Is that the January wind you hear? SHHH...

That's not January's wind you hear.  It's your reminder of January's installation of Sing Heavenly Harmony Home (SHHH!)!

Join us on Sunday, January 6, 2013 for singing songs of struggle and resolve, concern and hope, and sadness and joy. 

In this New Year, SHHH is in a NEW LOCATION at a NEW TIME and added another 'H' to the acronym. 

• New Locale:  Rondo Community Outreach Library, 461 Dale St. N, St. Paul, MN.  We'll be meeting in the Youth Meeting Room.
• New Time:  2-4 p.m.  The library is open 1-5 p.m. on Sunday so we're adjusting to meet during their hours.
• Additional 'H':  Each of the 'H's stand for different projects.  "Heavenly" represents a connection to the Grace Notes hospice choir and to the movement in faith communities to do more (not exclusively, just more) paperless music (see the Music that Makes Community work of All Saints Company).  "Harmony" represents the connection between individuals in community art.  "Home" points to the connection with the Arts Responding to Foreclosure (ARF!) project. 

If you're not able to join us this month, pencil SHHH! into your calendars for the 1st Sunday of the month.  Check out the Public Events calendar for details. 

SHHH! It's December soon!

Now that we are in full fledged holiday mode, be sure to get enough exercise.  Singing exercise that is!  It's time to warm up those Christmas carols! 

On Sunday, December 2, 2012, from 4-6 p.m. Sing Heavenly Harmony Home (SHHH!) will be singing at the O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library's O'Shaughnessy Room one last time in 2012.  Please join us for a smattering of tunes of the season, and songs for all times.  You can even lead one if you'd like.  Just let me know when you get there!  Here's a link to the usual details. 

Have a Great Thanksgiving!

I've been smiling to myself a lot lately when I greet folks with "Have a Great Thanksgiving!"

At the risk of sharing the rationale of a joke and taking all the fun out of it, I'll tell you why...

Are these phrases familiar to you?

Leader: The Lord be with you.
All: And also with you.
L: Lift up your hearts
A: We lift them up to the Lord.
L: Let us give thanks to our God.
A: It is good and right to give our thanks and praise.

This conversation between pastor/priest/minister person and the congregation kicks off the section of a communion worship service (mass for Catholic and Anglican types) and is called the Great Thanksgiving.

It must be a worship geek thing to love the double meaning in saying that. Have a great feast! Have a great communion! Have a great shared community meal! Have a great time with family remembering the blessing of God's great abundance!

Have a Great Thanksgiving!)

Wanted: Sensitive Singing Males

Seeking heart-filled males who enjoy singing to bring soothing songs to the bedsides of fragile folks on hospice services.

Are you game?

Grace Notes hospice choir is a group of joyful and compassionate people who love to sing together and bring comfort and a smile to those who are facing a sensitive life transition.

We meet to rehearse and sing at the bedside on Monday nights. On the first and third Mondays we rehearse at St. Mary's Episcopal Church, 1895 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN. On the second and fourth Mondays, we go and visit folks on hospice services with AseraCare at Twin Cities nursing homes. If there's a fifth Monday, we have a potluck with our supporters and anyone who is interested in our work to share stories, sing more, and eat good food!

It's summer and rehearsals are on hiatus. Come September 17, 2012 we'll be back to rehearsing on the first and third Mondays.

In the meantime you can contact Conie about the other details of joining Grace Notes. A background check, letters of reference, medical tests, paperwork and two orientation meetings (coming up in August and November!) are required to volunteer with these beautiful vulnerable people.

Still serious? Email PointsOfLightMusic at gmail.

p.s. females are welcome to apply. We like gender equity.

Next SHH! in the Library is Aug 5

Join us this Sunday afternoon from 4-6 p.m. in the O'Shaughnessy Room for some singing! 

Details on specific location, directions, etc. are located here. 

Looking forward to singing with you! 

What we sang at SHH today (7/1)

One of my rules of life is whoever shows up is the right people to show up. Even though I want to fire my marketing person (ah, the wishes of a artist entrepreneur) there are times when what happened or didn't happen is just right. This is what went right at Sing Heavenly Harmony today:

- welcome to the temple of melodious sound
- come, come whoever you are
- let us see what love can do
- what wisdom can you find that is greater than kindness
- I'm goin' down (newly learned)
- sanctuary
- narrow bridge

Next Sing Heavenly Harmony (SHH!) in the library gathering is Sun, Aug 5, 2012, 4-6p at the O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library at the University of St. Thomas (northwest corner of Summit Ave & Cleveland Ave) in St. Paul. We'll be meeting in the O'Shaughnessy Room, a.k.a. the "leather room," room 108. We will continue the evolution of SHH and invite any participants from the Music that Makes Community workshop (or wanted to be and couldn't make it) to lead a song they want to practice. Drop me a line at PointsOfLightMusic at gmail.com if you'd like to lead something!

Bring a friend and I'll see you then!

-clb

Arf! ARF! ARRRROOOF! (Translation: Calling for singers, song leaders, and songwriters impacted by the foreclosure crisis!)

Arts Responding to Foreclosure (ARF!) is looking for people to share their story through community singing and documentary photography about how the foreclosure crisis has impacted them. 

ARF! is partnering with the Frogtown Neighborhood Association and the St. Paul Fair Lending Coalition to offer FREE art workshops to people who want to share their foreclosure story.  Participants who attend all 6 workshop sessions and show their art at the end of the workshop will recieve a stipend of $300. 

The Community Singing and Songwriting workshop is Thursdays, July 12-August 16, from 6-9 p.m. at 1080 University Ave (at Lexington).  Lead by Conie Borchardt (yep, me!), participants will practice the folk art of community singing in the oral tradition and create new songs that tell today's foreclosure stories and educate others.  Applications are due on Thursday, June 7.  Forms are available at the Frogtown Neighborhood Association or online.  Interviews for the 15 slots will be conducted on Thursday evening, Jun 14, and Saturday morning, June 16.

The Documentary Photography classes will be held on Thursdays, September 13-October 18, 2012.  Minnesota State Arts Board Teaching Artist Barry Kleider will be leading this workshop.  Watch for more details on applications and interviews in future emails. 

For more information about these Arts Responding to Foreclosure (ARF!) workshops, including Sheronda's lead-off series using Spoken Word, the artists teaching them, and its history, please direct your browser to http://artsrespondingtoforeclosure.wordpress.com/. 

This activity is funded, in part, by the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) at the University of Minnesota and Minnesota State Arts Board through the arts and cultural heritage fund as appropriated by the Minnesota State Legislature with money from the Legacy Amendment vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4, 2008.  

Summer Dog Days: ARF! ARF!

Just raising the signal on a project I will be a part of this summer, Arts Responding to Foreclosure (ARF!)
--
We're having an open community gathering and info session on Thursday evening, April 12, at Frogtown Square!  Join us! 

Call for new text: general farewell-well wishes-Godspeed on tune of OLD 100th

We have some special people in our community who will be moving away soon.  Wanting to give them a special St. Mary's sendoff, the rector asked if new texts could be written to a familiar tune so we have something we can pickup to sing when this happens (hopefully rare!). 

You're up for a challenge, aren't you?

So sharpen your pencils, open up your rhyming dictionaries and put on your wordsmithing caps.  Your mission is to write a verse about wishing good people Godspeed on their journey and with fond wishes that we'll meet them again some day.  The tune to fit these words into is OLD 100th, which is also known as "Praise God from whom all blessings flow" or the Doxology.  For those of you who know poetic meter, Old 100th is LM (long meter).  Translation:  four lines with 8 syllables each.  Wikipedia has a nice & short article on hymn meters you can read up on, if you wish. 

The deadline for this challenge is next Sunday, April 15, 2012, noon.  Please email your entry(ies) to conie at saintmarysepiscopal dot org, hand it to me at church, or post it here if you wish.  We'll premiere the finest verse the following week.  (and if your holy muse is opposed to things like deadlines and other logistics, feel free to drop a note any time:). 

Blessings on the final day of the Triduum!

Sing Heavenly Harmony Evolution

There's a Sing Heavenly Harmony event today, Sunday, April 1, 2012, from 4-6 p.m. in room 108 of the O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library at the University of St. Thomas.  Join us to have fun singing and learn some songs by heart.

A few weeks ago, I attended a Music that Makes Community (MMC) workshop in South Minneapolis presented by All Saints Company.  There 50-some folks from the Twin Cities metro, Iowa, Wisconsin, Vermont and Oregon gathered to learn more about a movement to include paperless singing in worship.  The workshop also prepared lay persons, musicians, and clergy, in the basic leadership tools of this practice. 

Having attended this workshop previously, I knew the next step beyond the fundamentals is having a community of practice to hone one's skills.  Can you guess where I'm going next?  Yep, I'm opening up SHH to any leader who attended MMC to bring songs they're working on to this monthly gathering. 

So, come!  Come if you'd like to get some kinks out of your voice.  Come if you'd like to learn some new songs.  Come if you'd like to lead some songs with a grace-filled, singing-loving group. 

What:  Sing Heavenly (or Hearty) Harmony -- SHH! in the Library
When:  April 1, 2012, 4-6 p.m. (and every first Sunday of the month hereafter)
Where:  O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library, University of St. Thomas
- northwest corner of Summit Ave and Cleveland Ave, St. Paul
- Room 108, the O'Shaughnessy Room

SHH! We're relocating (just for the day)

On Sunday, March 4, 2012 the Sing Hearty Heavenly Harmony gathering will not be happening at the O'Shaughnessy-Frey Library at the University of St. Thomas.

Instead, you're invited to join the Singing in the Light gathering at Hennepin Avenue Methodist Church in Minneapolis. It's the same time as SHH, 4-6pm. A similar but different format. Mostly just a different location (better parking lot, some might say better access to and from the highway). And a different leader, Barbara McAfee.

Barbara McAfee's wit, sincerity, authenticity struck me from the very moment I met her. Her songs are sassy and heartfelt and honest. She has made quite the impact on me and I invite you to join me in sharing a dining circle with her.

Sunday, March 4, 2012, 4-6 pm
In the Art Gallery at
Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church
511 Groveland Ave, Minneapolis
(map: http://www.google.com/search?q=hennepin+avenue+united+methodist+church&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&client=safari#&qm=1)

Grace Notes Spring 2012 Rehearsal and Orientation Schedule

Singing at the bedside of a family and friends is an act of compassion and love.  Singing at the bedside of others is an act of boundless love and compassion. 

Grace Notes is a group of singers who bring gentle songs of love and comfort to the bedside of those who are on hospice services. A hospice choir, if you will.  Twice a month we, a small and growing group of volunteers, visit people throughout the Twin Cities, MN metro on Asera Care Hospice's roster.

Twice a month, on the 1st and 3rd Mondays, we practice our a cappella, paperless music in the choir room at St. Mary's Episcopal Church in St. Paul's Merriam Park neighborhood (1895 Laurel Ave -- the corner of Laurel and Howell).  It's an open rehearsal from 7-9 p.m. - if you're curious it's a good way to feel out the waters. 

On the ocassional month with five Mondays, we gather for a potluck on the last Monday.  This event is open to all as well.  In 2012 potlucks will be in January, April, July, October and December.  Please contact us through the Email subscription form for location details. 

Singing at the bedside is allowed once volunteer training with Asera Care is completed.  Becoming a volunteer includes learning more about hospice, background checks to clear you for working with vulnerable people, other medical tests, and some other paperwork.  2012 training dates will be held in February, May, August and November.  To find out more, please contact Ruth at Asera Care, 952-943-0009.

Are you ready to sing with your full heart?  Come and join us at the bedside.

SHH in the library - 2012 dates

Just a simple post with the details.

First Sundays of the month, except January, September (traditionally holiday weekends) and any other dates the library might be closed. In 2012 it looks like:

- Feb 5
- Mar 4
- Apr 1
- May 6
- Jun 3
- Jul 1
- Aug 5
- Sep ... Oops not tis month
- Oct 7
- Nov 4
- Dec 2

Jot those dates in your calendar, send reminders to yourself and then find yourself in the OSF library between 4-6pm. Updates on parking to come soon.

"Come, come, whoever your are .."