137. ‘HOLY NIGHT’: CELEBRATING UN-SILENT NIGHTS AND THE HOLINESS OF NATURE During December in Australia, the summer nights are anything but silent...
136. THE PEOPLE’S CHOIR: DOING WHAT IT SAYS ON THE TIN It’s such a necessary thing to be creative, to have the joy of making music, giving that gift to others and receiving in return the joy and the happiness that you can see and feel in them...
135. USE OF AUSLAN IN CHOIRS AND MUSIC PROGRAMS It comes as no surprise that with the current ban on singing in Victorian schools, our ever-resourceful music teachers are looking for creative and safe ways to involve students in end of year celebrations and graduations...
134. RINGING THE CHANGES WITH HIGH STREET BELLS CHOIR On Monday mornings through lockdown, the unique spirit of the High Street Bells Choir beams from monitors and screens across Melbourne as members of the choir congregate online, connecting with a rapport and familiarity arising from ten years singing together.
133. SINGING STORIES FOR THE FUN OF FOLK Non-stop Australian folk music’ was the soundtrack to Martie Lowenstein’s childhood. Martie, whose mother Wendy Lowenstein was an author, oral historian and co-founder of the Victorian Bush Music Club, is now using the folk songs she heard as a child and incorporating them into an online music history course called ‘History of Australia in Song 1788-1988’.
132. SONGS FOR WESTERN PORT BAY My husband Terry and I live on Phillip Island (Millowl) and we love Western Port Bay. We love its beauty and its stillness and we love its birds.
131. PUMPING OUT SONGS WITH THE CANN RIVER CFA COMMUNITY CHOIR “After a few weeks in the job, I walked into the District Manager’s office and said that we needed really needed to start a choir! He was speechless and looked at me like WHAAT? and I said, ‘no, let me explain!…’ ”
130. CONNECTING THROUGH MUSIC IN COVID TIMES “At a time when many people are feeling isolated and disconnected, it is an important reminder that we are going through this experience together. There are many ways we can be here for each other and connect, even across distance.” – Laura Brearley
129. OH ME OH MY OH: LEADING COMMUNITY MUSIC ONLINE As the tentative optimism emerging for some community music groups in term 3 was crushed by COVID once more, devising a resource to support leaders to facilitate online music making or to squeeze the most out of their current online practice became a priority.
128. ASSEMBLING ONLINE: FIVE INTERNATIONAL CONVERSATIONS ABOUT INCLUSION, DISRUPTION, AND CONNECTION IN COMMUNITY MUSIC It is something of an understatement to say that recent months have transformed our modes of assembly. COVID-19 has forced us to rethink and regroup how we gather, and the extraordinary proliferation of musical and other creative activity that we have seen on our screens and been part of since March is testament to how important the experience of assembly is to our spirit, our sense of community, and our intellectual nourishment.
127. AROUND THE PHONE SINGALONGS, WITH JANE YORK AND JUST HOLLER As singing leaders, we have a responsibility to make a decision that’s going to be best for the safety of the whole group. All our groups desperately want to get back together but unfortunately, it’s not safe yet and that’s a really clear directive from the medical health professionals that it’s not on the cards right now. Rather than grieving that, I think I’d done that earlier, I’ve kind of moved on.
126. FROM OUR STREET TO YOURS, TAKING THE BAND ONLINE It was participating in an online music session for pre-schoolers which turned around Brian ‘Strat’ Strating and Lyndal Chambers’ thinking about playing and delivering instrumental music online.
125. HOW MATHS HELPS US UNDERSTAND HOW MUSIC MOVES PEOPLE Music is known to provoke the senses, give pleasure and sometimes move people to tears. Surely this has little to do with mathematical models which are so frequently associated with cold and rational logic. So what can maths tell us about this powerful phenomenon closely connected to the emotions?
124. ZOOMING IN FROM THE LOUNGE ROOM: ONLINE AND ONWARD IN TERM TWO Waiting for a room to fill up with people feels so last year. These days, community choir leader Jeannie Marsh waits for the little squares on her screen to blink into life to signal her group’s singers have turned up and tuned in ready to join in an evening of singing from their lounge room, bedroom or wherever the acoustics work best and there’s the option of a closing door.
123.COUNTING BEANS ‘N’ SOWING SEEDS: A CHAT ABOUT FUNDING The little rows of numbers take up their place across the page of the project spreadsheet. Adopting an orderly fashion, the lines serve the purpose of a groove marked in the soil by a gardener before planting can begin.
122. INTO THE GROOVE IN NORTH EAST VICTORIA Brianna Slattery’s always loved rhythm. “I first picked up a Djembe drum when I was about 18 and found it to be really therapeutic, I just loved the tactile experience of drumming, it was something I did for myself.