Truth Tuning

Truth Tuning

A Song Show and Tell Playground
A Full Brightness Living Experience at HumorVille

Imagine if Karaoke, Show and Tell and Choose Your Own Adventure had a musical baby!

Here is how that musical baby works:

• Karaoke provides the songs

• Show and Tell creates the opportunity to share why you chose your specific song

• Choose Your Own Adventure gives each person the freedom to decide what they want to do with their selected song and how they would like the group to participate

I created the name Truth Tuning after realizing that I had been changing song lyrics for much of my life. At first, I misheard lyrics and sang the words that came through to me. Later, I began changing lyrics intentionally because my version felt funnier, more encouraging, or more true to my own lived experience. For example, I could change “You’re amazing just the way you are” to “I’m amazing just the way I am.”

This gathering is my invitation to explore what happens when other humans give themselves permission to interact with songs in their own ways too.

You may already know why a song speaks to you, or discover something about yourself as we listen and get curious together. Sometimes testing and trying out different words in song lyrics helps me discover what I actually want to say. I wonder... could this help YOU too? Care to experiment and get curious with me?

Instead of each person choosing a song, singing the whole song from start to finish and moving on to the next person, as is typically done at traditional karaoke, with Truth Tuning, we get the chance to learn a little bit about each other through the songs we select and how we choose to explore each of our songs together.

Choose Your Song

Choose a song, or one specific part of a song, because:

• You love it and want other people to understand why it speaks to you

• One particular line of the song bothers or irks you

• You misheard the lyrics and prefer the words you accidentally heard

• You changed the lyrics or rewrote the song in your own way

• Something about the song simply caught your attention, even though you do not understand why... yet!

Choose Your Own (Musical) Adventure

You might choose to:

• Have us listen together to the original artist’s recording

• Sing by yourself or invite the group to sing with you (singing is always optional!)

• Talk about a specific lyric and why you love it or why it irks you

• Sing, read, or tell us about lyrics you previously wrote or adjusted

• Ask the group to explore why a specific lyric or the song’s overall message does not speak to you, or help you brainstorm different lyrics together

• Combine a few of these possibilities or come up with your own idea for how you’d like to play with the song

You choose what about the song you want to share, what you would like us to focus on, and how we can get curious with you about it!

Singing and rewriting lyrics are both optional. Sharing about the song in general totally works!

Before We Gather

Advance registration and song submission are requested so I can prepare the music links, sequence the songs and make sure our time together is spent exploring rather than searching for tracks.

After purchasing your ticket, please complete the short song submission form here:
https://forms.gle/3x4LZPsM5mAuWxQp9

In the form, you will:

• Share the song you selected and, if relevant, the specific section you would like us to focus on

• Paste the exact link to the YouTube track or KaraFun version you would like us to use

• If you’d like, answer a few optional questions about what caught your attention about your specific song and what you are imagining

Hint: Not sure which song to choose? You can search the KaraFun catalog for a song that speaks to you:
https://www.karafun.com/karaoke-song-list.html

No need to have a full plan. Just a tiny glimpse of what you are imagining is helpful and appreciated!

What to Expect

There will be time to arrive and settle in. I will start us off with a little background about how Truth Tuning was born. I’ll share how I have used and enjoyed it as a unique tool in my everyday life over the years, along with some examples.

We will then explore the songs submitted in advance. For each one, we may listen, sing, talk about a lyric, hear someone’s rewritten version or help brainstorm different words, depending on what the person who selected the song requests.

We will leave time for reflection and closure before bringing the gathering to an end.

Listening, enjoying the music and being curious about how other people think are all welcome ways to participate.

About Stef

Stefanie Rennert, a.k.a. Stef with an F, is the creator of Full Brightness Living, a home for playful experiments in self-expression, connection and being more fully yourself.

Underneath those experiments is an unconventional, emerging methodology for becoming more visible to yourself and living with more creativity, customization and intention.

Through Full Brightness Living, Stef is developing experiences that help people notice what speaks to them, find language for how they experience the world and explore ways of living that fit them better.

Stef is a lifelong lover of music, karaoke, musical references, meaningful conversations and finding unexpected ways to do familiar things differently.

Stef is a Fall 2026 Artist In Residence at HumorVille.