Trinity Newmarket Singers

Earth Day was our theme. The Beauty of the Earth. So, songs about nature, about appreciating and saving the beauty of our planet were the focus. Love and peace are always themes when we sing, and we always enjoy the surprise of seeing the words of songs that we thought we knew. We listened to two versions of a few songs, appreciating the different impact and moods of the different voices and arrangements. Here's the list of songs we sang and listened to: For the Beauty of the Earth by Barlow Girl All Things Bright and Beautiful by The Countdown Kids, and by The Cambridge Singers What a Wonderful World by Louis Armstrong, and by Anne Murray Colors of the Wind by Judy Kuhn, and by Vanessa Williams Big Yellow Taxi by Counting Crows  Mercy Mercy Me by Marvin Gaye Everything is Beautiful by Gaither & Gordon Mote That's the Way of the World by Earth, Wind & Fire Radioactive by Pentatonix & Lindsey Stirling, and by Imagine Dragons 4 Minutes by Madonna How Far I'

The theme for the evening was: Songs with La-las (and other nonsense: ooh, doo-dah, na-na, scoobie-doobie, bum-ba-bum, hey!). I call all of these little non-word lyrics la-las. They're often my favourite part of a song. Everyone can sing those words, usually. With scat singing, not usually, and with yodeling, not everyone. But, think about the Beatles song Hey Jude. At the end, everyone can sing along with the na-nas and some of us even like to harmonize with them. When my daughter was writing songs, I urged her to put some nonesense la-las in her songs. Don't worry about finding beautiful, powerful words for all the verses, or all the lines of the chorus. Sometimes, the lack of words makes a melody more powerful.  Here's the list of songs we sang and listened to: Can't Get You Out of My Head   by Kylie Minogue Everything   by Michael Bublé Those Were the Days   by Mary Hopkin Hey Jude   by the Beatles Tom's Diner   by Suzanne Vega &DNA De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da

I think this could be a good place to share recordings to help us learn our Trinity choir and praise team songs.  Kevin has made recordings of our new song When I Look Into Your Holiness. I put them in my Google Drive so that I can find them easily and so that they're available to me across devices. I'm sharing that with you here.  Your Holiness  You should be able to open up that folder and see five files. One is a scan of the sheet music and the others are the four sound files: one for the beginning, where we're all together in unison, and then the last two pages, which each repeat, in 3 parts.  It's going to be good, and nice and easy now that we can hear our parts any time, any where. I can't promise that I'll always be able to do this, but when I can, I will.  

I have a bit of a collection of articles about singing. It's so good to see my feelings validated like this. If it's hard to read this infographic, you can click here to open and download a pdf version. Also, you can go to the page on the Choral Canada website to read more.  https://www.choralcanada.org/en/benefits-of-singing You don't have to be in a choir and you don't have to be a "good" singer. Just sing with others, together, and you get most of these benefits. And, even singing by yourself is good for you. Humming is good, listening to music is good, and even remembering a song in your head is good.  At Trinity, we have lots of ways we can sing together. On Sunday mornings, there's always a lot of singing, starting at 9:30 with Choir rehearsal, and then all through the church service, in the choir or in the pews. On Tuesday mornings, there's Praise Team. On Thursday evenings, we have Sing-along Café. I'm thinking about daytime Sing-along Caf

The theme for the evening was: Songs with Instumentals that We Sing.  The easiest way to introduce this theme is "Sweet Caroline, BA-BA-BA!". Everyone sings along with the brass section, singing like trumpets. There's also a little instrumental interlude that I sing along with. I almost always sing la-las (or ba-ba, da-da, nya-nya, doo, dit, bop...) for the instrumental introductions and interludes in songs. I sing with classical instrumental music, joking that "I know all the words." I'm not the only one. You do this too. Here's the list of songs we sang: Sweet Caroline by Neil Diamond A Taste of Honey by Herb Alpert & The Tijuana Brass Wipe Out by the Surfaris The Fool on the Hill by the Beatles I'll Never Fall in Love Again by Dionne Warwick Windy by The Association Careless Whisper by George Michael True by Spandau Ballet Down Under by Men at Work Feeling Good by Michael Bublé More Than a Feeling by Boston Baker Street by Gerry Raffer

 

We want to share our Singing Nights.  Armchairs, sofas, a big TV screen for the lyrics, and playlists with themes, tea and cookies or squares (often home made), and good conversation with lovely company, The reviews I wrote after each Thursday night always ended with "It was a lovely evening in lovely company." This is what My Singing Night has evloved into, a comfy sing-along evening with friends.  This is what we want to share. It's singing with a therapeutic, social, easy feel, without worrying about our voices, our timing and notes, reading music, or performing. We're singing purely for fun, and as a springboard to talking about all the big themes of life. We're recalling the past as we recall the lyrics and melodies of the songs of our youth.  We started skipping learning the sheet music, or learning parts to hymns and praise team songs. We'd sing along with a video or recording of a few of the Sunday songs and then start singing pop songs from the past,

What to call this evening of music, connection, harmony, and spirit? This "My Singing Night", our theme was Easter and Spring. In the theme of new beginnings, we spent time talking about a re-branding. We tried to come up with some new names for these wonderful Thursday evening singing and fellowship gatherings.  What should we call this? Armchair Singers? Songs and Friends? Thursday Playlist? I'll come up with something.  We'll have a new poster and we have this new blog-website. Hopefully, we'll get some more people coming out. It's such a good thing!  We talked about the unique nature of what we do every Thursday evening together. Singing, but not choir, and not performing, just singing together like a sing-along, but there's no guitar, nobody playing piano. We're singing along like in the car, singing to the radio or a playlist. Yeah, it's like that, like playing your playlist in the car and everyone sings along. But, we have the words on the b

I'm still trying to find a new name of our Thursday Singing Night.  My Singing Night.  It's developed into a unique thing. It's not choir, not karaoke, not about improving our voices or learning to read music, it's kind of a self-care singing.  Maybe you're looking for something to do for yourself, and also an opportunity to get out of the house. This is a good time for a fresh start. This is something you can do.  I found this definition of self-care:  Self-care is a conscious act people take to promote their physical, mental, spiritual, and emotional health.   I do strongly believe that singing together is important for our health, mental and physical, and for our community, building unity and understanding. We're singing like we might sing in our kitchens, or living rooms, but not alone. We are in community here. It's a social night where we hang out with lovely kind souls who also love to sing.  Self-care is not only a solo activity, as the community—a g

I've decided to create a space for my Trinity singing activities.  I'm in the Choir, sometimes conducting, and in the Praise Team. In addition, I run the community singing night on Thursday evenings.  This is where you'll find my Thursday evening reviews from now on. I'll copy the old posts from Renate's Baton to this blog so they'll all be in one spot.  Happy singing and happy reading!