The Society for Spontaneous Singing

Weekly Prompts for Improvisational Recordings, with Community Feedback

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Prompt 22: Sing for the sea.

June 25, 2015 Jascha Hoffman Prompts

Landlocked singers!  Today is the international Day of the Seafarer. And earlier this month was World Oceans Day. The ocean has inspired so much music, probably even before air-breathing animals crept onto land.

So, this week, let’s sing to our mother, the ocean.

As usual, there are options. You could invent a new melody for an old sea shanty, sing the praises of a random water god … or you could just plunge right in. Start singing and see what flows.

And one more thing. It’s been a little slow in SSS-land lately. That may just mean it’s summer, and many are unglued from screens and out there frolicking and singing to the hills. This is all as it should be. Just know that we are here when you need us, holding down the weekly prompt, ready to sing with you. 

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: Make an old shanty new. To go easy on your landlubbing self, take the words from an old sea shanty and invent a new melody for them. Here’s how you’ll do it. First head over here to choose a random shanty. Then start recording and, before you have a chance to think too much about it, sing those old nautical lines with whatever notes your heart desires!

Option B: Sing to the water gods.  If you’d like to dive a little deeper, try this on for size. Head over to this comprehensive list of water deities and choose one at random (no peeking!). Read up for a minute or so, just enough to pique your interest about this particular aquatic spirit, but not enough to make you an expert. Then open your mouth and sing a song of praise, or perhaps of supplication, to this new-found water god.

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, June 29, 2015.

Length: The length of your finished work should be about the time it takes a penny thrown overboard to get to the bottom of the ocean.

Description: It would be awesome to include a short description of where and when you sang your piece. 

Title/Tag: When uploading to SoundCloud, put “[sss-sea]” in the title of your track. Also include the term “sss-sea” 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 22: Sing for the sea.”  More on the Society for Spontaneous Singing at http://singthis.org . 

Thank you, sweet singers!

Yours,
Jascha & Amado  

  • « Prompt 21: It’s Your Time!
  • Prompt 23: The Forest »

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