May 15 2024 - How Many Choirs

 

One of the songs we sing in the choir I am in is "Isle of Skye".  You can youtube search any song and a choir will have sung it - all kinds of choirs.  School choirs, church choirs, professional choirs, You've Got Talent auditions of choirs.  I wonder where choir music ranks in the top watched videos on Youtube.  This is too hard - there are a lot of choirs and a lot of music.  There is even a list of the 1,000 most viewed songs on Youtube.  That would take a little while to listen to.   There are about 28,000 choirs in Canada with 1.8 million adults (7% of all adults) in a choir.  More people sing in choirs than play hockey.  Another census found that there are 3.5 million Canadians singing in a choir/singing group.  Maybe that includes children.   That sounds like a lot of local music to be able to enjoy.   With that many people in choirs, there should be some jokes. Here are two for the choir members.   Here are a few traditional choir jokes: What did the choir director send his wife for Valentine’s Day? A choral arrangement What do choruses get paid in?   har-money Why do the singers rock left and right while performing on stage? Because it is more difficult to hit a moving target.   These are the Niagara Falls Dogwood trees turned to Spring Cherry blossoms.

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June 11 2023 - Choirs

 

How many choirs are there around the world?  One estimate said there are 100,000 singers in amateur choirs.  The Guinness Book of Records says that the largest choir consisted of 121,440 people in India in 2011.  What did that choir sing?  "In unison for over 5 minutes." In terms of people in choirs, there are articles about the top 100 to 1,000 top choirs - with world rankings.   In Canada one survey found 861 choral organizations representing 1,500 choirs and 60,000 members. The Canadian survey says that 3,5 million Canadians sang in a choir in 2016 - 10% of the population.  One of the comparisons made in the Survey HERE is that there are 50% more adult Canadians who sing in a choir than hockey players in Canada. Here's one of those old-fashioned insane asylum jokes It was visitor's day at the insane asylum and all the inmates were standing in the courtyard and singing "Ave Maria." They were singing it beautifully. But oddly, each of them was holding a red apple in one hand and tapping it rhythmically with a pencil.  A visitor listened in wonder to the performance and then approached the conductor.  "I am a retired choir director," he said. "This is one of the best choirs I have ever heard."  "Yes, I'm very proud of them," said the conductor.  "You should take them on tour," said the visitor, "what are they called?"  "Surely that's obvious," replied the conductor. "They're the Moron Tapanapple Choir." A wreath and its variations today. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Oct 9 2021 - Singing like Sweet Adelines

 

Choirs are returning to practice.  There are special masks for singing. The website choralcanada.org has information on them.  There is a mask on the Broadway relief project website and it is available there.  The Singer’s Mask was developed by singers FOR singers by Broadway professionals to help contain droplets while allowing space around the mouth to sing comfortably. There's information on the mask HERE. You can buy music and masks from the same sites now - JWpepper.com has lots of masks.  There are also masks for various wind instrument players.   So this seems extremely encouraging - as though choir singing can begin again this Fall.  But that doesn't seem to be the case - there's a very cautious set of guidelines in Ontario. The Region of Halton published this update of Ontario COVID guidelines/requirements on September 17th: Adapt or suspend singing, choirs, and the playing of wind or brass instruments. Consider audio or video recordings instead of live singing or wind or brass instrumental music.  Group singing is strongly discouraged. The number of persons singing should be limited to the fewest possible. Anyone singing or playing wind or brass instruments should be separated from others by a barrier and should maintain two metres (six feet) distance from others. The conclusion seems to be that safe masks for singers will be for professionals, and us amateurs have a while to wait. The important key indicator of when singing would be safer is having fully vaccinated singers.  Canada has over 80% of the eligible population fully vaccinated, but that isn't the case in the US at all.  So websites that are dominantly US are negative on singing. Our image today is titled "Bubble Up".

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