Your correspondent—Amado, today—is about to go through some pretty knarly changes. Welcome changes, most welcome indeed. But pretty fundamental. Putting a bookmark in this book, setting it aside, and picking up another that has long been set aside, bookmarked in its place.
Some of our participants are about to, next week, head off to the Omega Center for a week of singing with the teachers at the head of our Circlesinging practice. I know from experience, it can be life-changing.
It’s (almost) never too late. There’s almost always tomorrow. 26,299 days out of 26,300 (on average), there’s tomorrow. And this Truth reminds us to pursue your true life’s work, no matter where you are in your life—but don’t delay getting started!
Your Prompt: Sing about endings, and new beginnings. Perhaps you can recall a time in your life when one chapter ended, and it opened the way for another to start. Perhaps there is some aspect of your life that is in this state right now. Sing it.
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: Begin the begin. For an easier stretch, let’s just consider the start of things. What have you started recently? New job? New school year? New personal practice, new exercise routine? Whatever’s new to you at this particular time, sing about it.
Option B: Your last end is this start. For a deeper stretch maybe, dig out your recent improvisations. Yeah, I know they’re yesterday’s news. But that’s the challenge here: listen to how they ended. Pick one that appeals to you—how did you conclude it? Make that the conclusion the beginning of a new improvisation, and see how different a direction you can take it in from its source.
To Contribute
The steps are as follows:
- Step 0: Sign up for a free SoundCloud account here.
- Step 1: Record yourself singing to the prompt.
- Step 2: Upload to SoundCloud.
- Step 3: Listen to and comment on tracks uploaded by your fellow singers.
Deadline: Your tracks should be uploaded by midnight wherever you are on Tuesday, August 16th, 2016.
Length: The length of your finished work should be about 2 to 5 minutes, or… or however long your finished work is!
Description: It would be awesome to include a short description of your piece.
Title/Tag: When uploading to SoundCloud, put “[sss-endings-beginnings]” in the title of your track. Also include the term “sss-endings-beginnings” as a tag. This will help us find it.
Linking: You are welcome to include this info in your description:
This track is a reply to “SSS Prompt 79: Endings. And Beginnings.” More on the Society for Spontaneous Singing at http://singthis.org .
Thank you, sweet singers!