Concerts this weekend: Keynotes and Men of Note

Two of the choirs we shared the stage with this past Saturday will be singing again this coming Saturday.
The Men of Note and the Keynotes Choirs are both presenting their spring concerts this weekend.

Men of Note:
Saturday, May 4th at 7:30 pm at Christchurch Anglican Church in Stouffville

Newmarket Keynotes Seniors Choir:
Saturday, May 4th at 7:30 at the Christian Baptist Church in Newmarket

Stuck in my head: The Bossa Nova?

Really? With all the great music I heard on Saturday night, the song that keeps popping into my head is Blame it on the Bossa Nova! Wow. I don't think I'd heard that song since Jr. High School when we danced to it in Phys Ed. I remember the weird blue jumper we had to wear, a one-piece thing with a zipper up the front.

Men of Note: Wow!

Harry is still whistling What Shall We Do With a Drunken Sailor. I loved the music these guys sang! When the Saints Go Marching In was my High School song (all of the CWJefferys sports teams were called the Saints) and I really enjoyed the Men of Note version. Fun! They have a website. Click here.

French Choir was impressive, charming

I loved the French Choir, La Chorale Francophone de la Region de York!
I couldn't find much information about them, but I look forward to hearing more about them. Their a cappella style and sound is charming and impressive. I hope we cross paths again soon.

Today: Aurora 150th Choral Celebration

Choral Celebration in The Auroran and the Town of Aurora

There's a nice article in The Auroran about our concert on Saturday.
You'll see the picture that was taken on the second Saturday.
Here's a link.

We're also mentioned on the Town of Aurora website: click here.

Apr 22

April 22
We Are Family met and voted to switch to Higher and Higher.
Sam Hall met and rocked.
We warmed up with some funny hand-in-the-air follow-the-leader stuff.
We sang through all of our pieces for Saturday.
At break, Todd and Kristen and Bill and Lean on Me rehearsed with Sapphire
We sang Blue Skies with Lauren and Tracey singing great scat solos.
We did a whole bunch of On Eagle's Wings.

Next Monday:
Flying Free
From a Distance
Greatest Love
Hallelujah
I Will Always Be With You
On Eagle's Wings

Improve range and projection when you put that on your throat?

The YRCC is on Facebook, and so are the local Sweet Adelines, the York Highlands Chorus.

Earlier this week, the YHC posted an interesting article on Facebook about using vibrators to massage the throat and relax the larynx to increase range and projection. Apparently, a number of them are using this technique.

Here's another one about the same vocal coach and his unusual technique. 

University of Alberta professor and vocal coach David Ley wanted to apply a speech pathologist's technique to singers to help improve their voices: throat massage. He figured that massaging the throat to loosen the vocal cords would result in increased range and volume. Having hands on your throat is uncomfortable. (I guess it's natural to want to avoid being choked.) So, David went shopping for a vibrator with a frequency similar to that of the human voice and tried it out on some students.

Success. Singers can sing higher and lower and louder when their vocal cords are relaxed and vibrating more after using the vibrator on their throats!

Now, he's sharing this technique with others, and even recommending it to speech therapists. It makes sense.

There's still a bit of a creep factor. I was happy (relieved, but a bit disappointed too) to see that the vibrator being used was discreet and not obviously a sex toy.

So, now we can discuss at our executive meeting whether we should take up Jennifer's offer to sell us the devices at a discount (5 or more, no shipping fees). Jennifer, a member of the Sweet Adelines, is a Passion Party consultant and made us an offer on Facebook.

I think it's kind of funny and brilliant that this is a Canadian invention. It's perfect for Canadians to use a sex toy for speech therapy and singing, don't you think?

April 8

We Are Family and Together Wherever We Go met early and sound great!
Warm-ups worked on breathing and holding notes for longer and longer
1. Imagine was great. We reviewed the ending, and the different timing issues, especially starting at 40
2. One Voice was excellent! We reviewed the entrance so that we're all coming in softly but with confidence
3. Get Happy was fun and frenzied! We reviewed the entrance so that we're all coming in strong, and reviewed a couple of timing issues: p 9 bar 55 Hal-le is fast, the section at bar 89 is getting better, Sopranos still need to work on coming in strong with Forget your troubles and The sun is shining every time.
4.Wonderful World is always wonderful ♥
We had a nice long coffee break with fruit and chocolate sauce and several kinds of baked treats. Yum!
5. We went through All the Little Rivers twice, and it was pretty good and fun too. Carol gave me a bottle of  red beer because I kept singing red beer instead of red bear last time! It was funny and delicious and this time I got it right! (beer was consumed at home)


Next week:
We have to review From a Distance, You'll Never Walk Alone and On Eagle's Wings so that we don't forget the work we've done on them.
We'll sing our Apr 27 songs too.
Let's see if we have time to sing Blue Skies.

More benefits of music

Music Eases Cancer Patients’ Anxiety

Libby Znaimer posted a short article on the Zoomer Report on the Classical 96.3 fm website about the some of the benefits of music on April 8, 2013. Apparently, a study done by Drexel University in Philadelphia found that music eases cancer patients' anxiety. I'm not surprised, and I'm happy to have additional support for my   faith in music.

In addition, compared to standard treatments, the researchers found listening to music brought about a considerable reduction in heart and respiratory rates, and blood pressure. This was the case when patients listened to pre-recorded music or had sessions with trained music therapists.

Bottom line the researchers say, music is useful as a complementary therapy for people with cancer.

Newmarket is a great place to live!

According to MoneySense, Newmarket is among the best places to live in Canada. We scored 4th in the top small cities category and 10th overall!

Check out their lists here.

Our unemployment rate, crime rate, weather and average income are all factors that boosted us up.

When my husband and I moved up here from Toronto, we didn't know much about Newmarket and certainly didn't consult MoneySense. We were able to afford to own a house, and that was the most important thing. There's the hospital and the nice neighbourhoods, lots of shopping and restaurants, the Upper Canada Mall, and it just felt right. It's also close to Toronto and all that the big city has to offer, and close to cottage country, lakes and forests.

North Vancouver is 8th in it the same category as Newmarket and 52nd overall, while Richmond Hill is 26th overall and 9th in its category. So, I'm the luckiest in my family. But, I knew that.

Our old home town, Toronto ranks 28th overall.

Monday, April 1

Wonderful World
Imagine- ending
I'll Be There For You
All the Little Rivers, C and D
Handel Chorus, ending, last 4 bars

Next week:
From a Distance
Get Happy
Imagine
One Voice
All the Little Rivers
Handel Chorus

Happy Easter

Sharps, Flats and Naturals

Ooh. This is good. You can watch this video and I don't have to write anything about sharps and flats. It's all here, and very clearly explained.
I'll keep a look-out for good examples in our music as we sing.

Here's a simple visual of how the accidentals work, with flats.

The video doesn't explain key signatures, but that's easy. Any sharps or flats in a key signature apply to all of those notes in a song, in every octave, unless marked by an accidental. So, in the example below, every F C and G will be sharp.

Here, there's a key signature with F# and C#. Notice the C in the second bar is natural. The one right next to  it will be natural too. The C an octave down, in bar 3 is also marked natural, the one in the same bar will also be natural. The first C in bar 4 is sharp, because it's a new bar and the key signature comes back into effect. The following C is marked natural to cancel that sharp.

March 25

Lauren gave us a theory lesson on sharps, flats, and naturals, key signatures and accidentals.
I'll be writing up something on it too.
Basically, it's important to know about accidentals (the ones you see in the middle of the song) that changing something to # sharp makes it higher by a semitone, and changing something to a b flat makes it lower by a semitone. The natural sign ♮ cancels a sharp or flat, so you could be going down or up, depending on what you're cancelling.

We warmed up with Hallelujah. Gerry was sick so Michael sang the first solo and Kit sang the second. It was pretty :)
We learned the alto part on page 3 of Wild Mountain Thyme. Mary Ellen was away, so Anne Marie sang the first solo and Jonathan sang the second. Both were lovely. We tried to stay soft for the first 2 verses and get loud at page 3 and really loud at page 4.
We made a good dent in All the Little Rivers. We sang the river part, D, which you get to sing 3 times because it's the same as G.
We sang You'll Never Walk Alone, just to review, and discovered that we need to go over the parts we learned last week. But, well do that another time because now we have to work on Imagine for April 27th instead. Another choir is singing You'll Never Walk Alone :(

So, we sang Imagine and next week we'll work on Imagine, especially the ending.

We will also sing Wonderful World to keep it beautiful.
We will sing I'll Be There For You to see how much we remember.
We'll continue learning All the Little Rivers.
We'll look at the Handel Chorus, so we're not totally lost next Saturday ;)
( if you can, sing along with Richard's recordings)

Classical Music: It's really good for you!

I wrote a blog post on an article I read about 15 of the positive effects of classical music for my Musical Empathy Blog. I believe that music has many more benefits than anyone can prove scientifically. Nevertheless, it's good to have some serious support for loving music!

This visual from the article is really nice!

Tequila can help you sing!

Yup! Tequila, "Removes shyness and enhances voice." I got it off of a Facebook post. It must be true ;)

They always say alcohol is bad for singers, like cigarettes.

It's certainly not a good idea to get drunk and then try to perform. We've seen a few rock stars try that and it's not pretty. But, one regular drink can be just the thing to reduce your inhibitions, and help you to sing out with feeling.

I used to tell my adult ESL students that a shot of something strong before class would probably help them to  loosen up and speak English better. When I was studying Linguistics at York University, I read about a study   that measured the relationship between alcohol consumption and learning a language. They gave people different amounts of alcohol and then measured their performance in a second language, and the optimal amount was 1 1/2 ounces, an average shot.

I bet that would work for singing too.

March 18- snowy day

 We started with a special warm-up: massages and then a blessing circle. We wished ourselves, our friends and our choir love, peace and safety.

1 We learned the ending of Flying Free, the last page.
2. We also learned the ending of You'll Never Walk Alone. 71-end
3.We sang Wild Mountain Thyme, with guitar accompaniment added and with Mary-Ellen and Jonathan doing the solos. Wow. I love their voices ♥


Next Monday:
Rivers (preview the first section up to D-before the naming of the rivers- and say all the words in time pronouncing clearly)
Wild Mt. Thyme ( look at the second ending which leads to a key change. Tenors and Basses, review your parts)
From a Distance (we'll just review what we know)
You'll Never Walk (ditto)
Hallelujah (review with new soloists: Gerry and Kit)  


We had coffee and cookies at break and decided to leave early because the weather was messy and the roads were slippery. I hope our blessings of safety helped.

Let's go to New Zealand!

Air New Zealand has the best videos! Watch this.
You can go to this website for background information on the video.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

sing it ♫

Monday, March 11 (March Break)

It was good to see so many of you on Monday during the March Break. We got lots of good work done.
Here's what we did.
1. Get Happy- entrance and Soprano entrances, and the timing at 89, especially "river"
2. Handel Chorus- first page
3.You'll Never Walk Alone 49-65 never, never, never ♥
4. Flying Free- review


We talked about the Aurora 150th Anniversary Celebration on April 27th.
We'll be singing:
Imagine
One Voice
Get Happy
You'll Never Walk Alone(another choir is singing it)
Wonderful World

With the mass choir (7 choirs), we'll sing All the Little Rivers and the Handel Chorus: Ye Boundless Realms of Glory. There will be rehearsals on the 3 Saturdays before the concert in the afternoon at the Seniors' Centre in Aurora. Go to the Calendar for a map and times.

We started working on the Handel Chorus. It's like a canon, where the melody winds itself through all the parts at different times. I suggest you listen to the sound clip that Trix has posted on our website and try to pick out your part. Sapphire and I will get together next Thursday to make our own recordings, so they won't be available for a while.

Next week, we'll have a coffee break with treats and we'll sing:
Hallelujah
Flying Free
Handel Chorus  We'll start with All the Little Rivers instead.
You'll Never Walk Alone

Spring Music Solos Assigned

Spring Music Solos

Blue Skies

Lauren at 37(b/u: Trix)

Tracey at 45(b/u: Janet)

From a Distance

Jane: at 6 and 26 (b/u: Darlene)

Daphne: joins the alto for a duet at pick-up to 10 and 30 (b/u: Dianne)

 

Greatest Love

Louisa: First page (b/u: Darlene)

Hallelujah

Gerry: beginning (b/u: Michael)

Kit: at 16(b/u: Heather)

I’d like to Teach the World to Sing

Debbie: at 9 (b/u: Lauren)

Michael: at 17(b/u: Stanley)

Imagine

Janet: at 5(b/u: Heather)

One Small Step

Trix: at 5 and 75 (b/u: Kristen)

Kevin: at 10 (b/u: Jonathan)

One Voice

Heather (b/u:  Kristen)

Stanley (b/u: Michael)

Janet/Teija

 

Wild Mountain Thyme 

Mary Ellen: at 5, first verse (b/u: Anne Marie)

Jonathan at 5, second verse (b/u: Stanley)

 

Song for the Unsung Hero Descant

Mary Ellen

Anne-Marie

Kristen

Monday, March 4, 2013

1. O Canada: we reviewed the Tenor and Bass Parts at "With glowing hearts we see thee rise", making sure that "glowing" is on beats 1 and 2.
2. From A Distance: 52- the end and the beginning. We did the oohs and they're pretty and not too hard. We're almost done.
3. We had an early break, and after break talked about Sylvia's funeral. Enid read her tribute, which was beautiful and perfect.
4. We started On Eagles Wings, sight-reading through once and learning the main part, on page 4, starting at the pick-up to bar 25.
5. You'll Never Walk Alone: We reviewed the beginning, and it's really cool.
6. We enjoyed singing One Voice before going our separate ways.

The second small group, Lean On Me, started after choir. The group is being lead by Janet and the Kevins, and the sign-up quickly filled up online. Next Monday, we meet at 6:30, but after that we'll meet after choir.

Watch out for further small group sign-ups on our website. The third small group, Together Wherever We Go is set to form, and will start meeting before choir after March Break.

Next Monday, March 11:
We're starting the Handel Chorus (Ye Boundless Realms of Joy), so have a look at it if you can. It's quite short, but intense.
Flying Free
Get Happy
Imagine
You'll Never Walk Alone

We're happier because we're in a choir

We know this already, but it's nice to hear it yet again.  Choir makes us happy.

I like how it says that we have a built-in "stress-free zone". It's true. When we're learning a song and singing it well, there's no room for the rest of our lives. All the stress has to turn off for a little while. 

This is from the My Pop Choir website, on their Comments and FAQ page. 

Here’s what Julie Layton on Discovery Channel’s Fit & Health program said about the magic of singing together:

Some of the greatest connections between singing and happiness are more mental than physical. They’re harder to measure, but just as significant.
Choral singers need to concentrate on their music and technique throughout the singing process, and it’s hard to worry about things like work or money or family problems when you’re actively concentrating on something else. So choral singers tend to have a built-in “stress-free zone.” Learning is also part of the process — learning new songs, new harmonies, new methods of keeping tempo. Learning has long been known to keep brains active and fend off depression, especially in older people.
The question remains, though — why choral singing specifically? Concentration and deep breathing can happen in a recording studio, or in the privacy of your own home.
It’s because some of the most important ties between singing and happiness are social ones. The support system of being part of a group, and the commitment to that group that gets people out of the house and into the chorus every week — these are benefits that are specific to group singing. And they seem to be a big component of why choral singers tend to be happier than the rest of us. The feelings of belonging to a group, of being needed by the other members of that group (“We can’t do this one without our alto!”), go a long way toward combating the loneliness that often comes along with being human in modern times.

Musical Terms: Italian and Experience

Musical Terms - Why Are They All in Italian?

This conversation on a CBC Radio Sunday Show, called "Sunday School" is about musical terms like legato and staccato, and why they're in Italian, and what they do. It's fairly simple, but a good and entertaining introduction to what those little Italian words on your music mean. (you can also click on this link to hear the show)

The choir conductor being interviewed is patient with the interviewer and doesn't correct him too much when he's trying to show what legato and staccato mean. He seems to think that staccato should be fast and legato slow, but they're not about tempo. Legato means linked, so the notes have to flow from one to the other without a pause, like they're attached to each other. Staccato is the opposite, the notes are detached. It really helps to go back to the meaning of the words in Italian.

This "Sunday School" lesson does show that it's best to have experience with what the terms mean so that you can use them. You need to hear what they do and actually do what they do a few times before you can read them easily. Musical notation is not necessarily easier if you understand Italian. You still need to experience the translation from notation to music. This is why it's good to have music lessons.

Remembering Sylvia

February 26th, 2013 is a sad day for the York Region Community Choir. We lost a good friend, a beautiful and inspiring woman, talented singer, a long-time YRCC chorister with a distinctive voice, impish laugh, sparkling eyes, and great shoes! Sylvia Neal passed away this morning. 
We'll always remember her spectacular solos, when she was able to unleash her powerful voice. What a great gift and what talent! We'll also remember her great sense of humour and fun. We'd joke about her being a diva, but she was really very humble and a great team player. A proud Newfie, she was charming and funny, and often had a twinkle of mischief in her smile. We loved Sylvia's collection of fancy high-heeled shoes and remember her whenever Trix or Heather wear a special pair of heels. 
We were as proud as parents when Sylvia won the Regional Senior Star Competition in 2009 and went to the national finals! Our Sylvia! Every time our Sylvia sang, she made us proud. 
We will miss our Sylvia. 
We send out warm and loving thoughts and prayers to her family and other friends as we mourn with them.

Solo Songs for Spring

The 4 solos and duets for our Spring Concert will be:

For Good: Kristen and Todd

Home: Heather and Gerry

Angel: Bill

Wouldn't it be Loverly: Carol

Mon, Feb 18 Family Day rehearsal (and preview to the 25th)

On Monday, February 18th, Family Day Monday, we had a guest. Christian, a York University student came to learn about choirs like ours. His Choral Music professor is Karen Burke, of Toronto Mass Choir fame. Last year I went to her Power Up Conference. It was an excellent experience.

We continued with warm-ups to help us with volume.
1. We sang Wonderful World, first working on getting the Tenor and Bass voices to blend better in the middle section.
2. Blue Skies went well, even though I had to do one of the solos because key people were missing.
3. You'll Never Walk Alone is coming along nicely. We reviewed the section we learned starting at 27 and continued to 47.
4. Flying Free is beautiful! We learned parts up to J and sight-read the rest very nicely.
5. We reviewed page 4 and did both endings at 38 in From a Distance. The harmonies give me chills!
6. To show off, we sang Monday, Monday and You Raise Me Up.

Next Monday:
From a Distance (potential soloists come at 7:00)
I'd Like to Teach the World To Sing
Song for Unsung Heroes
You'll Never Walk Alone
Greatest Love

The Most Outrageous Way to Share a Coke-awesome and there was music too!

This made me cry (okay hormones might have contributed). They did such a great job! It's spectacular!

Start thinking Spring?

I had to start thinking about Spring right after Christmas. I had to choose the songs to sing in June so that we could start learning them in January. I'm beginning to plan the concert now that I've heard from all the people who want to do solos. It's hard to plan in advance, and I find it difficult to do, but we always have to be looking a few steps ahead.

My elder daughter has to choose her courses for Grade 12 this weekend. It's not easy. She's got to think ahead to where she might go to University and what she might want to study so that she will be sure to have the right prerequisites. So, we're looking at University websites and thinking it would be a good idea to visit some over March Break. Next March Break will be too late. It's hard to think about choosing a University next year when she's only 16 and half-way through with Grade 11. She should also be thinking about a summer job now.

It's hard to think about spring and summer when it's snowing outside!

Gardeners are starting to think about spring. Count back from our frost-free date (in mid-May here) and you might need to order your seeds so you can start them indoors in March or April. If you want to plant a tree, you have to imagine what it will look like in 10 or 20 years to choose the right spot for it. It's hard to imagine a little tree in a pot growing to be as tall as your house and taking up half of your lawn.

If you think you might like to move in the spring, now is the time to put your house up for sale. You'll have noticed that For Sale signs are starting to pop up on your neighbours' lawns now. They're thinking ahead. Move in spring and you'll have the summer to get settled. You can have a great yard sale before you move. If you thought last summer was hot and it might be nice to have a pool, you can have a new house with a pool this summer. Think about it.

If you're thinking that this spring or summer would be a good time to move, contact my husband Harry now. He can help you plan things out.
Click here to see Harry's website.
Send him an email: harrynaghavi@gmail.com