Now that our experiments with duets are complete, it’s time to come back to basics. We’re just going to open our mouthes and sing.
In past weeks we had open-ended prompts that asked you to sing for two, three and five minutes. This week your mission is simple: Sing for seven minutes.
That’s it. Just open your mouth and sing. Starting bravely, following the thread, diving and darting, bu
You can draw on melody, rhythm, syllables, words, song fragments, percussion, noise, and anything else that might arise. The important thing is to KEEP SINGING.
Options
Option A: Seven steps to heaven. If seven minutes seems a little daunting, you could map it out minute by minute. Quick, what are there seven of?
-Days of the week (M, T, W, Th, F, Sa, Su)
-Dwarfs (Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, Dopey)
-Sins (Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, Pride)
-Archangels (Gabriel, Michael, Raphael, Ur
-Steps to Heaven (two-step, dub-step, goose-step, Step-by-Step … )
-etc etc etc
Option B: Sing it in public. If you want a deeper stretch, try this. Take your phone or portable recording device out into a public space (perhaps a park near you, happy spring!) Set a timer and sing for seven minutes. Maybe rinse and repeat a few times for a nice session. If someone stops to listen, all the better. Sing to them—sing *with* them!
To contribute, the steps are as follows:
- Step 0: Sign up for a free SoundCloud account here. Join the SSS group.
- Step 1: Record yourself singing for two minutes.
- Step 2: Upload to SoundCloud and post the track to the SSS group.
- Step 3: Listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow singers. (Play nice!)
Deadline: Your tracks should be uploaded by midnight wherever you are on Monday, May 4, 2015
Length: The length of your finished work should be seven minutes, more or less.
Description: It would be awesome to include a short description of where and when you sang your piece—and how it felt.
Title/Tag: When uploading to SoundCloud, put “[sss-sevenmin]” in the title of your track. Also include the term “sss-sevenmin” as a tag. This will help us find it.
Group: Once the track is uploaded, click on the “Add to group” button below the waveform and make sure to select the Society for Spontaneous Singing group. (This option will only appear if you have already joined the group! So do that now.)
Linking: You are welcome to include this info in your description:
This track is a reply to “SSS Prompt 14: Sing for seven minutes.” More on the Society for Spontaneous Singing at http://singthis.org
. You can join the SSS at https://soundcloud.com/ groups/society-for- spontaneous-singing
Multiple Responses: If you find that this Prompt inspires you to make multiple recordings, great! More music in the world is good, and people should hear what you have to sing. At the same time, we don’t want anybody to feel like somebody else is being over-represented in the group. Here’s how we thread this needle: make a Playlist of all the sounds you record, pick the response you like most, add this favorite to the Group, and include a link to the Playlist in the description of that favorite.
Thank you, sweet singers!
Yours,
Jascha & Amado