Learning a tune!

A few weeks ago. I usually sing alto at choir practice but recently I’ve been trying to explore my voice. It’s helping to keep me going dispite the Parkinsons disease and shortness of breath. Sometimes I sing up higher, as a slightly squeeky soprano, and also as in this photo as a bass if they are short of singers. Here me and the only bass singer that night were trying not to be distracted by the altos tune which was very similar. My friend was laughing at us and took this photo of us trying to avoid hearing the other tune.

Soprano

Tonight I went to choir, I was tired and had been to the doctors for tests, I was OK but it had wound me up. Singing helps calm my mind, helps me relax, and make me concentrate where usually in the day I’m struggling to.

When I got there I found that there was one soprano and several altos so I decided to have a go at some of the higher parts. I surprised and survived the experience. I’m really glad I tried, I stretched up to some top notes I’ve not managed before. In the end I got a bit of a sore throat but a lot of enjoyment. It also boosted my confidence. I think everyone should try singing.

Singing tonight

Choir was hard tonight, we were somehow bad with our timing, a bit out of tune and spent 40 minutes going over one piece of a song. We all seemed a bit tired, and our section was singing the main tune (we generally sing the backing part). It didn’t help that were singing “to make you feel my love” by Bob Dylan, but some of us were singing the Adele version!

By the time we had finished we had warmed up to the rehearsal and sounded a lot better.

Being in a choir is great for your mental health and helps you socialise, you can find lots of local choirs in the UK, so why not try it out?

Choir practice

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I’m off out to choir practice today. Learning new songs, and old ones to different tunes.

I’m sure my mental health has been better since I began going to a choir over ten years ago. It’s good for things like relaxation and concentration. I would recommend it to anyone who nerds some stress busting.

I can be sitting with the choir with no memory if the words or tune. Then almost miraculously they come to me as we start singing. We sing mainly acappella and my voice is most suited to alto and low parts.

We learnt a version of let your little light shine for the Stoke sings choir festival the weekend before last. With words that were appropriate to the cities history of pottery and mining.

I hope we sing it again tonight. It was fun to sing with 600 other people belting out the various parts. It is on YouTube  somewhere.