Life is unpredictable. Time is limited. Physics rebels. The flesh is weak. Sometimes vision just doesn’t translate into reality.

We singers are no exception. We work at our craft. But sometimes we all could use another shot at redemption. A get-out-of-jail-free card. A mulligan, as the golfers say.

So this week, we invite you to sing your second chance. DO OVER!

That could mean many things. You could go back into the SSS archives and choose a prompt you missed. You could dig up some music you wish you’d sung in the past, but never got around to. You could even choose to cover yourself, dusting off a favorite song from long ago.

The sky’s the limit — so don’t hesitate. Just do it again, for the very first time.

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: Revisit a prompt. Was there a prompt that passed you by? A sweet email you received on a Thursday that you wish you had time to reply to in song? Well, now’s your chance.
Dip back into the SSS archives at singthis.org. Find a past prompt that speaks to your heart. And upload it — with both its original tag and this week’s [sss-do-over] tag.

Option B: Cover yourself. Here’s a nice way you could bring repertoire into the equation. Find a song you used to sing (could be an original or a cover), which has fallen out of circulation. And sing it again. Don’t rehearse too much, or try to sing it just the way you did before. Sing it as your now-self, using all the skills and experience you’ve picked up since. You might be surprised what comes out.

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, November 16, 2015.

Description: It would be awesome to include a short description of your piece.

Title/Tag: When uploading to SoundCloud, put “[sss-do-over]” in the title of your track. Also include the term “sss-do-over” as a tag. (If it’s a response to a past prompt, you can also tag it with that week’s tag!)

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 42: Do Over!.”  More on the Society for Spontaneous Singing at http://singthis.org .

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