The Sing Portland! Blog
The ballad of Carol and John: when singing is about far more than the song.
Let me tell you the story of Carol and John. I guarantee if you’d seen them at choir you’d have wanted to know more about them — they had a way of standing out. Carol was suffering from a degenerative disease, the results of which were partial blindness and dementia....
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Move over, Laughter. It turns out Singing is the best medicine!
I always love to talk about the bigger picture benefits of belonging to a choir —the spiritual, soul-level benefits of singing: the confidence it can bring you, and the way it connects you to your community and to your inner being. And that stuff is hugely important!...
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Music as art vs music as life. Do you have to choose?
Imagine this: you’re starving. But what are you in the mood for? Do you feel like donning your sharpest suit and heading out for a perfectly presented, Michelin star-worthy 5 course meal? Maybe you’d rather just pop to that tiny street stall where the tacos wouldn’t...
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Let’s sing for peace this June
It would be the understatement of the year to say that things have been a little dissonant lately. We’re constantly surrounded by news that goes from bad to worse; huge, much needed cultural upheavals that can leave us feeling raw; and the general sense of frustration...
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Are you listening to your inner critic or your inner child? (The answer’s more important than you think.)
You know that feeling you get when you’re so excited your smile reaches your ears and you just want to jump up and down like an overjoyed 5-year old? That’s me right now. I’m planning our next house concert and I’m just so excited about it. I’m overflowing with ideas...
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You Can Only Ignore Your Destiny for So Long… Because (Spoiler!) It Never Gives Up On You
Is your heart talking to you? Mine spoke to me when I was a teenager; it told me music was my thing, what I was made for. It told me to pursue a career as a musician. My parents told me otherwise. And I listened, at least for a while. I ignored my heart, suppressed my...
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Coming to Sing Portland! from another choir? Here’s what to expect…
In case you haven’t noticed, we do things a little differently here at Sing Portland! (What can we say, we are in the capitol of “doing things a little differently”.) So if you’re thinking of switching choirs but you’re not quite sure what to expect, you should know…...
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I’m coming clean; Sing Portland! isn’t actually a choir
We get together at least three times a week to sing. There are sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses. There’s music. We give concerts and sing songs … if it looks like a choir, practices like a choir, and sounds like a choir, it must be a choir, right? Well…yes and no....
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This One Little Word Can Free You From a LifeTime of Regret
“Well you’ve got some balls, don’t you?” I had just finished telling my friend how I’m planning to start a term of teaching Afro-Cuban music in April … just eight days after coming back from a trip to Cuba. I’ve never really sung Afro-Cuban music before. I’ve...
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Every Song Needs More than One Note
Have you ever listened to a chant that’s just one note over, and over, and over again? Just imagine it in your head right now: one note, drawn out, forever. Sounds pretty boring (not to mention kind of creepy), right? Every song needs more than one note — after all,...
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What’s Your Inevitability? (Plus HUGE News)
If you had told me two years ago that the day would come when I would stand up and teach at the same event as Ysaye Barnwell, MaMuse, and Kate Munger, I probably would have laughed. The idea of being invited to teach the thing I love best in the world, alongside the...
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There’s no expiration date on singing
“Too late to start this now.” That’s what I heard over and over again when, at 31, I picked up a cello for the first time and decided to learn how to play. I started teaching a year later, and have now taught for 20 years. “Oh, that’s certainly too late.” That’s what...
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