The Sing Portland! Blog
How I (accidentally) started a spiritual practice of singing
Honestly, I was taken aback. I had just come back from our amazing singing retreat, feeling renewed, deeply content, and just plain happy. Then I got the feedback: a couple of singers got in touch with me and told me that they loved the retreat — and in fact, it was...
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Coming to Sing Portland! from another choir? Here’s what you should know.
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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3 things to remember when you feel like you’re not doing it “right”
I can always spot nervous singers — whether it’s their first time singing or they’ve been doing it for a while, there’s a special type of panic that comes into your eyes when you’re in the middle of a choir and thinking to yourself, “I am the only person in this place...
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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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