Hunt mailing list: https://song.stefconner.com/sign-up-imaginary-song-hunt

    💝 Lotos Lab Tip Jar: https://lotos-lab.com/donate/

    Next full episode (1st July 2026): Stef and Barnaby sing the earliest Christian hymn

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    55 Min.
  • Singing Canntaireachd – with Barnaby Brown (ISH 3, May 2026)

    Singing Canntaireachd – with Barnaby Brown (ISH 3, May 2026)
    May 8 2026

    In this episode of the Imaginary Song Hunt, we go hunting for Scottish Canntaireachd – the practice of singing Pibroch (the musical tradition of the Great Highland Bagpipe).

    Piping maestro, Lotos Lab’s own Barnaby Brown guides us through the murky undergrowth of Scottish bagpiping history, and explains how pipers have traditionally learned their craft through singing.

    After delving into cultural history, notation and traditional practices, we focus on a single pibroch, the stunningly beautiful lament, Cumha Alasdair Dheirg ("Lament for Alasdair Dearg").

    If you'd like to try singing this gorgeous piece, you can access the Urlar (its main section, arranged to suit easy aural leaning) for free here: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.32190912

    Or you can head over to the Lotos Lab shop or join our Patreon for the full piece.

    By the end we try to answer the question: how can (or perhaps should) we sing canntaireachd today?

    For everything Imaginary Song Hunt including side trails, bonus performances and Stef’s zoom choir join the Lotos Lab Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Lotos_Lab

    👯‍♀️ For all the news and updates sign up for the Imaginary Song Hunt mailing list: https://song.stefconner.com/sign-up-imaginary-song-hunt

    Next full episode (3rd June 2026): we head to Lesbos to explore the (now) fragmentary world of Sapphic song...
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    1 Std. und 5 Min.
  • Forging Charlemagne's Songbook – with James Freeman (ISH 2, April 2026)

    Forging Charlemagne's Songbook – with James Freeman (ISH 2, April 2026)
    Apr 22 2026

    In this episode of Imaginary Song Hunt, we continue our search for a lost songbook from the court of Charlemagne. Medievalist and codicologist James Freeman joins us to explore a deceptively simple question: if this legendary book of barbara et antiquissima carmina (“ancient vernacular songs”) once existed, what would it actually take to reconstruct – or even convincingly fake – it?

    Shifting focus from sound to source, we dig into the material realities of manuscripts: how they were made, how they survive, and what makes them believable as historical objects. From parchment and ink to scribal hand, this episode asks: how close you could get to producing a manuscript that might actually fool an expert?

    🎧 The Imaginary Song Hunt is a series about reimagining lost songs from history, using evidence, creativity, and a willingness to step beyond what’s written down.

    👉 Follow the hunt on

    • YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@lotos-lab?sub_confirmation=1
    • Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3aFzqumrVPAqLeSMU7b68k?si=ab002adfb70e4f8b
    • Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-imaginary-song-hunt/id1889937980
    • Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.co.uk/podcasts/053de0d8-1daf-4bb7-b0a1-e95d61c53135/the-imaginary-song-hunt?ref=dm_sh_IDCz6Kic0NaHH9KAPacKXQsFQ

    👯‍♀️ To join the Patreon, when it launches on 1st May, sign up for the Imaginary Song Hunt mailing list: https://song.stefconner.com/sign-up-imaginary-song-hunt

    💝 Lotos Lab Tip Jar: https://lotos-lab.com/donate/

    Next full episode (6th May 2026): we introduce Canntaireachd, a technique of chanting "vocables" to sing instrumental melodies, associated with bagpipe music.
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    1 Std. und 5 Min.
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