Some of you are on the East Coast of the Unites States, where we’ve got a bit of a snowy situation brewing. Others of you are not, but most of us can remember a time when we were snowed-in or, if not, a time when we had cabin fever for one reason or another.
But I would be remiss if I didn’t take note of the fact that this is PROMPT 52. This Prompt completes our first year of singing prompts. Our time together started in the Winter, blossomed into Spring, moved through Summer and Autumn to come back to Winter again. A cycle, a full circle. So, while we’ve recently given you a chance to look back over your 2015, and look forward over your 2016, today we seek a way to honor Winter, and honor cycles that complete, and begin again.
Your Prompt: Sing Winter. Consider icy landscapes, snow-covered hillsides, frozen lakes and rivers. Consider that the world is at its coldest, and that from here it will pass through its usual cycles until it comes back to being cold again. And sing your reaction to that. (And if you are in a tropical region, or south of the equator, we’ll ask you to use your imagination and remember a time when it WAS cold.)
Options
It’s good to have options. Usually one of them offers you a way to make the prompt a bit easier, and the other ways to go a bit further with it. Today, they’re just different ideas.
Option A: What Goes Around Becomes A Round – Create a round, literally. In honor of the cyclical nature of many things, sing a line that, when time-displaced and superimposed on itself, creates a harmonious texture. And “harmonious” in this context can be by any definition of “harmony” as you see fit. Take us ’round the bend.
Option B: Cabin Fever – Isolated. Shut in. Nothing to do. The roads are too dangerous; you’re stuck where you are. For a long time. Restless. For this Option, remember a time when you felt Cabin Fever, and sing that.
I suppose your “go deeper” option would be to combine Option A with Option B! Although there is no onus to follow either Option; you may sing Winter however you please.
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 your Winter’s song.
- 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 Tuesday, January 26, 2016.
Length: The length of your finished work should be about 2 to 5 minutes, or however long you need to sing your song.
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-winter]” in the title of your track. Also include the term “sss-winter” 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 “Prompt 52: Winter Comes Full-Cycle.” 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
Thank you, sweet singers!