Year-End Review; Song Circle #3 Report
What a year! What started, for me, with an amazing singing workshop and an inspiring 8-week songleader training led by my friend and mentor, Lisa G. Littlebird, quickly led to feeling the profound loss of not being able to sing with people at all. But thanks to the extraordinary guitarist and all-around wonderful human being Tuck Andress, of the beloved duo Tuck & Patti, I was introduced to Jamulus, and discovered we could all sing together online — live. Then came this website and the SingOnline.org Song Circle!
Speaking of which, we had our third Circle recently, to benefit Stacey Abrams’ Fair Fight, and it was the best one yet! We did our first three-part harmony song, which was truly spine-tingling. And we’re learning more each time about how to sing together in this new way. Key learnings this time:
Stamping out static quickly. Even though we do a mic check at the start, sometimes people can overdrive their mics, and that creates static for everyone. Our tech wizard, Paul, has a new way to quickly isolate who that is when it happens. He’ll message them through Zoom, have them temporarily mute themselves in the mix, and then he’ll work with them to fix it. Usually it’s a quick fix: turning the mic level down.
Keeping everyone together. For us, live Jamulus singing is all about following the leader. If a singer’s Internet temporarily goes wonky, they can lag. In that case, it’s important to not synch with them, and instead to stick with the leader and trust that anyone who’s lagging will get back in synch as soon as they can (usually within seconds). So, it’s important to have the leader turned up in your mix and the rest of the singers turned down enough so you can hear the leader over everyone else’s voices.
If you’ve been to a Circle, all that will make sense to you, and if you haven’t been with us yet, join us! Our next Circle is Sunday, January 17, 3:45-5:00 Pacific. Check out the details here.
Many thanks to all of you for your support on this journey. You have my warmest wishes for a happy and healthy New Year!