Burslem Port

Posted on September 10, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Burslem Baker boys, Burslem bakery, Burslem canal arm, Burslem port, Choir, Festival, Luke Street, Middleport, Stoke-on trent, Trent and mersey canalLeave a comment

At the far end of Luke Street, Middleport, Stoke-on-Trent, are steps down to a footpath along the line of a long filled in canal and towpath.

The overgrown shrubbery and weeds have recently been beaten back to reveal a pathway to lead up to Burslem in one direction and down to the Trent and Mersey canal in the other.

When the canal was open there was a bakery next to it that supplied thousands of loaves to the potteries. This is being celebrated by the Baker boys choir next weekend during a festival which will see an art installation being erected down on the canal at Middleport.

Hopefully I will be singing with the choir at the festival. X

Socially distanced choir

Posted on July 5, 2021 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Choir, Clay Chorus, Friends, Fun, Music, public singing, Singing, social distanceLeave a comment

We finally sang as a choir tonight. We were socially distanced. Each of us had a chair placed behind a CD. Two meters apart. We did some stretches and vocal exercises and suddenly we were singing together in reasonable harmony. We even sang in parts, soprano, tenor, alto and base. It was lovely! No zoom where all you can hear is yourself and the choir leaders. We started quietly but by the end we had some volume. Hearing each other gets the camaraderie going again.n

Next stop, singing in public at a canal day this coming Sunday. I hope we all stay well and the weather improves!

Sketching a choir

Posted on April 13, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Black and white drawing, Challenge, Choir, Drawing, Fun, Loud Mouth women choir, Music, Sketching, Zoom, Zooming2 Comments

Take a dried up, broad nib, calligraphy felt pen. Start drawing, watch as the view changes because the line up of images moves when you have the songsheet with the words displayed. Try and sing and draw at the same time! It’s hard to look down at your sketchbook, up at the words, and across to your fellow choir members. I challenged them to try and recognise themselves from these crude sketches.

Stoke Sings 2021, workshops.

Posted on March 13, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged #ssf21, Choir, Fun, gathering, Singing, Staffordshire, Stoke Sings Festival 2021, Stoke-on trent, virtual mass choir, workshop leaders, Workshops, ZoomLeave a comment

Today is Stoke Sings Festival 2021. Over a hundred singers have got together virtually on Zoom and are singing together (muted sadly, it’s not possible to sync the sound). #ssf21 is the hashtag and I’ve posted a couple of drawings here of the workshop leaders as they taught us…

Zoom choir night

Posted on March 8, 2021 Posted in Sketching, UncategorizedTagged Art, Boatband, Choir, Clay Chorus, Drawing, Fun, Music, Pencil sketch, SketchingLeave a comment

Tonight we were singing sea shanties and other songs, led by Greg and Kate from the Boatband. Our choir is called Clay Chorus, and every week I spend a little time sketching what’s happening. It can be an object in the room or an image on the screen. I really enjoy doing them….

Wet carolling

Posted on December 21, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Choir, Clay Chorus, Fun, Music, Mystery singers, Night, Village Green, Wet weatherLeave a comment

We went out and sang upon our local church green tonight. All of us in masks. We each had a space marked with a CD on the ground. We sang four songs, Good King Wensceslas, Ye Shepherds arise, While Shepherds watched their flocks by night (Cranbrook version) and the St Day Carol (now the Holly bears the Berry…).

There were about seventeen of us getting very wet, but it was great to sing in harmony with people. We didn’t have an audience. But it was great fun.

Look up Penkhull Mystery singers on YouTube if you want to see us in full voice in previous years.

Zooming

Posted on November 24, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Choir, Fun, Meeting, Music, Poem, Poetry, Singing, Video calls, ZoomLeave a comment

Zooming around and singing

Looking from face to face

Video calls are booming

Talking around all night

Ladies and gents

Are choiring

Baritone, alto and bass

Having fun with music

Playing a lively tune.

Descants and sopranos

Fun around half past eight.

Singing on Zoom

Posted on October 19, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Apologies, Boat Band, Choir, Fun, Music, Random, Rio Grande song, Singing, WordsLeave a comment

Just finished a zoom singing session with some friends from a choir. The choir leader Sings and we are all muted, so all you can here is her and her partner and yourself. If you unmute the timing of the music is all put. So that people’s voices come in at different times. It’s funny but not productive.

One thing we have been doing is sharing pictures of model boats and even a painting of a boat because we are being led by a group called the Boat Band, talented musicians. Look them up on YouTube?

Apologies if I should not have used the words. I will take this post down if I have to.

Zoom 🎶 singing

Posted on July 14, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Cheerful, Choir, Friends, Fun, Humour, Laughter, Life, Music, Online meeting, Random, Singing, Webinar, ZoomLeave a comment

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Last night we had fun trying to sing together as a group on Zoom. It was a laugh, we all tried to sing together but the delays on the line meant that most of the time we were badly out of sync with each other….

Then my cat jumped up and kept getting in the way. She was walking backwards and firwards in front on my camera, so I grabbed her for a couple of minutes, I must have looked like a Bond villan! My friend who was hosting the meeting, tried to play music for us to sing to, but we couldn’t here it. At one stage he had three screens and two mice and keyboards on the go trying to get it to work. I admired the effort as it was the first time he had tried to do it!

Next week we will have another go, but it might be best to mute everyone and just sing along with someone leading the choir. As it was we were too busy falling about laughing instead of trying to sing the tune. I’ve never heard Molly Malone sung like that except as a raucous chorus in a pub on a boozy night out. It was a fun night though with friends.

Fish gotta swim..

Posted on May 14, 2020 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Blogging, Choir, Entertainment, Fish gotta swim, Fish pond, Goldfish, Love, Memory, Music, Porgy and Bess, remember, SingingLeave a comment

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It is funny how a snatch of music can sometime just spring into your mind. I was just thinking about the fish in my hubbies pond and if they will be OK because of the frosts we are getting.

I just remembered the phrase ‘fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly’ and ‘can’t help loving that man of mine’. I know I like the song, but I can’t remember the singer although I think I know the title! And is it from the opera Porgy and Bess? I might try and learn it.

I am normally an alto when I sing, although I have hardly done any singing recently. I miss choir practice and my friends. I was saying in a previous post I’m not that keen on people, and yet when I think of my friends… Perhaps it’s just strangers I don’t like?…..

Anyway. I might go and look up this song.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Choir