Sing-along Café 2025-03-27

Despite barometric pressure headaches and weather-, work-, and world- fatigue (Weltschmertz), we rallied our forces to get out of the house and make it to Trinity, and it was so worth it! Singing is therapeutic, not just fun. And, not only do we sing, but we also pay attention to the beauty of the music and the messages, so we are reminded that there is so much to be grateful for, and we are not alone, but in good company.

Our theme was Celestial Events, inspired by the vernal equinox, the celestial change of seasons last week. So, we looked up to the sun, the moon, the stars, and planets, and even a supermassive black hole, along with artists inspired by the heavens.

Something I like to do is listen to different versions of songs, and we often find that covers of songs provide a wonderful new perspective. We had this experience with a couple of our songs tonight. I do have a thing for diversity, an appreciation for different ways of looking at things. It was also noted that I have very eclectic taste, a huge variety of music that I love. You’ll see that in the list of songs we sang, and on the lists of songs in my playlists.

I didn’t make tea and I didn’t bake, but we did have some sweet things, and it was a lovely evening in lovely company. We forgot to talk about a theme for next week, so we’ll continue on this theme, since I have 3 hours of music on it, with the freedom to change it on Thursday, depending on our whim ;-)

Please come and join us. It's not dark at 7 anymore, and it keeps getting easier to get out in the evenings.

Drop in any Thursday that you can make it.

Here’s a list of some of the songs we sang and listened to (not in order):

Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In by the 5th Demension
Turn! Turn! Turn! by Walk off the Earth and by the Byrds
Total Eclipse of the Heart (Turn around) by Bonnie Tyler
Rewrite the Stars by Zac Efron & Zendaya from the Greatest Showman, and by Michael Gerow
Sunrise, Sunset by the cast of Fiddler on the Roof, Original Motion Picture, and by Miriam Makeba
Bad Moon Rising by Creedence Clearwater Revival (this one surprised us)
Talking to the Moon by Bruno Mars
Fly Me to the Moon by Frank Sinatra and by Doris Day
The Circle Game by Joni Mitchell
Shooting Star and Fireflies by Owl City
Across the Universe by the Beatles
Supermassive Black Hole by Muse
Planet Claire by the B-52's
Jupiter, from The Planets (by Gustav Holst) by the Berlin Philharmonic
I Vow to Thee My Country by Katherine Jenkins and by Beck Goldsmith
Sunshine on My Shoulders by John Denver

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 ...

Sing-along Café 2025-01-23

Our café last night was so nice! I baked the most wonderful blueberry muffins, with a nice crunchy golden-brown top and juicy blueberries. Everyone wanted the recipe, so I'll include it at the end. Nibbling our muffins was easy, as a few of the songs we sang had very long instrumental interludes. Our theme was Disney movie music. It was interesting to hear how different eras sounded different, from the 1940's to the present. It was partly the technology developing, but also the styles of music and the kinds of bands and orchestras that were popular. We don't hear a lot of twittering birds in the more recent Disney musicals, or coloratura singing with lots of tremolo. There were a few princesses whose singing we couldn't match. Listening to and singing all those movie songs, we remembered times we watched them in the theatre or at home on our televisions when we were small and when our children were small. I had a memory from when I was 6 years old, and lots of stories...

Sing-along Café 2024-09-05

Our theme was fun! September and School, and Summer too. I'm not going to list all the songs, but you can find them in my Apple Playlist, which you can access here. I had fun making this week's playlist, and we can keep using it for school-themed songs and for summer and fall, and even new beginnings. In fact, we'll use it next week again. We didn't listen to some key songs, so we can do them first (See You in September, She Blinded Me With Science) The fist song, the one that started the list, was September by Earth, Wind and Fire. Later, I found another version which I absolutelty adore. Lots of songs with a school theme came next, and we noticed that most of them had a negative or rebellious tone. School for me was fun and interesting and I loved it. I didn't break rules, I loved them, and thrived among rules and patterns and details. I'm not a rock star. Another thing that stood out in the school theme was love stories, and a focus on the opposite sex (most...

Trinity Newmarket Singers

Search This Blog