Oh Sing!
  • home
  • About Us
  • News/Events
  • LINKS
    • VIDEOS
  • Contact / Register
  • MEMBERS ONLY
  • Blog
  • Serenity Singers
  • About Us

About Monday

1/30/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
This is a photo of our lovely mentors, Denis Donnelly and Siobhan Robinsong. Their dedication and generosity is truly humbling.

It's Tuesday morning actually. I intended to blog last evening but the computer ate my day's collection of sound files (that's much worse than the dog eating your homework) and searched frantically until I found them. Long story, but it has a happy ending. I found them.
They included a 2 hour tape of Dr. Adam Con who is researching lifelong singers, and combining his knowledge of Tai Chi and choral singing!               
We learned about how to use the body for conducting, how to create neuro-imaging in your singers. After 2 hours, our 40 conductor/singers were putty in his hands. He would barely move his hands to create the most subtle variations in sound. Unbelievable!!  Here is a short video of an interview with Adam Con.
​
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABZ9zYyeozk


I met a dear friend from Hornby for lunch at the best vegan restaurant I've ever been to called Be Love, and then we were treated to a couple hours of Laurence Cole teaching us his new work.
Here are a few photos from yesterday, showing the beautiful room and ceiling of the Church of Truth where we meet.
Picture
Picture
Picture
0 Comments

Pondering the Daylight singers

1/30/2017

0 Comments

 
I've been promising to start a daytime choir for years, but always felt too busy. I tried a 6 week session in Thornbury a couple years ago, and also offered a 10 week session in the Fall of 2015 at Woodford Community Hall. For different reasons, I dropped the ball.
But on Sunday morning, over coffee with Tina Filippino who runs Letz Sing, a paperless choir, I got a sense of what that means. Letz Sing is a totally non-performing choir. Even someone's mother is not allowed to attend because Tina says that any audience at all changes the dynamic. Twice a year, she runs a "Big Sing" and donates the proceeds to charity. Her three choirs come together (about 150 people) and sing what they've learned as if it were a performance, but without an audience! She also said that her goal in every practice is to perfect the song being learned, to sing it as beautifully as possible. If only half a song is learned one week. the same goal applies. 
So I'm thinking of having a daytime choir based on that model (what fun!)... I would continue the Monday evening choir in the same format, with its many notes, and some performance. 
0 Comments

January 29th, 2017

1/29/2017

0 Comments

 
After a 3 hour get-to-know circle and planning meeting yesterday afternoon, Pat Robertson read us a beautiful Rumi poem, translated by Daniel Landinsky, called Isn't that Something?: 
I
like when
the music happens like this:

Something in Her eyes grabs hold of a
tambourine in
me,

Then I turn and lift
a violin in someone else,
and they turn, and this turning continues,

It has reached you now.
Isn't that something ?


Then we all went to dinner together at The Mint on Douglas Street. After dinner, Denis got his guitar and started a song. That started the ball rolling and people took turns coming forward to lead and teach songs. Happiness is people sharing a mutual passion. Isn't that something?
0 Comments

CCLT Reunion 2017 (Community Choir Leadership Training)

1/29/2017

0 Comments

 
Picture
Victoria BC in the rain! Loving it!
Last night was the big Gettin' Higher Choir Concert, with Denis and Siobhan leading, and guest Fintan O'Brien, as well as Laurence Cole singing a fantastic rap song that he wrote about creating beauty out of our failures. And Sara Thomsen was there to sing a wonderful new song of hers. The choir sang two of her songs, finishing with Water is Life. 
Today is a slow day to get sorted out, chat, meet and greet. There are 40 CCLT's from all over the country and the learning started right away over coffee this morning with Tina Filippino, who has huge paperless choirs in Courtenay BC. Quite a different philosophy, and I'm looking forward to more discussion about that.
I want to record every conversation! 
Please post comments and questions if possible. If not, let me know!
0 Comments

    Author

    Louise Jarvis has been singing all her life, but she came to choral conducting more recently, and it became a passion in 2009 after studying Community Choir Leadership Training in Victoria BC with the Gettin' Higher Choir folks. Oh Sing! belongs to the Ubuntu Choirs Network.

    Archives

    July 2018
    May 2018
    February 2018
    July 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed