Some say you can't learn to do Ringshout unless you grew up doing it.  None of us in the Ringshout Project grew up with it.  We studied it, listened to it, talk to folks who grew up doing it, watched every video we could get our hands on, watched people doing it live, and finally we practiced for three years.  For three years we made a mess of it.  

Then two things happened.  First, we started making up our own songs.  Second, one evening at practice we played a recording of a drum/dance circle which happened in New Orleans ages ago.  There was this old lady doing the calling who was so hoarse she could barely speak.  Something about that recording changed the whole group, and suddenly we started doing it.  Believe it or not.