Singings

About the Weekly Sacred Harp Singings
at Brown University

Greetings everybody,

The official* Brown University Sacred Harp group - with plenty of brand-new singers in attendance - meets from 5:00-7:00 p.m. on Thursdays in the choral room in the Steinert Practice Center. Steinert is located at the corner of Hope and Power streets, one short block from the Orwig Music Building. The choral room is on the main floor of the building. This space is acoustically much better than 301 Orwig where we were singing, and is handicap-accessible (via a ramp at the back of the building).

Please note: Getting into the front doors of Steinert requires swiping a Brown ID card. If you don't have a Brown ID, you should come up the driveway and around to the rear of building and knock on the window in the handicap-access door, which goes almost directly into the choral room.

Local singers and out-of-town visitors are welcome to join us at any time. Here's a little more info about this singing,
for those who might want to attend:

From about 5:00 to 5:30 we usually have more of a singing-school format, with direct instruction, some work on individual parts where needed, and slower tempos. We also occasionally listen to some Sacred Harp recordings or watch part of a documentary video (e.g., Awake My Soul or Sweet is the Day). The regular singing generally begins at 5:30. In order to encourage our new singers to get comfortable with choosing songs, we practice around-the-square rotation of leaders (in other words, not the "free call" system that is common in New England). Each singer will be asked to choose a tune, though you will not be required to stand and lead if you really don't want to.
We will occasionally have formal singing schools at this singing -- beginning this coming week with Lynne deBenedette (Thursday 9/27). Her singing school will focus on leading; it will start at 5 and run about 45 minutes. Local singers are very welcome to attend. Tim Eriksen will lead a singing school on November 29.

I hope to see many of you at Brown soon, and will do my best to encourage these new student singers to attend off-campus singings as well.

* "Official" because this is a course listed in Brown's course catalog, so some students are registered for credit -- but there are no concert performances or anything like that.)

cheers

Kiri

***
Kiri Miller
Assistant Professor of Music
Brown University
kiri_miller -AT- brown.edu

Page last updated on 21 November, 2007 21 November, 2007