Sing-along Cafe 2024-09-26

It was a quieter evening, but still wonderful. With only 2 of us there, Thain and I could talk about all kinds of things and sing whatever we wanted. We talked about a performance by the 4 soloists that sang for us a while back. They sang Like Breathing. We Googled it and listened to a few different performances on YouTube and looked at samples of the sheet music. Then, we did the same for You Will Be Found, by the same composers: Benjamin Pasek and Justin Paul. Powerful, meaningful songs from musical theatre. It would take a bit of work to arrange them for our choir and praise team. Maybe a project for me? We’ll see.

Our theme was Songs with La-las and other Nonsense, and we can do it again next week. I have 10 hours of music on that list now. We earmarked a couple of songs we’d like to do next week already, and I’m sure people will find songs that we haven’t sung yet, but, we can sing things multiple times if we want. We had fun with some classical la-las, and enjoyed trying to sing in Latin, Italian, and German! (The la-la parts were not hard to pronounce) It was a good example of the way I envision this evening should be. Having fun with our singing, with no expectations about quality or accuracy, but enjoying the music and the lyrics and the company of kindred spirits, that’s the kind of singing night I want you to experience here.

Here’s a sample of the songs we listened to and sang:

Like Breathing by Pasek and Paul
You Will Be Found by Pasek and Paul
Largo al factotum from Rossini’s Barber of Seville by Dmitri Hvorostovsky
For Unto Us a Child is Born from Handel’s Messiah by The Sixteen & Harry Christophers
Sanctus by Libera
Queen of the Night Aria from Mozart’s The Magic Flute by Capella Istropolitana
Fix My Eyes by For King & Country
My Lighthouse by Rend Collective

I baked apple muffins and brewed cinnamon apple tea. It was a lovely evening in lovely company.

This video had me in tears (again). Such a moving performance by this amazing children’s choir:

Comments

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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