In praise of Carol Donaldson

Regular readers of this blog will now something of my passion for music and how things turned out for me - being told to mime rather than sing at my Primary School and somehow always ending up second from bottom in Music at my Grammar School. But the delight of singing on my bike, in the bathroom and singing to and with my daughter Grace when giving her bedtime baths.

Last year Grace taught me to read music and to play a few notes on the piano in a few minutes not knowing that I can't read music and can't play it. So since March I have been getting music lessons from Grace's teacher Rebecca. About a month ago I was round at friends and played on their piano without any music sheets in front of me. My first public performance infront of Tim - 'Sky Boat Song' and 'Amazing Grace'.

But there is another part to my musical life. For about 3 years Grace and I have been attending a choir based at Grace's school. Originally it was called the Family Choir and was open to children from the school their parents and carers. More recently it has been thrown open to all and it is called the Intergenerational Choir. It is led by the extraordinary Carol Donaldson. She has this amazing talent of being able to make great sounds come out of us in a very short space of time. We meet on a Sunday afternoon at the school at 4.30 twice a month for an hour. There are some regulars and others who pass through so there are almost always people there who don't know the songs we are doing. And it doesn't matter. We are split into 2 or 3 or 4 sometimes for different harmonies.

There has been a real surprise for me in this. I am most comfortable singing Bass. It seems as if all my life I have been trying to sing too high up. Singing the bass part seems more natural to me. It also helps me understand what my hands need to do in music i.e. bass is left hand.

Apart from healing my past hurts this choir is such a source of joy for me. It affects me holistically, spiritually even. I get such a sense of wellbeing from singing in this choir. We do warm up exercises and this gets us using our diaphragms for breathing and of course singing. Using your diaphragm more is a great boost to health apparently. And signing together like this with people I know and don't know gives a feeling of belonging and community.

We even get to do gigs usually at the School's Winter and Summer Fayre's but sometimes other opportunities arise. On Saturday last it was the Winter Fayre and we had half hour to rehearse and then half hour signing 4 songs from all over the world. That itself is a powerful thing to do. Once at an international conference in Edinburgh I was singing in a bar with friends. We sang 'Amazing Grace'. There was a Black woman there from the USA. She told me later only Black people sing 'Amazing Grace'. So singing from all over the world is profoundly inclusive. We all belong to the earth and to each other. Incidentally there is an amazing Youtube clip about Amazing Grace. It's a bit evangelical but extraordinary - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMF_24cQqT0

So if you are in South Manchester on a Sunday afternoon and want to sing come along. Email me for details.

Best to all,

Bill-on-bike enjoying the cool winter air today as the dawn slowly broke through on my way to work.