Music Takes Us Home

The YRCC Spring Concert in 2014 was called "Take Me Home". The York Region Community Choir prepared songs about Canada, by Canadians and other songs that take us home, so, Canada and Home were our themes. It was one of our very best themes. The concert on May 3rd was powerful, with excellent music playing with our emotions, ours and the audience's, and inspiring passionate performances.

After the concert, we had tons of positive feedback from members of the audience, mostly friends and family, saying it was our very best concert ever! It was, truly. I wrote about it here. 

Now, in the months after the concert, the YRCC goes on tour. Every Monday, our rehearsal  night, we visit a seniors' home or nursing home in the area. We perform for them and lead some sing-alongs. It's the most rewarding part of our season, the best thing about the choir. It's always a special experience to sing with seniors, and this time, we're getting even more satisfaction with this powerful theme.

Whenever we sing with seniors, there are powerful moments when people who are listless, in pain, sad, or just bored, come to life singing. Bodies sit taller and sway and wiggle with the music and faces light up with joy and laughter. Sometimes there are tears, but it's always good.

This season, we took people home, and they stopped us after to thank us. At one performance, a woman over 90 years old, told us that the music brought her back to when she was 15 and first came to Canada. She was beaming with happiness. Yesterday, another older woman was smiling from ear-to-ear as she told us that our songs about Nova Scotia reminded her of her time growing up there and the work she did in Nova Scotia during WWII as a code breaker. She talked for a while about Nova Scotia and Cape Breton and code breaking. She couldn't stand straight and her eyes were blind, but she was feeling great. I wrote about yesterday's performance here. 

What a wonderful thing we do! We have fun, doing what we love to do, and we bring fun and happiness to people who need it and deserve it. Music is powerful; music is love.

Sesame Street knows about Musical Empathy

The relationship between feelings and music is obvious to even the smallest child. Children respond to music with their whole bodies. They'll express their feelings with much more than just their faces. They can naturally make their whole body look sad or happy or excited. It's wonderful to see.

If you have children in your life, expose them to as much music as possible. Don't just have the radio playing on your favourite station and don't just play them children's music either. Give them a taste of everything from country to classical and don't forget to include the folk music of your ancestors. Give them musical roots and musical wings.

Play sad music and happy music, dancing music and thinking music, and share the memories that music triggers.

Sesame Street is the coolest show and has the coolest music. Here's a clip of a violinist showing Big Bird how music shows feelings.

Here's another cool clip of hunky Mark Ruffalo on Sesame Street explaining to a Muppet what empathy is.

Put them together and you've got Musical Empathy.

What kind of music is good for your heart?

A study done to test if listening to music helps cardiac patients came to two conclusions that I think are quite obvious. (It's nice to have one's ideas backed up by science, right?)

• First of all, the study found that music helps us to feel better, and it's not just an emotional response, it's also physical.
• In addition, it was shown that the kind of music that works will be different for different people. 

Here's a link to an article (September 1st, 2013 in the Telegraph) about the study, and here's the conclusion:

"Listening to favourite music alone and in addition to regular exercise training improves endothelial function and therefore may be an adjunct method in the rehabilitation of patients with coronary artery disease. There is no 'ideal' music for everybody and patients should choose music which increases positive emotions and makes them happy or relaxed."

What kind of music increases positive emotions for you?
What kind of music makes you happy?
What kind of music relaxes you?

The answers to those questions can help you to keep your heart healthy and strong.

Listen to music that's good for your heart!

Spring Music: Bird Song or Beatles

The sun has been shining for a few days now, and the temperature is supposed to go above zero today. The official first day of spring is the day after tomorrow, but the reality is that our winter continues well beyond the first day of spring. The ground is still frozen solid and our first frost-free date is in mid-May. We will also have summery days from time to time well before the first day of summer, so I guess it balances out somewhat.

The coming of spring, even if it's just a word on the calendar, is exciting anyway and I was wondering what kind of music makes me think of spring.

André Rieu has something to offer: Spring Symphony.  You can follow that link to a YouTube video, but you might not want to. To me, it doesn't say spring as much as it says "shoot those birds". It's supposed to be peaceful, relaxing music with charming birdsong. But, the chirping of the birds is just annoying.

I'm happy to hear the real thing in the trees in front of my house. Their chirping makes me happy.

Vivaldi's Spring from his Four Seasons is pretty, but it makes me think of furniture or eyeglasses.

Here's a song that has a happy, hopeful, spring feeling: Simon and Garfunkel's The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin' Groovy). I'm looking forward to walking down the sidewalk without slipping and falling. When the ice and snow go away, I'll be singing this song. But, I can't walk outdoors and feel groovy yet.

I think the best one has to be the Beatles', Here Comes the Sun. It starts with "It's been a long cold lonely winter". Yup, it's got to have winter in it if it's a spring song. "I feel that ice is slowly melting" is really what I'm feeling.

"Sun, sun, sun, here we come!"

Solve Problems with Music

I've been suffering from the February Blahs lately.

Sometimes, I use music to stoke the sadness, to let it all hang out. I guess it helps me to have a reason to cry and grieve when I'm really just feeling sad for no reason.

Sometimes, I use music to lift myself out of the sadness, to make myself forget about the gloom and rise into happiness.

This is common. We use music to enhance our mood or to change our mood.

I work out much better when the music is good. And, I use music to help me clean and wash the dishes. It helps! I use music to calm myself down in traffic.

How do you use music?

I found this article on Mental Floss about some really interesting studies done on uses for music. It's called 11 Problems Music Can Solve.

Here are the problems that music has solved according to the article:

1. Low birth weight
2. Droopy plants
3. Effects of brain damage
4. Teen loitering
5. Hearing loss
6. A broken heart
7. Poor performance in sports
8. Grumpy teens
9. Illiteracy
10. Sluggish alcohol sales
11. Wine snobbery

You'll want to read it yourself to find out the details. 

Sad Song of the Moment: Say Something

I'm loving both versions of Say Something by A Great Big World.

The one without Christina Aguilera is beautifully simple and painful, and the one with CA is more fun to sing along with, but still very sad.

I prepared a lyric PowerPoint for my Teen Choir which took a while and meant that I ended up listening to the song a gazillion times (maybe 9).

Somewhere in the middle, I couldn't help but cry. Great song!

Clap along if you feel like that's what you wanna do! Happy!

This is just perfect, isn't it? Happiness is the Truth!
It says clap along, but don't you want to dance a full-blown Happy Dance?! Yeah!
Just try not to wiggle! Ha!
And, the version with the minions from Dispicable is also cute.
This is one excellent, happy tune!

Happy New Year! Keep Singing!

Did you ring in the new year singing? Keep it up throughout the year! Singing is good for you. What would New Year's Eve be without Auld Lang Syne? Songs carry you through the important milestones of life, marking important moments and helping you to recall past events, and mostly helping you to recall the feelings associated with those moments.

I haven't posted Christmas songs and Christmas carols, but those are some of the most emotion-laden melodies of our lives. And, it's all very personal. Maybe next year. I seem to always be super-busy during the holiday season, and busy singing and conducting Christmas music, so that I don't have time to sit back and reflect on it all. What is your favourite Christmas music, and why? What kinds of feelings and memories do you like your holiday music to inspire?