Community Singing Evening: Social Self-Care Singing

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 group that supports the person performing self-care—overall plays a role in access to, implementation of, and success of self-care activities.

A free night of singing a variety of music with a fun and relaxed atmosphere, in armchairs with tea and sweets, talking about the lyrics and the music, life and love is a wonderful gift to the community and to each of us who is refreshed and inspired here every week.

Thank God for the congregation of Trinity United Church in Newmarket for setting aside the space in the lovely Fellowship Room of the grand old church building in downtown Newmarket!

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Thursday, April 18 Sing-along Café Review

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

Thursday, April 11 Sing-along Café Review

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

Trinity Newmarket Singers

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