Stunning sounds made by those who attended our latest Singing Workshop last Saturday. As part of our warm up we were all invited to sing any note, and when we needed to take a breath, choose a different note to add to the mix. A truly remarkable sound, which drew the ear, perhaps because each of the singers found they were listening so intently. It has been remarked by people listening to our gigs and CD that they find our music has a healing quality. In the freedom offered by not having to 'get it right' to start with, and then immersing ourselves in the melee of sounds, there was a real healing quality to this gentle warm-up too. At the start of the morning, we had asked our singers just to tell us their name and perhaps something about themselves. The responses ranged from those who felt they were quite confident singers to those who said that they only sing in the bath and had very little confidence in their own voices. Hopefully by the end of this beautiful warm-up everyone felt that they could not only contribute very meaningfully, but that their confidence was raised for everything else that followed. And so from there we went on to explore several songs in arrangements new and old with a bit of improvising thrown in for good measure.
A great place to sing, the Garden Room at The Blackthorn Trust lends itself to such a workshop. Given the scrumptious lunch improvised by Andy in the Blackthorn Cafe we all felt thoroughly spoilt. Here's to the next one - we appear to have someone signed up already who in conversation yesterday said, "I can't sing." To which Lissie, with certainty, gently replied, " Yes you can."
Welcome to the very first post on our blog! And the first thing we'd like to share with you is all about stained glass making! Not quite what you expected, I should think, but bear with us and you'll find out how it has impacted our music-making just lately.
So, our latest little adventure started with a surprise birthday outing for Lissie that Christine had arranged. It was only on the day itself that Lissie discovered that Christine had booked a lesson in making stained glass for us both with the delightful Catherine Briggs in Norfolk. Lissie has always loved stained glass; the beautiful interplay of light and colour that casts patterns beyond the glass itself and probably communicated this to Christine when we were leading a singing workshop at The Blackthorn Trust in Maidstone, where they have examples of the stained glass made there. And so she was just delighted that we were to have a go at making it ourselves.
We had Catherine all to ourselves for the day, and she proved to be an excellent teacher, allowing us to develop our own designs as well as equipping us with the skills that we needed. We really enjoyed chatting to her during the day about the creative process and the similarities between how she finds a starting point for her designs and how we find a starting point for our songs. We found common ground in taking inspiration from first-hand experience - for her the beach is a rich source of objects and ideas, and for us it may be a word or a specific image - and seeing where it takes us.
And talking of words......whilst chatting to Catherine, we discovered two words that we hadn't come across before - maybe they are peculiar to Norfolk? Catherine told us that we must have been 'jiffling' because our work mats were 'ruckled'! We loved the sound and imagery of those words and on our return home they have become embryos of tunes and so our creative process continues!
