The Sing Portland! Blog
I thought we were going to perform. But we did something so much more important — we healed.
The emotion in the room was palpable. As we sang the finale of Les Miserable to a room of people still shellshocked from the terrible killings on the MAX train (many in the group were friends and family of the victims), there were tears as we remembered those we lost...
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3 Things choir should not be … and 4 Things it IS
It’s one of those things that I know intellectually … but that always shakes me up a little when I come across it in real life: a person who hates singing. I know it happens — and I know from my conversations with people like this that they almost always think they...
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“Oh no, you don’t want me in your choir!” Yes I do. Here’s why.
Let me tell you a secret — a story that few people know about me. I’m 14 years old, and full of the joy of music and the potential of life, so much so that I tell my father that I’m going to study music. “You’re not good enough.” That was his instant reply. That I...
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Sing Portland! met Choir!Choir!Choir! … and we joined forces for the Women’s March!
I’ve written before about just how much I love Choir!Choir!Choir! — and last month I finally had the chance to attend one of their rehearsals. Rehearsals. Or shows as they call them. When I stepped through the door of the Aladdin Theater on Inauguration Day, I had no...
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How a weekend of singing renewed my faith in humanity
Singing is one of the central forces of my life. But if you had asked me before the first weekend in January of this year whether a group of 20 people would want to come together for a weekend and sing for six hours a day, even I would have been a little hesitant. And...
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Where does music begin … and where does it end? (And what that has to do with you.)
Essentially ever since humans have been making music, we’ve tried to understand what it is, to categorize it, plumb its depths and understand its nature. Sometimes we kept things pretty simple; for instance, Plato defined music as a simple combination of words,...
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When you sing, you’re not just singing. You’re connecting with every culture that’s ever existed.
I’ll be the first one to admit that I am very biased when it comes to singing. I think it’s an amazing, powerful force in our lives, and I tell everyone I meet about it. It’s also why I don’t believe anyone when they say they can’t sing — not because I’m some all...
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8 things to know (that will put you at ease) before you try out Sing Portland!
So maybe you’ve been thinking about giving Sing Portland! a try for a while now. You just have a few questions … like is this really the choir for you? Do you need to have prior experience? Are we really, really sure that you can sing with us? Short answer: yes, no,...
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Music is built on contradictions — and so are communities. Let singing build a bridge.
Emotions have been running high over the past weeks — and understandably so. This year has seemed like one thing after another, and then another, and another, and it’s left a lot of people feeling shaken, scattered and isolated. That’s one reason I talk a lot about...
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“The best therapy $10 can buy” — how music can be a lifesaver
Let’s be honest — in the face of big fears, something as small as singing can seem almost laughably useless. After all, what possible good can a few songs do in the face of the external battles of war, violence, and international crises, or the internal battles of...
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So what IS Vocal Improv, anyway?
A quick note from Marion: Today's post is all about Vocal Improv, but first, I want to say that Sing Portland! is here for you in what seems to be a very hard time for us all. Last week's rehearsal was one of our biggest ever, as everyone came together to sing and...
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Singing is one of the most powerful forces of connection we have. Here’s why.
In June, 1500 people, most of them strangers, came together in a decommissioned electricity generating station. Within a few hours, they were singing as the backup choir for Rufus Wainwright performing Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. Just a few months before that, nearly...
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