Last week’s prompt was an open-ended time-delimited one. Singers rose to the challenge and discovered the power to create music they have within them. Now let’s apply that power to a purpose. Sing a song that’s appropriate for walking, taking a walk.
The walk that you sing your song for can be of any kind—from racewalking to a slow mosey, to get someplace or to wander, anything in-between, or anything else you can imagine.
Artists of all kinds have observed that the blank canvas, the empty page, is among the worst difficulties they face. Now a choice has been made for you, a prompt to focus your creation toward a particular activity that you’re likely to be familiar with. You’re probably humming your walking song to yourself already. Let’s hear it!
Here are the responses that have come in so far:
Read on for more options…
Options
It’s good to have options. Here we offer ways that you can meet this prompt right where you are; or, alternatively, ways you can challenge yourself more deeply with it.
Option A: Sing a song for your walking pace. Too many choices? Racewalking not your thing? Here’s an invitation to take it easy on yourself. Take an actual walk, and sing to yourself as you do. When you get back from your walk, use whatever recording method you’re already familiar with to keep the song going. (Remember that you can even record from your iPhone or Android device, or record directly into the browser using your laptop’s built-in mics.) You can even record your track while you are walking, if you’ve got the smartphone or portable recorder for that!
Option B: Record different. Perhaps you have a recording method that you’ve already grown comfortable with. For a deeper stretch, use this week’s prompt to try a recording method or technology that your are not yet familiar with, perhaps one that you’d like to be able to use regularly. (I’ll reveal a bias here: LoopyHD for iPhone and iPad is inexpensive, powerful, and fun!) Keep the music as simple or as complex as you like as you explore the technical aspects of the tool you try. And remember that this is an option, and that we’d rather hear you respond to this prompt in ways that work for you than not hear you because you struggled with technology.
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, February 9, 2015.
Length: The length of your finished work should be about two to five minutes, with considerable leeway to make it longer or shorter, as you wish.
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-walking]” in the title of your track. Also include the term “sss-walking” 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 2: Sing a song for Walking.” 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 (new!): 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! Now, go take a hike…